With all of the buzz about the Spellcaster’s Judgment Structure Decks, I’m sure that many of you are tired of hearing about how awesome the Spellcaster monster type is. After all, they just received a large line of support. Wouldn’t it be nice to take a break from looking at that group of monsters? This writer doesn’t think so. After all, almost every Control deck I build usually starts out by including an Apprentice Magician toolbox. Spellcasters are amazing!
For quite a while, though, Spellcasters lacked a generic search effect, even though they’re already a powerful monster type. With last year’s release of Magician’s Circle, the Spellcasters’ lack of a search effect had come to an end. Jerome actually highlighted a Spellcaster deck last week which featured this mage-seeking trap. This may seem like a small addition to the current large line-up of available Spellcaster support, but you must remember that one of the most powerful effects in any trading card game is the ability to search your deck for specific cards. This effect can even end up being more powerful than simply drawing cards.
The Basic Breakdown
Magician’s Circle’s activation requirement is rather interesting. You can only activate it when a Spellcaster, whether you or your opponent controls it, declares an attack. Upon activation, both players must search their decks for a Spellcaster-type monster with an ATK of 2000 or less to special summon to the field. Of course, a player can only choose a Spellcaster that can be special summoned, so this card isn’t going against the standard effects of cards such as Tsukuyomi.
The activation requirement for Magician’s Circle may seem a bit conditional, but you must remember that this card is best suited for a deck that runs more than just four or five Spellcasters. You have the option of activating Magician’s Circle in response to one of your own Spellcasters’ attacks, so running more Spellcasters will not only benefit the effect of this trap card, but will also make its activation easier. If you don’t have the option to activate it during your own attack, you’ll probably have a few opportunities to activate Magician’s Circle in response to your opponent’s attacks as well. Cards such as Breaker the Magical Warrior, Tsukuyomi, Magician of Faith, and Chaos Sorcerer are commonly seen in most decks at a tournament. You’ll often have the ability to spring this trap card during your opponent’s battle phase as well, adding some useful versatility to Magician’s Circle. Special summoning a monster like Injection Fairy Lily during your opponent’s battle phase can completely destroy his or her plans of attacking during that turn.
Because you’ll often see at least two or three Spellcasters in many tournament decks, Magician’s Circle can be used to disable the effects of these powerful Spellcasters. Breaker the Magical Warrior will only get its spell counter when it’s normal summoned. If your opponent is forced to special summon this monster to the field, he or she will be left with a generic attacking monster, compared to your Spellcaster, which could be something like Gravekeeper’s Assailant, Injection Fairy Lily, or Magical Marionette. If your opponent has a legal target in his or her deck to special summon with Magician’s Circle, he or she is forced to bring that target out, even if he or she doesn’t actually want to put that monster into play. Breaker the Magical Warrior and Magician of Faith can be rendered useless by your Magician’s Circle.
You can also safely attack a stronger monster with a weaker Spellcaster in order to trigger Magician’s Circle. Normally, this would just cause you to lose a monster and some life points, but if your opponent special summons a monster, the number of monsters on his or her field will change and a replay will occur. This means that you can now choose not to attack with your weaker monster—though if it’s something like Apprentice Magician, it may be a good idea to do so anyway in order to make sure there are no easy targets for an opponent’s Don Zaloog, a very popular choice for Warrior Toolbox decks.
The conditions and requirements for using Magician’s Circle properly may seem restrictive, but its effect is well worth the effort of constructing a deck that can utilize this card. The most powerful mechanic in any trading card game is the search effect. It’s even better than card drawing, because it guarantees that you can get a specific card out of your deck to add either to your hand or field. This kind of power dramatically improves the consistency of any deck, and the importance of search effects can easily be seen in the successful decks from Shonen Jump Championships.
Warrior Toolbox has access to Reinforcement of the Army, a powerful search effect that instantly allows you to add any Warrior of level 4 or less from your deck to your hand. Tomato Control utilizes Mystic Tomato, a versatile monster that can fetch out many powerful options, including Don Zaloog, Spirit Reaper, and Newdoria. Magician’s Circle is the primary search effect available to a wide range of Spellcasters, unlike the less versatile but still powerful Apprentice Magician. Whether your Spellcaster deck is looking to formulate a combo using one Spellcaster, such as Magical Marionette, or if you are just looking to construct a “smash opponent’s face” deck, like the one that Jerome featured last week, Magician’s Circle is a valuable tool for making those builds more consistent.
Combos and Strategies
One recurring story that I can relate to Magician’s Circle is its use in a local player’s Gravekeeper deck at a San Diego Regional tournament. Ken Watkins ran a few copies of Magician’s Circle in order to make the Gravekeeper strategy into an even faster-paced one, as it could easily win with a single turn’s worth of attacks. Outside of Magician’s Circle, Ken also kindly shared a story from one of his rounds in which Gravekeepers were shown as a viable force for the day. His opponent had two Spirit Reapers out in defense position along with a Cyber Dragon, and Ken had Necrovalley active and he just summoned Gravekeeper’s Assailant. Ken declared an attack on Cyber Dragon and triggered Gravekeeper’s Assailant’s ability to switch one of the Spirit Reapers to attack position. Since Spirit Reaper was targeted by an effect, it was destroyed.
Monsters on his opponent’s field changed and triggered a replay, so Ken attacked again, this time switching the position of the other Reaper. That Reaper was destroyed, a replayed triggered again, and Ken finally declared a normal attack on Cyber Dragon. One more position shift later due to Gravekeeper’s Assailant, and Ken had destroyed his opponent’s entire field with one monster during one battle phase. With nifty tricks, such as Gravekeeper’s Assailant, and powerful recursion effects, such as Rite of Spirit, Magician’s Circle was a fine addition to the Gravekeeper deck. It provided even more speed, consistency, and sheer face-beating power to Ken during that Regional tournament.
Magical Marionette has to be one of the coolest monsters to fetch with Magician’s Circle’s effect. You may recall that I talked about Toon Table of Contents last year, and how I mentioned that this spell card is absolutely ridiculous with effects that generate spell counters, such as that of Magical Marionette. Magician’s Circle makes pulling off a devastating Raigeki effect with the Marionette even easier, since it has an ATK that’s just low enough to be special summoned by this search utility.
One of the deadliest monsters that you can special summon with . . . well, anything that could special summon it from your deck, is Injection Fairy Lily. Magician’s Circle is an efficient method of bringing the cheerful and sadistic nurse from your deck to the field quickly and efficiently, leaving you with a monster that’s more than ready to deal a butt-load* of damage. Be careful though, because your opponent also has the option of special summoning Injection Fairy Lily from their deck too. If your opponent is running the little nurse, you’d better have some form of monster removal ready for main phase two, or you’re probably going to lose the game during your opponent’s next turn.
Final Thoughts
Search effects of any kind are just as powerful as drawing cards. Magician’s Circle provides more consistency and even more raw power to decks that utilize a good deal of Spellcasters, such as typical Spellcaster Aggro or Gravekeeper swarm. Specifically, if you haven’t tested Gravekeepers with Magician’s Circle, I would suggest that you do so. The combination of a search effect and a ridiculous field-swarming archetype makes for a devastating pair.
As always, if you have any questions or comments regarding this or previous articles of mine, feel free to email me at Mrosenberg at Metagame dot Com. I’ll try to get back to you as soon as possible, but with the beginning of my winter quarter here at college, it may take a few days or longer for me to respond to you.
*Gyaku-Gire Panda and Joey know this better than anybody else, if you recall the episodes and the film in which Injection Fairy Lily made an appearance.