Pojo's Yu-Gi-Oh! news, tips, strategies and more!


Card Game
Card of the Day
TCG Fan Tips
Top 10 Lists
Banned/Restricted List
Yu-Gi-Oh News
Tourney Reports
Duelist Interviews

Featured Writers
Baneful's Column
Anteaus on YGO
General Zorpa
Dark Paladin's Dimension
Retired Writers

Releases + Spoilers
Booster Sets (Original Series)
LOB | MRD | MRL | PSV
LON | LOD | PGD | MFC
DCR | IOC | AST | SOD
RDS | FET
Booster Sets (GX Series)
TLM | CRV | EEN | SOI
EOJ | POTD | CDIP | STON
FOTB | TAEV | GLAS | PTDN
LODT
Booster Sets (5D Series)
TDGS | CSOC | CRMS | RBGT
ANPR | SOVR | ABPF | TSHD
STBL | STOR | EXVC
Booster Sets (Zexal Series)
GENF | PHSW | ORCS | GAOV
REDU | ABYR | CBLZ | LTGY
NUMH | JOTL | SHSP | LVAL
PRIO

Starter Decks
Yugi | Kaiba
Joey | Pegasus
Yugi 2004 | Kaiba 2004
GX: 2006 | Jaden | Syrus
5D: 1 | 2 | Toolbox
Zexal: 2011 | 2012 | 2013
Yugi 2013 | Kaiba 2013

Structure Decks
Dragons Roar &
Zombie Madness
Blaze of Destruction &
Fury from the Deep
Warrior's Triumph
Spellcaster's Judgment
Lord of the Storm
Invincible Fortress
Dinosaurs Rage
Machine Revolt
Rise of Dragon Lords
Dark Emperor
Zombie World
Spellcaster Command
Warrior Strike
Machina Mayhem
Marik
Dragunity Legion
Lost Sanctuary
Underworld Gates
Samurai Warlord
Sea Emperor
Fire Kings
Saga of Blue-Eyes
Cyber Dragon

Promo Cards:
Promos Spoiler
Coll. Tins Spoiler
MP1 Spoiler
EP1 Spoiler

Tournament Packs:
TP1 / TP2 / TP3 / TP4
TP5 / TP6 / TP7 / TP8
Duelist Packs
Jaden | Chazz
Jaden #2 | Zane
Aster | Jaden #3
Jesse | Yusei
Yugi | Yusei #2
Kaiba | Yusei #3
Crow

Reprint Sets
Dark Beginnings
1 | 2
Dark Revelations
1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Gold Series
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
Dark Legends
DLG1
Retro Pack
1 | 2
Champion Pack
1 | 2 | 3 | 4
5 | 6 | 7 | 8
Turbo Pack
1 | 2 | 3 | 4
5 | 6 | 7

Hidden Arsenal:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4
5 | 6 | 7

Checklists
Brawlermatrix 08
Evan T 08
X-Ref List
X-Ref List w/ Passcodes

Anime
Episode Guide
Character Bios
GX Character Bios

Video Games
Millennium Duels (2014)
Nighmare Troubadour (2005)
Destiny Board Traveler (2004)
Power of Chaos (2004)
Worldwide Edition (2003)
Dungeon Dice Monsters (2003)
Falsebound Kingdom (2003)
Eternal Duelist Soul (2002)
Forbidden Memories (2002)
Dark Duel Stories (2002)

Other
About Yu-Gi-Oh
Yu-Gi-Oh! Timeline
Pojo's YuGiOh Books
Apprentice Stuff
Life Point Calculators
DDM Starter Spoiler
DDM Dragonflame Spoiler
The DungeonMaster
Millennium Board Game

Magic
DBZ
Pokemon
Yu Yu Hakusho
NeoPets
HeroClix
Harry Potter
Anime
Vs. System
Megaman

This Space
For Rent

Pojo's Yu-Gi-Oh Card of the Day

Dark Magician
Ultimate Rare

The ultimate wizard in terms of attack and defense.

Type - Spellcaster
Card Number - FL1-002

Card Ratings
Traditional: 1.4
Advanced: 3.6

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale 1 being the worst.
3 ... average. 5 is the highest rating.


Date Reviewed - 08.04.06

 

Dark Paladin
Now you know why I wanted THIS to be my last card, seeing how I'll be gone for four months, I wanted to give another review to my favorite monster, Dark Magician!

What's changed since we reviewed him last a year and a half ago? Not much, but we do have Magical Dimension now. That makes him all the easier to summon. He also has Skilled Dark Magician to help summon him faster.

He has a few Nomi monsters, the best being Dark Eradicator Warlock, and he can fuse into Dark Paladin, and feed Dark Magician Girl...I suppose.
He'll be complete if we ever get Dark Magic Curtain, his best support card.

The deck is really where the Magician thrives, however, as he is quite easy to bring out, even with Double Coston for another way. He is incredible and even has Dark Magic Attack for help, but outside there...

Ratings:

5/5 his own deck
let's not talk about elsewhere

Art: 5/5 all except SDY gets a 1/5

You stay classy, Planet Earth :)
 

Otaku

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 KnivesSkilled 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 BoxMystic 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.
 


Ryoga
Dark magician:
Errr. Normal monster. Errr.

Alright, Mr. DM does have a fair amount of support and there are plenty of ways of getting him out quickly. I just don't think its worth the effort for a lemon 2500 ATK. There are other Spellcasters I would rather deal with. However, I did always prefer Warriors, so that might just be me.

Traditional: 2/5
Advanced: 3.5/5

Share and enjoy,
Ryoga
 

Dark Maltos

 

Dark Magician, as I’m sure you’re all aware , has long been known as the Pikachu or Yugioh, well him and Kuriboh.

As far as monsters go, at first glance, Dark Magician doesn’t have much going for him. 2500 attack, and 2100 def are not really what you strive for in a two tribute moster, being considerably weak stats, and then when you take into account that he’s effect less things go from bad to worse. If this was anything else, it would be immediately cast out as garbage. Fortunately for Dark Magician though, he has a very famous name.

As far as name specific support goes, Dark Magician has more support than anything else that isn’t
E hero. This should really be the thing that sky rockets him up there with the best of the best, but it doesn’t. Sadly, outside of a select few cards, this does nothing for him. Most are situational, nomi garbage, much like everything more or less that E hero’s got.

Being an experienced Dark Magician user, I can tell you that stuff like Thousand knives and Dark Sage are not in your best interest to use. Cards like Skilled Dark Magician, and Magical Dimension though can be really great. When used wisely the spell caster deck is a force to be reckoned with, although bad hands can occur.

When looking at Dark Magician, you must look at him as a monster on the field, not one in the hand or deck. He has enough support to make him hit the field with relative ease that he can’t really be included with the rest of the tribute monster with whom traits he shares.

When he hit’s the field, Dark Magician is pretty sweet. 2500 attack can just run over virtually everything commonly played, whilst 2100 defense is enough to be Tysukyomi proof as well as immune to the threats of a Cyber Dargon. That, for me is moe than enough of a reason to include him in a Spellcaster deck, just because he’s great once he hit’s the field, which he will do thanks to the efforts of the cards that you would include in the deck anyway like Magical Dimension and Skilled Dark Magician. He’s worth a shot, and is a lot more potent than people think.

Traditional : 2/5 Every decks haltered here.
Advanced ; 3.5/5 A lot better in the right deck.

Art : 4/5 The art varies, but trhe Red D. Magician is definitely the best.
MPS ; 5/5
 
MikeJ Dark Magician

Old School !!!!!!! man I remember running a Dark Magician deck when I was just started in YGO wow have times change since then. Now on its own a 2500/2100 2 tribute with no effect isn't very good but over time since its one of the highlight cards in the animated show it got some support in the form of Skilled Dark Magician, Dark Magician Girl ( woot ), Sage's Stone, Thousand Knives etc etc. Plus added on all the different versions of him which include Dark Sage, Dark Magician of Chaos, Dark Magician Knight, Dark Flare Knight and I'm sure I missed one but there is just so many cards for Dark Magician no wonder kids love him. Now unless you run a Dark Magician deck this card is very pointless which is obvious you wouldn't run him in a Plant deck :P

Traditional Format > 1/5

Advance Format > 1/5: 5/5 if you run a DM deck

Artwork > 4/5: Soo hard to judge since there is sooo many editions now in my books the DB1 Dark Magician is my favourite which I keep in my Trade Binder :) to remember its not all serious competitive play

MikeJ
 
Yugiman

 

Talk about Old School, Today we look at Dark Magician. Everyone's favorite
Magician unless you like DMG more. This guy is a old favorite, when I first
started out, I used it, and thought it looked cool.

Anyways, in this meta this card fails miserably, although it does have
support cards which makes it a fun casual deck to try out. My friend Mitch
had a deck built for Dark Magician, worked very well as he had every support

card out for it. But in competetive play, it wasnt any good, same as it
would be for this format.

Text on this card reads as follows.

Dark Magician
Dark/Spellcaster
Attack: 2500 Defense: 2100
The Ultimate Magician in terms of Attack and Defense.

Yeah, the text on this card lies, Dark Magician of Chaos has better Stats,
and a effect to boot and it looks better. All this card is a Vanilla, and
its too hard to get out unless you have support cards. Even they cost you
way too much just to summon it. Not worth the time, play something else, but

play this in Casual as its fun.

Pro's:
- 2500 Attack
- 2100 Defense
- Spellcaster
- Can make a fun casual deck out of it.
- Some support for it.
- Its Dark.

Cons:
- No effect, which makes me sad.
- 2 tributes to get out.
- Support cards make make you waste alot of resources to get him out.

Probably more Cons, I gurantee you it.

Bottemline, use it in casual duels, have some fun.

Ratings:
Traditional: 1/5
Advanced: 1/5

If you have any questions/hate mail/support mail send to
freezergeezer111@hotmail.com.
 

Copyright© 1998-2005 pojo.com
This site is not sponsored, endorsed, or otherwise affiliated with any of the companies or products featured on this site. This is not an Official Site.