Card Review: Dark Magician

Alright, another card review. Just as a heads up, I might continue with a trend of reviewing the iconic ace cards first just to get them out of the way.

Last time I reviewed Seto Kaiba's ace card, Blue-Eyes White Dragon. This time I will review Yugi's favorite card, the Dark Magician. For most people, the Dark Magician is mostly a card used as a favorite. Sure the story is the same for Blue-Eyes White Dragon, that both of these cards look cool and are used by the main characters of the TV show, however, Dark Magician requires more dedication to be actually be used for its offensive power than the Blue-Eyes White Dragon.

So lets examine this famous master of dark magic. Dark Magician is a, Dark Attributed, Level 7 Spellcaster-Type Normal Monster with 2500ATK and 2100DEF. Already the card is very inferior to Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Because Dark Magician is a Level 7 monster, he still requires 2 Tributes to be Tribute Summoned and his is 500ATK points weaker than the Blue-Eyes; on a side note, there are other monsters that require less effort to summon that can inherently match Dark Magician's attack strength or even surpass it. Like Blue-Eyes White Dragon, however, Dark Magician has received alternative artwork and a number of support cards that specifically make using the Dark Magician more effective or even easier. The problem still remains: Dark Magician requires sure dedication to be completely utilized. (well, more so than the Blue-Eyes White Dragon that can easily be abused simply by being a dragon.) Cards like Dark Magic Curtain have high costs, paying half of your Life Points and restricting yourself from summoning any other monsters, to special summon 1 Dark Magician straight from the deck. Other cards like Dark Magic Attack, based off of the Dark Magician's signature move, has it's advantages, but still requires for Dark Magician to be present. Aside from this complication, Spellcaster-Type monsters alone are often difficult to use, and building a good Spellcaster based deck must be carefully crafted. (Using a Spellcaster Archetype is simpler than choosing Spellcasters that don't belong in an official archetype.) Even if a duelist manages to summon the Dark Magician, he or she must still brave the many challenges that varying opponents present.

As much as I'd hate to admit it, Dark Magician alone isn't such a great card... However, it can still be useful in some decks, but as I have mentioned, those decks must be carefully crafted. (1 Magician alone may not be enough.) Still, despite its shortcomings, Dark Magician is still a pretty cool card, especially as a collectible. When I first dueled I have never owned my own Dark Magician, but I eventually obtained one about a year ago from a friend. Even if I did not have the proper cards to build a deck based around the Dark Magician, it still felt pretty awesome to actually have one of the original editions; and to be able to show it to my older brother again who no longer has his felt pretty good too.