From the moment that it first swooped in through Magician’s Force as the prized hobby secret rare, Dark Magician Girl has captured the hearts of many a duelist. While much of the hoopla surrounding the release of the new tins has rightfully centered on the long-anticipated Exarion Universe, the alternate-artwork Dark Magician Girl (numbered CT2-EN004) stands out from its fellow tin cards for a variety of characteristics. Its release is nothing short of groundbreaking.

This is one of the very few cards in the history of the game that Konami deemed worthy of an alternate artwork boost. In fact, these cool alternate artworks are limited to the venerable Blue Eyes White Dragon, Dark Magician, Red Eyes Black Dragon, and Kuriboh. You can, of course, get the updated Dragons through Shonen Jump Magazine, and Kuriboh and Dark Magician were found through a special edition of the rare Power of Chaos: Yugi the Destiny game. The relative infrequency of these remastered cards hints to their importance—only the true stars of the game get this sort of special treatment.

It’s held without question that Dark Magician Girl is one of the most popular Yu-Gi-Oh! characters in history, both for its attractiveness as a heroine fighting loyally for the Pharaoh and for its synergetic abilities with another fan favorite, Dark Magician. Fans recognize Dark Magician Girl almost as well as they recognize the face of Yugi himself. Ironically enough, however, many duelists have put Dark Magician Girl down as being relatively underpowered and ignored it since its release, even as its monetary value skyrocketed as a prized collectible! I, for one, think its brand-new artwork means we should take a brand-new look at its playability.

How playable is Dark Magician Girl?

The new artwork hasn’t changed the fact that Dark Magician Girl remains undersized for a tribute monster. Weighing in at 2000 ATK and 1700 DEF, it’ll still be able to take out almost any normal summon monster (which is why you’d want to run tribute monsters in the first place). The most important things to consider when determining Dark Magician Girl’s usefulness is its effect, attributes, and type.

Its effect can legitimately boost to 2600 attack, making Dark Magician Girl the strongest tribute monster in the game. Of course any time you tribute for a monster, there’s an additional cost involved (the monster you used to sacrifice), so ATK value is not entirely what we’re looking for. Otherwise, Summoned Skull would be the most popular tribute monster in the format. With monsters like D. D. Assailant and D. D. Warrior Lady running around in the format, it’s not hard to see why the best tribute monsters are prized for their effects and not simply for their attributes.

Of course, being a Spellcaster and Dark monster are nice boosts to playability, but they don’t necessarily offset the seemingly weak effect. So why would you run Dark Magician Girl? The answer, like all of its actions, revolves around its companion, Dark Magician. You see, at first glance, it’s also just a puny two-tribute 2500 ATK monster! Why would players like Hugo Adame be able to take such a creature and place in the Top 8 of Shonen Jump Championships? It’s obviously not the effect (or lack thereof) that matters in this case; rather, it’s the support cards that have been released to augment the popular card’s standing. Enter the card that makes Dark Magician Girl shine!

Dark Magician Girl and the Sorcerer’s Stone

The card in question is Sage’s Stone, a long-forgotten card that came in the game Reshef of Destruction. Its effect lets you bring out Dark Magician from your hand or deck, provided you have a copy of Dark Magician Girl on the field. You see, activating Sage’s Stone is like getting a free special summon for Dark Magician, which would ordinarily cost you two monsters to tribute! If you can find some way to clear the field prior to its activation, you’ll have 4500 points of damage with just two cards.

In all seriousness, a fairly competitive deck could be constructed in short order by using Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl as the points of focus. Because Dark Magician has some of the best support cards in the game, including Dark Magic Attack and Skilled Dark Magician, you could conceivably construct a deck that will almost always bring Dark Magician out within one or two turns. This type of strategy can swarm the board early with high-level monsters while maintaining a good hand size!

A monster lineup could resemble something like this:

2 Dark Magician

3 Dark Magician Girl

2 Apprentice Magician

2 Magician of Faith

2 Skilled Dark Magician

1 Sangan

2 Mystic Tomato

1 Sinister Serpent

1 Breaker the Magical Warrior

1 Magical Merchant

The strategy is self-evident—almost every card in the deck leads to opportunities to summon the others. The early game features the strategic sets of either Apprentice Magician, Sangan, or Mystic Tomato, which are cards that replace themselves when either tributed or destroyed as a result of battle. In fact, any combination of a hand where you hold Apprentice Magician or Mystic Tomato and Sage’s Stone will enable your deck to quickly bring Dark Magician Girl and its companion to the board almost immediately. When you throw in the fact that Skilled Dark Magician is a solid offensive wall with the ability to bring out Dark Magician with lightning speed, you’ve got the makings of a fun and competitive build!

However, it’s clear that Sage’s Stone is basically the only card that has been made with our lovely heroine in mind. Spellcasters are paradoxically well-fed monster-wise, boasting the largest number of typed creatures next to Warriors and Fiends, and malnourished in the spell and trap support department. There just aren’t enough cards in the game that provide an incentive to players for running all Spellcaster-type monsters. Sure your deck can splash Injection Fairy Lily, Breaker the Magical Warrior, and attempt to add in Chaos Command Magician, or whatever great Spellcaster your heart desires. However, cards that boost the theme, like Reinforcement of the Army for Warriors or Book of Life for Zombies, are noticeably absent. The only advantage to an all Spellcaster lineup at this point is the Apprentice Magician/Breaker the Magical Warrior combo, but even that can be splashed into any Chaos-centric build! It appears that the only way to take advantage of Spellcasters in their current form is to run a Dark Magician deck that relies on its own components for self-support, which is exactly what we’re trying to do with Dark Magician Girl.

You see, this deck actually provides an incentive for running only Spellcasters, mainly because the Spellcasters in question are all used to focus on the Dark Magician Girl/Dark Magician strategy. Not a single monster slot is wasted on frivolities like Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning. I scoff at these uses for such a wonderful secret rare! And while there is a relatively thin card pool to select from when determining cards to help our cause, Sage’s Stone and a few Dark Magician tricks like Dark Magic Attack should do the trick. Test your own combinations of cards and see what works for you.

While it definitely is fun to try to hold the fort and think up new, inventive ways to successfully utilize our favorite characters in the manga and television show, it would also be great to see more support thrown our way for the venerable Dark Magician build. I’m sure plenty of fans rejoiced at seeing Burst Stream of Destruction and Dark Magic Attack—for a brief, fleeting moment, it seemed awesome to simply unleash the destructive power of the two monsters on which Yu-Gi-Oh! has built a fortune. The recent release of these new tins with a new way of viewing Dark Magician Girl has given all of us, including me, an opportunity to carry on Yugi’s spirit by thinking of new ways to support his most loyal friends.