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Doomkaiser Dragon
Card# CSOC-EN043
Doomkaiser Dragon's effect isn't just for Zombie World duelists: remember that its effect can swipe copies of Plaguespreader Zombie, too!
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Dark Magician decks have seen quite a bit of play since Dark Magician of Chaos was released. Magician's Force gave players many of the cards needed for a Spellcaster deck, but only now, with Dark Magician of Chaos, is the theme getting its due. Today I'm going to look at an exceptionally well built Dark Magician deck, sent in by Brett Foley. Brett had the following to say about his deck:
Hi, my name is Brett and I am running a deck with one of my favorite cards, Dark Magician. I switched from control to this deck because I got tired of that Yata-Gurasu card that you see at every tournament. Well, here is my deck; the strategy is to bust out the Dark Magicians as fast as I can.
—Brett Foley
Cool! It's always fun to try to run a competitive deck with your favorite cards. Luckily, Brett has picked a deck with tons of potential, and he's made some really good choices in its design. Here's the list he sent me:
Brett's Dark Magician Deck
43 Cards
Monsters
2 Dark Magician
1 Dark Magician of Chaos
3 Skilled Dark Magician
3 Apprentice Magician
1 Magician of Faith
1 Cyber Jar
1 Sangan
1 Witch of the Black Forest
1 Tribe-Infecting Virus
1 D. D. Warrior Lady
1 Exiled Force
1 Breaker the Magical Warrior
Spells
1 Snatch Steal
1 Book of Moon
1 Monster Reborn
1 Premature Burial
2 Fissure
1 Change of Heart
1 Pot of Greed
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Graceful Charity
1 Nobleman of Crossout
1 Dark Hole
1 Painful Choice
1 Dimension Fusion
1 Harpie's Feather Duster
1 Raigeki
1 Heavy Storm
1 Swords of Revealing Light
Traps
1 Mirror Force
1 Magic Cylinders
1 Ring of Destruction
1 Imperial Order
1 Call of the Haunted
2 Waboku
1 Torrential Tribute
 Pretty solid! I only have two issues with this deck, and they aren't huge. I don't think the Dark Magician of Chaos theme is being used to its fullest potential, so I'm going to fix that. In addition, I think Apprentice Magician doesn't have all of the support options it needs to make it as amazing as it can be. As it now stands, Brett can use it to charge up Breaker the Magical Warrior or the Skilled Dark Magicians, which are great, but the only things he can special summon via its effect is another Apprentice Magician or the lone Magician of Faith. That's pretty good, but there's more we can do with the theme.
So, let's get to the drops.
I think the deck is a bit heavy on monster removal. If you want, side deck some of the things I'm suggesting to remove, but I'm not sure if that will be necessary. I think Tribe-Infecting Virus is risky to play in such a heavily-typed deck, so it gets canned. I'm going to remove Exiled Force because I need a monster slot, and you're already running a Nobleman of Crossout, two Fissures, a Book of Moon, a Snatch Steal, a Dark Hole, and a Raigeki, all of which are going to give you field control. On that note, I'm going to drop the Torrential Tribute and one of the two Fissures as well.
I'm going to remove Premature Burial. I think it's a weak card overall, and in most games, we want the deck to be slim so we can get to Painful Choice as quickly as possible. I'm also going to remove one copy of Waboku. I'm adding in some monster control cards to replace some of the ones I removed, and I just don't feel this deck needs more than a single Waboku. If things die, they die—it's not a big deal in most cases, especially where the Apprentice Magicians are concerned.
Lastly, I'm going to drop the single Dimension Fusion. Other than D. D. Warrior Lady's effect or the successful summoning and destruction of a Magician of Chaos, this card really doesn't have much to feed from. Although it works well as a one-of in other decks, it generally needs some more fuel than can be found in this one.
 I'm going to add in two Dark Magician of Chaos, putting you at three. This way, you can use the Painful Choice combo of putting two to three of them in the graveyard, then Monster Reborning one, taking back Monster Reborn, using it on another one, taking it back, using it on the last one, and taking back another spell. If you're going to run this deck, you just have to run that combo—it's an awesome near–one-turn win that only needs two cards to work. A lot of players, though, are going to give you one of the Dark Magicians of Chaos. As a result, I'd suggest running a Sinister Serpent. This way, you can pull it with Painful Choice to make the opponent's decision a bit more difficult.
Next up, I want to give Apprentice Magician a few more options. It's a great card, and though "Spellcasters of level 2 or lower" might seem narrow, there are actually some awesome monsters that fit into this category. The two I want to add to the deck are Old Vindictive Magician (which will combo well with Book of Moon, as Magician of Faith does) and a Magical Scientist with a standard Scientist-splash Fusion deck. The Fusion deck might be a bit tricky to put together, but once you do, it will really, really add a lot of options to the deck. It’ll also provide a clear road for your Dark Magicians (of Chaos, or otherwise). Magical Scientist is a great card, and having three cards that can pull it into play is awesome. Your opponents will learn to fear Apprentice Magician, strictly because of Magical Scientist.
That's it for the fix! Here are the final changes:
-1 Tribe-Infecting Virus
-1 Exiled Force
-1 Premature Burial
-1 Fissure
-1 Waboku
-1 Torrential Tribute
-1 Dimension Fusion
+2 Dark Magician of Chaos
+1 Old Vindictive Magician
+1 Magical Scientist
+1 Sinister Serpent
The final tweaked decklist is as follows:
Brett's Dark Magician Deck—Jason's Fix
41 Cards
Monsters
2 Dark Magician
3 Dark Magician of Chaos
3 Skilled Dark Magician
3 Apprentice Magician
1 Magician of Faith
1 Old Vindictive Magician
1 Magical Scientist
1 Cyber Jar
1 Sangan
1 Witch of the Black Forest
1 D. D. Warrior Lady
1 Sinister Serpent
1 Breaker the Magical Warrior
Spells
1 Snatch Steal
1 Book of Moon
1 Monster Reborn
1 Fissure
1 Change of Heart
1 Pot of Greed
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Graceful Charity
1 Nobleman of Crossout
1 Dark Hole
1 Painful Choice
1 Harpie's Feather Duster
1 Raigeki
1 Heavy Storm
1 Swords of Revealing Light
Traps
1 Mirror Force
1 Magic Cylinders
1 Ring of Destruction
1 Imperial Order
1 Call of the Haunted
1 Waboku
Fusion Deck
2 Thousand Eyes Restrict
3 Dark Balter the Terrible
2 Ryu Senshi
2 Dark Flare Knight
 It should run really well! You've got a lot of strength in the early game, as Old Vindictive Magician, D. D. Warrior Lady, and Apprentice Magician all make great openings. The strategy is just as Brett described it—get out the Dark Magicians as fast as possible. However, now you have many more options for protecting and supporting the Dark Magicians once they do hit the field, and you also have the Painful Choice combo.
For the side deck, I'd suggest some of the monster removal I dropped. I removed it because I don't think it's necessary against most decks, but against Chaos decks and some Control decks, Torrential Tribute, Waboku, and Tribe-Infecting Virus will really help you out. Other than that, extra copies of Old Vindictive Magician and Magician of Faith can help, as well as Ceasefire.
Thanks for sending it in, Brett!
As a reminder, players with deck ideas they would like to see featured in this column can email their requests to jasonatmetagame@yahoo.com. Please include your first name, city and state of residence, deck list in the format used above, and a few sentences about your deck and the challenges and successes you've had with it.
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