First things first: I wish we could get the Pandora/Arkana alternate art version of this card (the Red Dark Magician).  I love it so much its one of the few Japanese cards not only that I own, but that I actually trade for.

 

Dark Magician is one of those cards that make me rethink my standard review template, and not in a sarcastic fashion.  He is a Level 7 Dark/Spellcaster with 2500 ATK and 2100 DEF.  So can a normal Monster really succeed in this game?  Unfortunately, for now the answer appears to be “no”, but we can take a look at his stats a bit more before commenting on his actual performance.  As a Level 7 Monster, being Dark for once isn’t the best Attribute.  I mean, it is good that it can be used for Chaos food, but really if it were a Water Monster it would at least be feasible to bring it out with a single Tribute so long as A Legendary Ocean is in play.  Of course, there are better options for Level 7/8 Monsters anyway: even restricting a search to Level 7 or 8 Spellcasters turns up a Spellcaster that beats Dark Magician in terms of ATK and DEF: Cosmo Queen is a Level 8 Dark/Spellcaster with 2900 ATK and 2450 DEF.  Yes, it’s a level higher but that would only matter for a scant few cards like Metamorphosis.  So it isn’t the ultimate Normal Spellcaster in terms of ATK and DEF, and of course not when you include all Spellcasters, as it boasts.  Expanding our search to any Level 7 or 8 Normal Monster provides many candidates that out muscle Dark Magician: Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Gogiga Gagagigo, Seiyaryu, Tri-Horned Dragon, Wingweaver, and Sengenjin.  You know you know it’s bad when a Reptile (Gogiga Gagagigo) out does you (not just in stats, but in card told story as well).

 

Fortunately for Dark Magician, he has something most of these cards lack: a near obscene amount of Support.  I recommend ignoring the nomi Monsters and Fusions that are hard enough to make use of when they are the focus of a deck, as well as the Support related to that, we get Dark Magic Attack, Dark Magician Girl, Skilled Dark Magician, and Thousand Knives.  Skilled Dark Magician is the only one of these to really prove useful to Dark Magician himself, as the others are so specialized they will often be dead weight (or in the case of Dark Magician Girl ridiculously underpowered).  I suppose if you insisted on using several Dark Magician Girl then Sage’s Stone would actually be good, but I expect most would prefer Skilled Dark Magician and any three commonly used Spell Cards.  If you want, you could use Dedication Through Light and Darkness to trade up from an in-play Dark Magician to a Dark Magician of Chaos, but in practice that is too random for most people’s taste.   Dark Magician of Chaos doesn’t count as support since it can and is usually played totally independent of Dark Magician.

 

Fortunately for Dark Magician, in addition to Skilled Dark Magician there are a few items of Spellcaster support that really help him out.  Others may disagree with me, but Diffusion Motion Wave is a wonderful card for Dark Magician: his ATK is higher than most commonly played Monsters and thus other than Spirit Reaper, Dark Magician can usually clear out the opponent’s field doing this and score decent damage.  I can’t imagine people disagreeing with me that Magical Dimension is great for Dark Magician (as it is for pretty much all Spellcasters).  You’re still burning two cards to get Dark Magician into play, but you take one of the opponent’s Monsters with you (and a Spell is generally easier to replace than a Monster).  As it is a Quick-Play Spell, it can respond to assorted card effects to generate even more advantage.

 

Those cards are applicable to all Level 7 and up Spellcasters (or all Spellcasters that can be Special Summoned in that manner for Magical Dimension) so should I count them?  Well, we are building here.  Apprentice Magician and Magician’s Circle work especially well with Skilled Dark Magician.  Apprentice Magician can get you an extra Spell Counter to fuel Skilled Dark Magician’s effect, and Magician’s Circle of course let’s you tutor him from the deck so long as another Spellcaster can attack (for either player).  Using Apprentice Magician is a bit tricky since Setting it won’t cut it, but you can then use it for Magical Dimension, or better still, Mystic Box.  Mystic Box is Dark Magician support in the animé and manga, but in the TCG its not even restricted to Spellcasters, though at least the name/art make it “flavored” like it is.

 

Now take all these diverse elements and weave them together in a deck.  Even the designers of the seventh Structure deck (Spellcaster’s Judgment) saw this and made it more or less the heart of the deck.  Even they realized that two copies of Magician of Faith and a few other Spellcaster Light Monsters and you could even work Chaos Sorcerer in… and though technically no less potent here, at least it almost feels right (Remove a Light and Dark Spellcaster… what a lovely idea for an errata).

 

So in the end Dark Magician is a playable card.  Skilled Dark Magician is a good, solid beatstick and needs just a single copy of Dark Magician to be extra effective (two is recommended if the deck is actually focusing on Dark Magician).  Even as a Chaos variant, it’s not the next CC, though its fairly good and is just a delight given that it actually can run themed support based on Type.  In fact, once you get your head around the deck and some experience with it, you can even try to make use of the other Dark Magician supporting cards I dismissed earlier.  Dark Magician Girl fans take note that she is a solid addition, at one card, for the deck thanks to Magician’s Circle (though non-Dark Magician Girl devotees will probably prefer Magical Marionette).

 

Ratings

 

Traditional: 1/5 – Alas, another victim of the obscene amount of mass removal and other broken cards in this format.

 

Advanced: 3.5/5 – A solid card that appears to be just shy of holding its own against many of overpowered cards that currently see play.  That is actually about as good as it gets, since so few properly balanced cards are particularly useful in this (or any past format).  One wishes that at least a few other “old school favorites” would get this kind of love from Konami’s Yu-Gi-Oh TCG R&D.

 

Additional

 

Assuming I understand things correctly, Dark Paladin intended this week of Tribute Monsters to be a bit of a “tribute” to him since he’s off (or nearly off) to Basic Training with the National Guard.  I’ve had a few relatives in the Guard and recognize and respect the service the National Guard provides this country.  I also recognize and respect Dark Paladin’s dedication to this site, both with regular CotDs (something even the best of us can find challenging to get done) and additional articles.  I may not always agree with his points, but I’ll be sad to see him go and grateful for his services.