Stats                : Old Vindictive Magician is Level 2 Dark/Spellcaster with an ATK of 450 and a DEF of 600.  Being Level 2 means Old Vindictive Magician slips under Level Limit-Area B and Gravity Bind, and his ATK means he also slips under Messenger of Peace, but is so puny it will rarely matter.  It also can’t be a target for Metamorphosis, since there are no Level 2 Fusions.  Fortunately, Spellcasters do have quite a bit of support and thanks to the latest Structure Deck, it’s easily available.  In this case, it gives us a search from deck and Summon option that is actually useful: Apprentice Magician.

 

Effect(s)            : Old Vindictive Magician has a simple but useful effect: it destroys one Monster on your opponent’s side of the field.  Obviously, that’s useful as it allows a single set Old Vindictive Magician to block up to two attacks (the one that hits it and then the attack of the Monster that you choose to destroy).  It can’t backfire and hit itself, unlike its Insect counterpart, Man-Eater Bug, but it can’t be used to destroy something of yours when you want to like Man-Eater Bug can (a rare occurrence, but it happens).

 

Uses and

Combinations  : Simply put, if you are running Apprentice Magician, the only reason not to run Old Vindictive Magician is that you have absolutely no room.  Otherwise, you run one.  Keep in mind, you will also want Magician of Faith as well, and possibly other cards depending upon your deck theme, but a single copy of Old Vindictive Magician, Main Decked, is so important.  Simply put, you’ll likely be running more than one Apprentice Magician, so it’s probably best to use the first one to fetch something like this: your opponent knows what is set, and Old Vindictive Magician is a nice fat target.  After all, it’s a Flip Effect, so they can’t attack it without triggering it (normally, anyway) and if they use Nobleman of Crossout on it (thinking you have more), then you’re out a Monster Special Summoned from your deck and they are out a Restricted Spell card.  Plus next time a precious Magician of Faith or (deck specific card like) Hand of Nephthys isn’t so vulnerable to Nobleman of Crossout.

 

Ratings

 

Traditional       : 2/5-Deck specific score: assuming you have something that does okay and needs Apprentice Magician for some other card, a single copy of this is useful.  Totally on its own it isn’t totally useless, since it does have a Monster destroying effect… but it’s Traditional, meaning Monsters die so fast it’s not so valuable.

 

Advanced        : 3.25/5-This is a composite score, as a single copy of the card is well worth it in a deck running Apprentice Magician, but otherwise it’s just “okay” on its own.

 

Limited                        : 3/5-On its own, it is a solid pick.  Bump the score up by half a point if you also pulled an Apprentice Magician.

 

Summary

It’s fascinating how much difference theme support can make.  Man-Eater Bug and Old Vindictive Magician have an identical Level, ATK, DEF and (close enough) effect, but the difference of being a Dark/Spellcaster over an Earth/Insect mean that the bug is nearly useless while Old Vindictive Magician has a limited but important slot in most Spellcaster decks.  Personally, I find this to be how the game should be, except Man-Eater Bug should have its own support as well. ;)