Illusion of Chaos – #BACH-EN034
You can Ritual Summon this card with “Chaos Form”. You can reveal this card in your hand; add 1 “Dark Magician”, or 1 non-Ritual monster that mentions it, from your Deck to your hand, then place 1 card from your hand on top of the Deck. When your opponent activates a monster effect (Quick Effect): You can return this card to the hand, and if you do, Special Summon 1 “Dark Magician” from your GY, and if you do that, negate that activated effect. You can only use each effect of “Illusion of Chaos” once per turn.
Date Reviewed: April 6th, 2022
Rating: 3.40
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,
Illusion of Chaos had a lot of hype behind it and a high price tag, but is it warranted?
2100/2500 for a Level 7 Ritual Monster isn’t what I’d consider to be great stats. Using Chaos Form isn’t something you’re doing in Dark Magician because Secrets of Dark Magic is a Quick-Play and doubles as a Fusion card as well. If you play this in Dark Magician you are using Illusion of Chaos for searching. Reveal to add “Dark Magician” or a non-Ritual (to prevent getting another Illusion of Chaos) monster that mentions Dark Magician from the deck and then you put a card to the top of the deck. People got hyped about this because it searches Magicians’ Souls and then you can redraw it to do it again and again and again. If Illusion of Chaos forced you to put a card other than itself on top of your deck it wouldn’t be talked about or have a high price tag. The search covers a lot of monsters, Magicians’ Souls being the #1 target depending on your situation.
Popping this card back to the hand in response to a monster effect to Special Summon a Dark Magician in the grave, then negating that monster’s effect is a good effect, but would be better if it were also able to destroy or banish that monster, or be an effect that activates when Illusion of Chaos is in your graveyard. To use this effect you have to summon him and as previously mentioned you aren’t likely summoning him because his search ability is much better than summoning him, especially if you are just going to pop him back to the hand. The only plus is that he’s a Level 7 and you can use Secrets of Dark Magic to Ritual Summon him by using only one monster (Dark Magician) and get him back almost immediately, but like I said, his pop-back effect should’ve been “destroy” or “banish” to make it worth your while.
Illusion of Chaos is great for searching out certain cards, but Dark Magician has a lot of ways of searching already. Magikuriboh can get you to Dark Magician or Dark Magician Girl, Soul Servant can get you anything, Dark Magic Circle can add and give you banish power on the field, Eternal Soul has the option of searching Dark Magic Attack, heck, Dark Magic Inheritance is still a thing as well. Illusion of Chaos is good, but you won’t need to run three of him, because he becomes a dead draw if you have two in your hand.
Advanced-3/5 Art-4/5
Until Next Time
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
Here comes one of the more hyped cards of Battle of Chaos, and not just for his place in the Dark Magician strategy, as we look at Illusion of Chaos.
Illusion of Chaos is a Level 7 DARK Spellcaster Ritual with 2100 ATK and 2500 DEF. Stats are okay on Dark Magician, but kinda worse when reversed, but at least he’s still a DARK Spellcaster. Chaos Form is your Ritual Spell for this, but you got other options if you want, though Chaos Form is at least searchable in the DM Deck. You can reveal this card in your hand to add a Dark Magician or any non-Ritual monster that mentions him in their text from your Deck to your hand, then return a card from hand to Deck. Having the option to get to Dark Magician himself is nice, but we got enough ways to do that without this guy. His purpose mainly is to get to the support monsters of the archetype like Magician’s Rod and Magicians’ Souls. I’m sure many strategies like having the Magicians’ Souls searcher that puts itself back in Deck to dump off the Souls, though. Returning a card from hand to Deck isn’t the end of the world, as most of the cards you might search should get you that card advantage right back. We’ve needed a way to access the support monsters for Dark Magician. The other effect is a Quick Effect when the opponent activates a monster effect, letting you return this to the hand to Special Summon a Dark Magician from the graveyard and negate that activated effect. Fine negation if you’re actually going out of the way to Ritual Summon this in Dark Magician, and it returns to the hand to make the searching live again while also summoning Dark Magician. Each effect here is a hard once per turn, but that’s fine. It’s something Dark Magician appreciates finally having with his monster support not being that searchable. We finally got a way to access it, but more people might love this just for Magicians’ Souls in every Deck.
Advanced Rating: 4.5/5
Art: 5/5 Better than most of the Dark Magician artworks honestly.
Alex
Searcy
This card is quite the mixed bag. Illusion of Chaos is a Level 7, Dark/Spellcaster, Ritual Monster, with inverted Dark Magician atk/def. This can be brought out, fittingly, with Chaos Form, and revealing it in your Hand lets you add a Dark Magician or non-Ritual card that lists it in its Text from your Deck to your Hand. Fun enough, although there are better and easier ways to do that (and to bring him to the Field). A Quick Effect lets you return this to your Hand from the Field when your opponent activates a Monster Effect, and if successful, you get a Special Summon of DM from your Graveyard. Nice, again, but there are better and easier cards to use that can do that (and from other places too). If you do all this, you do negate the card in question, but not destroy, and I find that troublesome. Each Effect is once per Turn. This card does a few things, and they aren’t even bad things, and if this weren’t a Ritual, it might be a little better. But it’s pretty meh, as is, unfortunately.
Rating: 3/5
Art: 5/5 I love what’s going on here, especially the background and the cape
Mighty
Vee
Apparently scared of being outdone by Drytrons, Dark Magician of Chaos returns in a new form, Illusion of Chaos. Like its predecessor, it’s a level 7 DARK spellcaster ritual monster, and since it mentions Dark Magician, it enjoys the entitlements of Dark Magician support. Additionally, as a level 7 ritual monster, you can search it with Preparation of Rites as well. It’s a bit more defense-oriented than Magician of Chaos, with an inversed stat spread of 2100 attack and 2500 defense, just like Magician of Dark Illusion. LORE!
Since it’s a level 7 ritual monster, you can generally ritual summon it with just 1 Dark Magician with most ritual spells, specifically Chaos Form, Advanced Ritual Art, or Secrets of Dark Magic (sadly, while it lists Chaos Form, you can’t search both with Pre-Preparation of Rites). Like the previous 2 cards, both effects are a hard once per turn. By revealing Illusion of Chaos in your hand, you can search Dark Magician or any monster that mentions it as long as it’s a non-ritual monster (so it can’t grab itself or Magician of Chaos), then you place a card from your hand back on top of your deck. This is an absurd boost of consistency for Dark Magician decks, since you can easily search Magician’s Rod and Magicians’ Souls, both major playmakers for Dark Magician. In a jam, you can even weaponize the deck stacking to search Palladium Oracle Mahad if need be. Illusion of Chaos’s second effect is quite good but less impressive; you can return it to the hand from the field to special summon a Dark Magician from your graveyard and negate an opponent’s monster effect. Negates are always nice, though I don’t think you’ll be summoning this guy very often since Magician of Chaos is a stronger monster in Ritual builds. That said, you will definitely run 3 Illusion of Chaos no matter what; you don’t even need ritual spells to take advantage of its searching effect in Dark Magician decks. You can even run a little mini-engine with just Illusion of Chaos and Magicians’ Souls in backrow-heavy decks for free draws (just like SPYRAL meta!). Overall an excellent card that propels Dark Magician several tiers upward, though not quite enough to be a broken meta threat.
Advanced: 4.5/5
Art: 4/5 Doesn’t he kinda look like Dark Paladin? Well, I guess all the Dark Magicians look alike anyway.
Continuing the Dark Magician theme that we’ve been covering this week, today we look at Illusion of Chaos. I always thought Magician of Black Chaos was the Ritual version of the Dark Magician, but nah – it’s this guy.
Illusion of Chaos has the opposite stats to DM but he’s still a Dark/Spellcaster. He requires “Chaos Form” the same ritual spell that Blue Eyes players use to bring out Chaos MAX. Just like in the show, while the Blue Eyes represents raw power, the Dark Magician is more about tricks and strategy.
If you reveal him in your Hand, you can add a “Dark Magician” or a non-ritual monster that mentions him from Deck to Hand. Then you must put another card from your Hand on top of your Deck. 1 for 1 searching is pretty handy, although I’d prefer if this effect also let you search Spells that mention DM as well. This way Illusion of Chaos would have a way to search out his own Ritual Spell, easing his summoning conditions. It’s not that big a deal though considering how many ways we have nowadays to search for ritual pieces. Besides that, he also has an on-Field ability. He can negate a Monster effect by bouncing himself and then replacing himself with a Dark Magician from the Grave. OK, so I have 2 questions. 1) Why doesn’t this effect also destroy the source of the activated monster effect? 2) Why does the summoned Dark Magician need to be from the GY and not also include the Hand?
Illusion of Chaos is a ritual monster, which means he needs to be GOOD in order to make up for the heavy cost of summoning him. And that’s just it, Illusion of Chaos is ALMOST great. But almost doesn’t cut it (unless you’re playing a more casual deck).
I like that he has an effect that activates in Hand. This is something that more ritual monsters should have, in my opinion. I also really love the art, but that’s about it.
Advanced Rating – 2/5
Art – 4.5/5
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