Welcome to my Dark Illusion week. Magician of Dark Illusion is a Level 7 Dark Spellcaster-type monster with 2100 Atk and 2500 Def. Those are horrible stats for a Level 7 monster. Even original Dark Magician did better. Fortunately, this monster has an alternate summoning method from the hand, but even that isn't enough to be great. 

Magician of Dark Illusion can Special Summon itself from the hand when you activate a Spell or Trap during your opponent's turn. No spamming here, even if you have multiple in the hand. It is good that the card or effect does not need to be on the field. If you're able to activate a trap from the hand, this can summon. If there is a quickplay in the grave that can activate during the opponent's turn, this can summon. Then, while it's on the field, Magician of Dark Illusion becomes Dark Magician in name. This would have been way better if it became Dark Magician in other zones, particularly the grave or hand. Or maybe it could be treated as a Normal monster in the grave or hand. Being treated as both would have been overpowered. Having access to a Dark Magician with an effect on the opponent's turn will have to do. Hopefully it will survive long enough to use Dark Magician support during your turn. 

The final effect can only be used once while Magician of Dark Illusion is face up on the field. This one gains the benefit of being able to activate during either player's turn. After applying the same activating conditions as the last effect, Magician of Dark Illusion can target to Special Summon a Dark Magician from the grave. So if you can imagine a scenario, activate a Call of the Haunted during the End Phase of your opponent's turn to bring back some Level 7 monster, say Dark Magician. That activation would trigger this monster to summon itself. Then on the next turn, you could activate Monster Reborn (banned=sad) to get another Dark Magician from the grave, triggering this effect to get the last Dark Magician from the grave. There would be 4 Dark Magicians on the field. That appeals to me. This monster appeals to me, but it is not splashable in any deck but Dark Magician, and even there, you'd probably run 2 at most.  

Score: 3/5 Better than no support at all. 

Art: 4.5/5 way more dark than the original. 

Magician of Dark Illusion 

We start Dark Magician week with a monster that isn’t necessarily the best new Dark Magician support card to come out in the Dark Illusion set, but is very much the “flavor” of it. The new support surrounds The Magician of Dark Illusion and makes him crucial to the theme’s success. Now when I say success, I say that half-heartedly, because unfortunately, the TCG doesn’t yet have two very important cards: Eternal Soul (October 7) and Dark Magic Successor (unknown). And that’s not to mention Apprentice Illusion Magician (the Dark Magician Girl to Magician of Dark Illusion that’s going to be released in the OCG in September). Once Eternal Soul comes, however, Dark Magician will be mostly at full power. 

On to the effect. It’s really good, albeit unique. It takes time to really understand how good he can be and the chains that truly empower him. His ability to summon himself from the hand is very good, especially when you have Circle out, but his best feature is the ability to summon the Dark Magician at any time while on the field. By using timely spells and traps, preferably Magician’s Navigation, you can chain his effect to summon a Dark Magician and hopefully trigger Circle. It’s important to realize the power in the chaining effects of monsters like Rod and MoDI. You don’t activate them upon resolution - instead you chain their effects to the activation, making them even more powerful in conjunction with your other cards. And since he is afforded the protection of Eternal Soul by being a Dark Magician on the field, that grants him a great two-card combo: Activate Soul, Chain MoDI, and now you have three Dark Magicians on the field in an instant. And of course, I don’t think I have to mention that MoDI will be the second target of Navigation 98% of the time. This alone makes him a 3x-must in all Dark Magician decks. 

The new Dark Magician deck is stacked for enormous combos. The goal is to banish the field and blow away the opponent in one single turn or maybe two. While Dark Magician’s not quite consistent enough to compete with tier 1 decks at the moment, even with Eternal Soul, he’s definitely a theme now that must be respected. Dark Magician is easily one of the fastest decks in the game. And here’s to hoping that Apprentice Illusion Magician or other new support puts him over the top for a while. He deserves it! 

Advanced: 4/5

Magician_of_Dark_Illusion 

• It has Dark Magician's stats in reverse, which isn't very impressive.  
• It can summon itself without Tribute (so it's not a minus), but only on the opponent's turn.
• You can summon it defensively, but if you want it to stay alive, you should wait till the opponent's End Phase.
• The 2nd effect gives you a 2500 beater (only once), can combo well with Dark Magical Circle.
• The OPT limits don't hurt the card, since you use the first effect on the opponent's turn and the 2nd on yours.
• Its effects are good but are slow and somewhat situational to activate.

3/5

It's a new week, and even better, it's Magician week!  Not even picked by me.  How lucky for me that I have time to review this week, as I am, except for the Pharoh himself, the Master of Magicians of course.  Magician of Dark Illusion mirrors Dark Magician in attribute, type, Level, although his attack and defense have been swapped (2100-2500).  This card becomes Dark Magician while on the Field, and he has two effects, each which can be activated once a turn.  During your opponent's turn (save the Damage Step) if you activate a Magic or Trap card, or effect, you can Special Summon this card from your Hand.  In either position too, so if you want to sit on that 2500 defense, go right ahead.  Secondly, if you activate any of the above effects mentioned while this card is face-up, (again save the Damage Step) you get to Special Summon a Dark Magician from your Graveyard.  That effect can only be used once while face-up however.  I like him.  He can Special Summon himself, as well as the original Dark Magician.  The prior being during your opponent's turn no less.  He's not game breaking, but he adds some speed.  It's a useful enough Monster.
 
Rating:  3.25/5