Dark Magician: deck recipe [May 2020]

When it’s Normal Summoned, Magician’s Rod allows you to add from your Deck to your hand a Spell/Trap Card that specifically lists the card “Dark Magician” in its text. You can use this effect to search Dark Magic Attack or Magician Navigation, and then Tribute Magician’s Rod for a Silent Magician.

Magician of Dark Illusion's effect activates in response to your Spell/Trap activations letting you combo for field presence. Magician of Dark Illusions is a good monster to Special Summon from your deck with Magician's Navigation. This sets up for another Dark Magician summoning using Magician of Dark Illusion's effect with Magicians Navigation in your graveyard as trigger.

Dark Magical Circle's removal effect can be activated when you Special Summon Magician of Dark Illusion. Conversely Dark Magical Circle's removal effect activated during your opponent's turn can trigger Magician of Dark Illusion's summoning, or Magician of Dark Illusion's second effect if activated during either player's turn.

The Eye of Timaeus can be used on Magician of Dark Illusion. This will expend his second effect, letting you revive Dark Magician just before Magician of Dark Illusion leaves the field as fusion material.

Kycoo can pull monsters out of your monsters out of your opponent's graveyard to disrupt the graveyard set up of decks like Invoked Elemensaber and Lightsworn. This also serves to remove graveyard effects like Kiteroid and Plaguespreader Zombie. This is not quite as effective on Shiranui because you will be triggering their effects.

Kycoo's second effect is amazing for protecting your graveyard from banishing effects and preventing your opponent from using their own graveyard effects if the cost is banishing, almost like a mini Necrovalley effect.

You can Special Summon Silent Magician by Tributing a Spellcaster-Type monster you control. If you Tribute Legion the Fiend Jester to Special Summon Silent Magician, you will get to add a Dark Magician from your Deck or Graveyard to your hand, which will allow you to activate Magician Navigation.

Silent Magician is able to, once per turn, negate the activation of a Spell Card, which is particularly relevant in the current meta. Moreover, since, after being negated, the card is simply sent to the Graveyard without being destroyed, you can safely use this effect to negate Geartown or Ancient Gear Fortress.

While its original ATK and DEF are definitely on the low side, thanks to its effect, Silent Magician can quickly become a pretty big threat, gaining 500 ATK for each card in your hand. Additionally, if Silent Magician is destroyed by battle or card effect, you can Special Summon from your hand or Deck a Silent Magician LV8, a 3500 ATK monster that your opponent cannot take control of via Enemy Controller and that also cannot be weakened by World Legacy Clash.

Add Dark Magician to your hand and Special Summon it with Magician's Navigation. You can also fetch Magician's Navigation if you already have Dark Magician on hand. This combos well with Dark Magical Circle's second effect, letting you banish an opponent's card. Because Magician's Navigation is a Trap card, this combo can be used during your opponent's turn for disruption.

Special Summoning Magician of Dark Illusion with its own effect will also trigger Dark Magical Circle's banishing effect. Magician of Dark Illusion can, on a different turn, trigger Dark Magical Circle's removal again by reviving Dark Magician. You can use Dark Magical Circle's effect activation can trigger Magician of Dark Illusion to revive a Dark Magician.

If Dark Magician is already on the field, you can get The Eye of Timaeus or Illusion Magic with Dark Magical Circle's search effect. You can fetch a second copy of Dark Magic Circle to be activated at a later turn. But keep in mind only one Dark Magical Circle banishing effect can be activated during a turn.

Magician Navigation allows you to Special Summon a Dark Magician from your hand and a Level 7 or lower DARK Spellcaster-Type monster from your Deck. You can use Magician Navigation to Special Summon Night's End Sorcerer and banish up to two cards from your opponent's Graveyard.

Use Night's End Sorcerer's effect to banish cards like Darklord Superbia, Banishment of the Darklords, The Sanctified Darklord, Cyberdark Cannon, Leng Ling, Secret Six Samurai - Fuma, Subterror Nemesis Warrior or any “Subterror Behemoth” monster.

You can banish Magician Navigation from your Graveyard to target a face-up Spell/Trap Card your opponent controls and negate its effects until the end of the turn. You can use this effect to prevent your opponent from searching a “Darklord” card via Banishment of the Darklords, Summoning Elemental HERO Brave Neos via Neos Fusion, or even from shuffling all of your Attack Position monsters into the Deck with Drowning Mirror Force.

Keep in mind that you can only activate this effect of Magician Navigation if you control a Dark Magician and you can’t do it during the same turn the Trap Card was sent to the Graveyard

• Silent Magician’s floating effect can be prevented by Armades, Keeper of Boundaries, Ancient Gear Reactor Dragon, and U.A. Mighty Slugger.
  
  
• Both Silent Magician and Palladium Oracle Mahad can be dealing with without destroying them. Options include: returning them to the hand (Legendary Six Samurai - Enishi and Six Style - Dual Wield), shuffling them back into the Deck (Drowning Mirror Force), banishing them (Fortune Lady Every, Subterror Behemoth Umastryx, and Metaphys Daedalus), sending them directly to the Graveyard (Cyber Angel Dakini, Lava Golem, and Darklord Desire).
  
  
• Silent Magician floats into a 3500 ATK monster that is immune to Spell Cards; Mahad floats into a 2500 ATK monster with no effect.
  
  
• If you open with Night’s End Sorcerer already in your hand, you automatically lose one of the most impactful plays you can make, which is Special Summoning it from your Deck via Magician Navigation. Silent Magician LV8 and Night’s End Sorcerer just love to be there with you at the start of the Duel.

Note by Pduque13:

I used this deck from Lvl. 12 to 20 and then back at Lvl. 24 to reach Dlv. Max. Dark Magic Curtain adds more consistency to the deck and helps a lot to activate the skill and to bring some surprises. However, having only 2000 LP left leaves you exposed, and it's a dead card if you have no dark magician left in the deck, so be careful and don't get greedy if you use Illusion Magic!

As usual, thanks a lot for all the help you guys at GameA give for us F2P duelists!

Note by Pduque13:

It was the 3rd time I reached KOG with Dark Magicians and was one of the calmest climbs. I just replaced one mirror wall with one cosmic cyclone to counter the rising of D/D/D and Aromages. I don't think this is a tier 2 deck anymore, as it countered well Shiranuis, Invoked Elementsabers, and Thunder Dragons, but it may be soon to say this deck is Tier 1 again.

As usual, thanks a lot for all the help you guys at GameA give for us F2P duelists!

Note by Wanheda:

TTH was very important in this deck. With the combo TTH, Navigation, Dark Magician, and circle, difficult your opponent will have chances.

The two curtains and the two cyclones assist in activating the skill. Cyclones help well in mirror duels.

Note by skyestro:

Dark Magic Expanded against:

• Dark Magician
• High ATK Beater
• To trigger the effect of Dark Illusion

The Eye of Timaeus/ Dark Cavalry against:

• Dark Magician
• Invoked Cocytus
• Defensive Decks
• Lunalight Sabre Dancer

Skill:
No Mortal can Resist against:

• Lunalight

Note by Zeref:

I reached KOG in the last 5 seasons as a FP, using Blackwings, Cyber Dragon and this month DM, both Kycoo and Night's Sorcerer works well for me, WLC is a great card to use in this deck, for the Synchro Vermillion and Armades are excellent choices.

Note by pasq:

Drowning mirror force is to deal with untergettable monsters like Lunalight big boss and Dark Cavalry and because I noticed that people are not expecting it and attack directly with many monster. I used Sealed Tombs to try something different because of NMCR's nerf but I used it only 1 or 2 times so probably in the future I'll use Balance or Beatdown and Night's End Sorcerer to deal with graveyard annoying cards.

This is my KOG #10 so thanks to all the players for sharing their decks and experiences that helped me to reach this goal.

Note by mahammad emad:

My Deck work on seeking & bringing the dark magician monster & all its supports from my deck to my hand.

Also, counter my opponent combos from the start.
It Includes also Destroying & banishing his field to ruin any possible counter or combo.

Note by BlueDelta:

Here is my KoG deck for season 51. It is a little late, but my version is designed with the current banlist in mind so it will be viable for the future.

I reached KoG with this deck around mid season. With the upcoming nerf of „No Mortal can Resist“ i went straight for Balance as it boosts the consistency of your starting hand considerably. Canadia can be replaced by Floodgate for Synchro disruptions or by any chainable Trap card.

Dark Magic Attack is useful versus decks using permanent Spells or Traps as Dark Magic Navigation can only disable their effect for one turn and in general versus defensive decks placing lots of backrow.

Dark Magic Expanded’s main purpose is to give your DARK Spellcasters a surprise ATK boost during the damage step, but it’s third effect can be crucial in rare instances, bypassing all card effects by the opponent (the attached video contains a practical example).

Eye of Timaeus enables you to summon a very relevant Boss monster onto the field. If given the choice, keep spare Magician Navigation cards in your hand as the ideal discard fodder. In some instances, discarding Dark Magician can be useful to realize multiple effects with Dark Magic Expanded.

This variant is still viable for upcoming seasons, as it is virtually unaffected by the changes on the banlist.

My suggestion for your personal adaption: Trap cards should not extend the required number of 6. Dark Magic Attack and Magic Expanded are not considered core (but are both searchable by Rod and Circle). If you encounter many Lightsworn and Thunderdragon decks in the upcoming seasons, Dark Magic Attack can be dropped. Dark Magic Expanded be exchanged as well, but needs to be switched for another Spell to make sure Balance activates at the start of the Duel.

If you want to go for a 8 Monsters, 6 Spells, 6 Traps card ratio, Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer should prove to be a valuable addition, as it completely neutralizes all Graveyard plays by your opponent, especially relevant versus Archetypes like Shiranui (good pick for your UR Dream ticket, as Burning Nova is a highly irrelevant box). Night‘s End Sorcerer can also be quite interesting, as a Synchro Summon into Azure-Eyes Silver Dragon enables a Dark Magician Special Summon during everyone of your Standby Phases with the added bonus of banishment if Dark Magical Circle is present on the board.

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