Darkest Diabolos, Lord of the Lair – #SR06-EN001
Your opponent cannot Tribute this face-up card on the field, and cannot target it with card effects. You can only use each of these effects of “Darkest Diabolos, Lord of the Lair” once per turn.
● If a DARK monster you control is Tributed (except during the Damage Step): You can Special Summon this card from your GY (if it was there when you Tributed) or hand (even if not).
● You can Tribute 1 DARK monster; your opponent places 1 card from their hand on either the top or bottom of the Deck.
Date Reviewed: April 17th, 2025
Rating: xx
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is awful. 3 is average. 5 is excellent.
Reviews Below:
King of
Lullaby
Hello Pojo Fans,
Full transparency, seeing Darkest Diabolos, Lord of the Lair as our Throwback Thursday choice had me for the longest time trying to work Lair of Darkness into the Mitsurugi strategy.
Diabolos is a beater that provides this archetype (whenever/if ever it gets fully fleshed out) with a strong boss-level monster that is DARK and, while not Reptile, works with the tribute theme. Special Summoning itself off a DARK monster you control tributing itself is what the Mitsurugi archetype does. From the hand or grave, Diabolos is going to hit the field. Tomorrow’s card offers a board wipe, and then if you tribute and get this out you have a clear shot at the opponent’s LP with 6200LP and ending with those on field or a Rank 8.
Hand manipulation takes away something for the opponent to use and Diabolos can place it on the top or bottom of their Deck, rather than in the Graveyard where it may benefit them even more. Tributing a DARK monster for cost will set off all Mitsurugi monster effects and only benefit your position on the field. With tomorrow’s monster also being Level 8 as mentioned before, both that monster and this one could facilitate using Trade-In.
Darkest Diabolos, Lord of the Lair had a quick 15 minutes with its archetype and play out of the structure deck back in 2018. It lost favor quickly to other strategies and had to do as so many cards have had to do: wait for an archetype that would benefit from them being added into the fold. Sure, Mitsurugi have found a home in Ryzeal, but that isn’t the only archetype that they can be in and with Darkest Diabolos tributing DARK monsters we see Ogdoadic creeping back into the discussion. I would like to see a dedicated deck with those two archetype and some DARK tech choices like Darkest Diabolos thrown in.
Advanced- 3.5/5
Art- 4.5/5
Until Next Time,
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
Seeing an archetype of DARK monsters who utilize tributing made it perfect for Throwback Thursday this week to revisit the Lair of Darkness to review Darkest Diabolos, Lord of the Lair.
Darkest Diabolos is a Level 8 DARK Dragon with 3000 ATK and 2000 DEF. Good stats on a Level 8 monster, and the combination of DARK and Dragon is outstanding. Your opponent cannot tribute this face-up card on the field, or target it with card effects, giving it protection from some cards and being unable to be hit by a Kaiju if the opponent has those. The remaining effects are each a HOPT, first letting you summon this card from the hand or graveyard if a DARK monster you control is tributed (NOTE: you cannot tribute this on field and revive the same copy). This is a pretty easy effect to pull off with some of the monsters the Lair of Darkness strategy was given, plus the fact the classic Virus cards can trigger this, and the same goes with Ogdoadic and Mitsurugi cards tributing your DARK Reptiles to be able to summon this. The other effect lets you tribute a DARK monster to make the opponent place a card from their hand on the top or bottom of the Deck, so while they’ll choose the card, they’ll have one less card. That can hurt them, unless they just took that chance to put a brick on the bottom of the Deck. It can trigger Mitsurugi effects, so that’s nice. I don’t know if Lair of Darkness works with Mitsurugi that well, but Darkest Diabolos remains a solid boss monster for the Lair of Darkness theme. It would be nice to see that strategy revitalized to see this see some play again, it was used back then in some Thunder Dragon variants. I’ll just never forget how overhyped the Lair of Darkness theme ended up being.
Advanced Rating: 3.75/5
Art: 4.5/5 The original Diabolos was kinda boring, so this is an improvement.
Mighty
Vee
Despite the synergy, I will unfortunately be the first to say today’s card is not a great idea to splash into Mitsurugi; it’s the official boss monster of the Lair of Darkness series, Darkest Diabolos, Lord of the Lair. Diabolos is a level 8 DARK Dragon monster, 1 level higher than Diabolos, King of the Abyss, and it naturally has synergy with various Dragon and Chaos decks. While the intended way to search it is with Ahrima, the Wicked Warden, the most popular way by far is Hieratic Seal of the Heavenly Spheres (or Hieratic Dragon King of Atum, if you’re running a Bystial or Fiendsmith package). With a solid 3000 attack and mediocre 2000 defense, its stats are a considerable step up from the original Diabolos, though that incidentally lets you search it with The Melody of Awakening Dragon if you really wanted to. Why doesn’t The Bystial Lubellion have Melody stats again?
Diabolos is one of the few monsters that protects itself from being Tributed by your opponent– an extremely niche protection that will rarely come up (especially since Diabolos isn’t exactly a monster worth burning a Kaiju on), but fortunately, it also comes with stock targeting protection from your opponent’s effects as well, which is definitely better than nothing. Despite the odd formatting, Diabolos simply has 2 hard once per turn effects (we should do this more often, actually). The first effect triggers if any of your DARK monsters is Tributed, letting you Special Summon Diabolos from your hand or Graveyard. This is the main reason Diabolos saw play in Dragon Link, Thunder Dragon, and Dragonmaid Bystial hybrids, since you can grab it with Hieratic Seal and revive it constantly through Lubellion and Branded Beast tributing your level 6 Bystials (if you’re crazy enough to play 2 Diabolos, you can even get a silly soft loop going). Diabolos’s other effect lets you Tribute any DARK monster (including itself, funnily enough) to make your opponent place a card from their hand on either the top or bottom of their deck. Sacrificing a body for a hand rip isn’t extremely useful unless you’re going first in my opinion, though if you have the bodies to spare, it’s a nice way to keep pressuring your opponent especially in grindier decks like Thunder Dragon. Though it doesn’t do much in terms of disruption, the idea of a constantly self-recycling level 8 body with 3000 attack and decent protection is good enough for it to see play even in relatively recent times. I suspect Diabolos will be back when Thunder Dragon or Dragon Link rise again, which is only a matter of time…!
+Unique Special Summoning condition that makes it a constantly recurring threat in the right decks
+Solid stats and protection
-Heavily reliant on getting a Bystial engine running for full value
-Mediocre as a true boss monster
Advanced: 3.75/5
Art: 4.5/5 It might be an older monster, but it’s still one of my favorite artworks ever. They don’t miss with DARK Dragons!
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