Stats: Dark Magician of Chaos is a Level 7 monster.  Aside from making it hard to normal Summon, this is also a Spell Caster, and thus a legal target for Diffusion Wave Motion (not a ground breaking combo, but useful).  Dark has some good support, so being Dark is probably a plus.  2800 ATK is good for a level 7 (since it’s the same tribute cost, it gets compared to the level 8 monsters like BEWD, so it’s still not great).  A DEF of 2600 makes it unsearchable, but also makes it hard to run over in DEF mode if you have to use it to defend.

Card Text (Effects): This card has two great effects, followed by one kind of “meh” one.  When you normal or special summon this card, you get to add a Spell card fomr your discard back into your hand.  This sets up for some sick combos, like dropping 3 into the discard via Painful Choice, then using a Monster Reborn to review all three-the effect lets you recycle the Monster Reborn twice, then the last card can be a Raigeki or HFD to clear the field.  2800 x 3 =8400, enough to finish a completely uninjured opponent.  This is just on reason why this card will be banned.  The second effect is that when this card destroys a monster as a result of battle, it is removed from play.  The third effect is supposed to help tame it down, but has some benefit to it as well.  When this bad boy is removed from the field, it’s removed from the game instead!  The downside is obvious, but the upside is that this prevents your opponent from snagging it with a Monster Reborn.  It also sets up for a combo…

Uses/Combinations: ...especially before it’s restricted-if you pull up the above combo to summon all three, but don’t kill them off, either let your opponent nuke your boys, or you can nuke them yourself, to remove them from play.  Then (assuming they have at least one monster removed from play), use Dimension Fusion to summon all 3 back, letting your grab 3 Spell cards form your Graveyard to (how about Raigeki and HFD to clear the field, and then Dimension Fusion in case something goes wrong again).  There is a Quick-Play (yeah, Quick-Play!) Spell card, Dedication Through Light and Darkness, that lets you special summon this card from your deck, hand or Graveyard by offering a Dark Magician on the field as tribute.  This wouldn’t be impressive, except that Dark Magician himself can be special Summoned in a similar manner by the effects of Skilled Dark Black Magician (a level 4 1900 ATK monster)! 

Ratings

Casual: 4/5-Not sure if I should really rate this too high… only because this really isn’t “casual” material.

Constructed: 4.5/5-Note, since even without support, it’s a good card.  In decks that revolve around it… whoa! @_@

Limited: 4/5-Sure, your probably won’t have a cool of Spell Cards to revive, but it’s a big monster anyway-the effects are just the icing on the cake!

Summary

Good card.  Too good, like so many-it only didn’t get a “5/5” from me because it could still be more over-powered (realistically-that is, without becoming ludicrous).

-Otaku