After all, it is such an iconic card that even people who aren’t fans of Yu-Gi-Oh have probably heard of (or seen) the Dark Magician before. So it comes as no surprise that there is a ton of support for Dark Magician decks. But then comes the age-old question: out of all of these cards, which ones should you be adding to your deck? Let’s find some answers to that question right here.
10. Eternal Soul
If you like your risky plays, then you would like Eternal Soul. Otherwise, you should at least leave it in your side deck. Just in case. Eternal Soul is a continuous trap and while it’s on the field, your Dark Magician monsters are unaffected by your opponent’s card effects. In addition, once per turn, you can add a “Dark Magic Attack” or “Thousand Knives” from your deck to your hand, or special summon 1 Dark Magician from your hand or graveyard. Unfortunately, if this card is destroyed, all your monsters are destroyed as well. Obviously, there are cards that can prevent this card from being destroyed. But these days destroying traps is pretty easy, so it’s quite a big risk.
9. Ebon Illusion Magician
Ebon Illusion Magician is one of the few Dark Magician extra deck cards, so it never hurts to have a copy or two lying around. You can summon this card using two level 7 monsters, or a rank 6 Spellcaster Xyz monster. With Ebon Illusion Magician, you can detach a material to special summon a Spellcaster, normal-type monster from your hand or deck. Continuing on, when a Spellcaster normal monster declares an attack, you can activate this card and banish any card on your opponent’s field. This monster allows you to slowly whittle down your opponent’s field, and it’s quite easy to summon in a Dark Magician deck. So it is definitely a good one to have.
8. Magician of Dark Illusion
Magician of Dark Illusion is a cool spin-off of Dark Magician, and is kind of the complete opposite of Dark Magician. This has the same stats as Dark Magician, but just reversed, and its name on the field is “Dark Magician.” But this card can be special summoned during your opponent’s turn when they activate a spell card. On the other hand, if you activate a spell card while this monster is on the field, you can special summon a Dark Magician from your graveyard. If you special summon this guy during your opponent’s first turn, you won’t have any worries about it being destroyed either – since your opponent can’t attack anyway.
7. Apprentice Illusion Magician
Not only is Apprentice Illusion Magician extremely easy to summon, but it can allow you to turn your monsters into behemoths that have an insanely high attack. You can special summon this card by discarding a card, and if this is summoned, you can add a Dark Magician from your deck to your hand. Moreover, you can send this card from your hand/field to the graveyard to boost a dark spellcaster monster’s attack by 2000 when it’s battling another monster. But the insane part is that all of these effects are not limited to once per turn. That means that, with 3 copies, you can boost a monster’s attack by 6000. And with the cards later on in this list, getting 3 copies into your hand in one turn isn’t an impossible task.
6. Dark Magic Expanded
Dark Magic Expanded is the first spell on this list, but requires you to already have a decently strong field if you want to use it to its full potential. Depending on how many Dark Magician or Dark Magician Girl monsters you have on the field, different effects will activate. If you have one, then one of your dark spellcaster monsters gains 1000 attack. If you have two, then in addition to the first effect, your opponent cannot activate cards in response to your traps and spells and they also cannot destroy your traps and spells this turn. And if you have 3 or more, all your dark spellcaster monsters are unaffected by your opponent’s card effects until the end of the turn. So essentially, if you have 3 or more Dark Magician monsters and you activate this card, you are basically untouchable for the rest of the turn.
5. Magicians’ Combination
Magicians’ Combination is a continuous trap and is pretty much a free negate every turn, which is always nice to have. Once per turn, you can activate Magicians’ Combination when a card or effect is activated. If this is activated, you can tribute a Dark Magician/Dark Magician Girl and special summon a Dark Magician or Dark Magician Girl from your hand or graveyard, then negate the effect/activation of the original targeted card. This is incredibly powerful because it can essentially prevent your opponent from activating any card for free. Since you can special summon a monster from the graveyard using this card, you can keep recycling the monsters to continuously use this card. And when this card is destroyed, you can also destroy any card on the field – which is a nice bonus.
4. The Dark Magicians
The Dark Magicians is the ultimate fusion between Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl that we all wanted. And luckily, it is also very strong. You can special summon this monster using Dark Magician, Dark Magician Girl, and any other Spellcaster monster as a material. Then whenever a spell or trap card is activated, you can draw a card. If it’s a spell or trap you can set it down, and if it’s a trap or quick-play spell card, you can use it this turn. Then if this card happens to be destroyed, you can special summon 1 Dark Magician and 1 Dark Magician girl from your hand, deck, or graveyard, which can be used for another copy of this monster. To make this card even stronger, summon it using Greater Polymerization, which makes this monster immune to destruction from card effects.
3. Soul Servant
In the latter half of the game, Soul Servant is an extremely busted version of Pot of Greed since you can use it to draw so many cards. When you activate Soul Servant, you can place any card that has the name Dark Magician in its name or text, to the top of the field. Then during your main phase, you can banish this card from your graveyard and draw cards equal to the number of Dark Magician, Palladium, or Dark Magician Girl monsters on the field or graveyard. As long as you have 1 Dark Magician on the field or graveyard, this essentially lets you search almost any card on this list – and can draw you a few extra cards depending on your field.
2. Dark Magical Circle
Dark Magical Circle is a must-have for any player who’s using a Dark Magician deck. When this continuous spell is activated, you can look at the top 3 cards in your deck and add a Dark Magician (or a spell/trap that lists “Dark Magician” in its text) to your hand. You can then place the remaining cards in any order. But the cherry on top is Dark Magical Circle’s second effect. If a Dark Magician is normal or special summoned to your field, you can banish one card that your opponent controls. This allows you to banish 1 card your opponent controls per turn, as well as lets you add a Dark Magician monster or spell or trap to your hand.
1. Magicians’ Souls
Although Magicians’ Souls isn’t a very powerful card in terms of attack power, its effect is what allows the Dark Magician archetype to still be relevant, If this card is on your field, you can activate Magicians’ Souls to send up to two spells or traps you control to the graveyard – and then draw cards equal to the number of cards you just sent. However, if this card is in your hand, you can send a level 6 or higher spellcaster monster from your deck to your graveyard, then either special summon this card, or send this card to the graveyard to special summon a Dark Magician or Dark Magician Girl in the graveyard. Magicians’ Souls opens up so many combos in this deck. For example, you can special summon Magician of Dark Illusion to your field. Then use Magicians’ Souls to send Dark Magician to the graveyard, to then special summon it again. You can even use these cards to summon a lot of monsters from your extra deck, depending on if you sent Dark Magician or Dark Magician Girl to the graveyard.
