“From trials and experiences in her youth, she learned mastery over all of the magical arts. Now an adult, she is far beyond fear of them.”

The Silent Magician LV monsters were released last month, alongside the Magician’s Circle trap card in the “Nightmare Troubadour” video game. Silent Magician is a special kind of LV monster that grows more powerful while remaining in its youthful form, until it’s learned enough to advance to its more powerful adult form.

But the process by which Silent Magician reaches its adult form has a few rulings quirks. This week we’ll clear up those quirks, and we’ll also take a look at the Magician’s Circle trap card. It’s a good way to bring your Silent Magician LV4 into play, and it allows us to explore some other interesting situations.

For reference, the text of Silent Magician LV4 reads:

Each time your opponent draws a card(s), put 1 Spell Counter on this card (max. 5). Increase the ATK of this card by 500 points for each Spell Counter on this card. If 5 Spell Counters are on this card, during the Standby Phase of your next turn, by sending this face-up card with 5 Spell Counters on it to the Graveyard, Special Summon 1 "Silent Magician LV8" from your hand or Deck.

You’ve probably noticed the part in the first line that says “card(s)”. This line of text is important, because it makes sure that you’re using Silent Magician LV4 properly. When your opponent draws a card (or even several cards) from an effect, the number of cards that he or she draws is not important. You will only receive one spell counter, no matter how many cards the opponent draws.

When your opponent draws one card from Jar of Greed, Silent Magician LV4 gets one spell counter. When your opponent draws two cards from Reckless Greed, Silent Magician LV4 gets only one spell counter. When your opponent uses Reload and draws four cards from his or her deck, once again, Silent Magician gets only one spell counter. It’s the act of drawing cards that is important and not the amount of cards that are drawn.

With this clarified, it’s important to note that this spell counter-gaining effect does not use the chain. You place the spell counter on Silent Magician LV4 immediately after your opponent finishes drawing his or her card or cards, even if he or she draws the cards during the middle of a chain’s resolution. Thanks to this, it isn’t possible for your opponent to use Divine Wrath to counter the spell counter effect.

It also doesn’t matter who or what makes your opponent draw cards, so you can feel free to use effects like Disturbance Strategy. This will make your opponent shuffle his or her hand back into the deck and draw a new hand. Then, you’ll get a spell counter for Silent Magician LV4, because your opponent drew some cards.

As your opponent draws at the start of his or her turn, and uses card effects to draw additional cards, your Silent Magician LV4 gains spell counters and its ATK points increase. Each spell counter adds an additional 500 points of ATK until your Silent Magician LV4 has five spell counters, which then raise its ATK to a total of 3500. Once you’ve obtained that fifth and final spell counter, your focus will shift towards “leveling up” Silent Magician.

During your next standby phase after obtaining the fifth spell counter, you activate the “level up” effect by sending Silent Magician LV4 to the graveyard. When the effect resolves, you’ll special summon the more powerful Silent Magician LV8 from your hand or your deck.

Silent Magician LV8 reads, This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. This card cannot be Special Summoned except by the effect of "Silent Magician LV4". This card is unaffected by the effects of your opponent's Spell Cards.

Now that the Silent Magician is all grown-up, it gains the “spell immune” effect and has a formidable ATK value of 3500, making it a dangerous monster. While Silent Magician LV8 is face-up on your side of the field, it’s safe from all the spell card effects that your opponent controls. Even cards like Swords of Revealing Light and Messenger of Peace will be unable to stop it.

Now that we have a firm understanding of Silent Magician, let’s examine that great Spellcaster support trap card, Magician’s Circle.

The text of Magician’s Circle reads, You can only activate this card when a Spellcaster-Type monster declares an attack. Each player selects 1 Spellcaster-Type monster from their Deck with an ATK of 2000 or less, and Special Summons it in face-up Attack Position to their side of the field.

It doesn’t matter who controls the attacking Spellcaster-type monster. You can use it when your opponent’s Breaker the Magical Warrior attacks, or when your Silent Magician LV4 is attacking your opponent—either way is fine.

When the effect resolves, both players search through their decks and find a Spellcaster-type monster with an ATK value of 2000 or less, and then special summon their chosen Spellcaster-type monster onto their respective side of the field in attack position. You can special summon a monster of any level, as long as it’s a Spellcaster-type monster with an ATK value of 2000 or less—like our level 6 friend, Dark Magician Girl.

Sometimes you may think you won’t have a good chance of getting this to work, but after you give it some thought, you’ll realize there are plenty of Spellcaster-type monsters that are commonly used in the current metagame. Breaker the Magical Warrior, Apprentice Magician, Injection Fairy Lily, and Magician of Faith are just a few of the more popular Spellcaster-type monsters that you can special summon from your deck by using Magician’s Circle. But if you expand your deck’s theme into a more Spellcaster-centric build, your options will dramatically increase.

Note that the effect is written so that summoning of the Spellcaster-type monster is mandatory. When you play with Magician’s Circle and use its effect, you’ll find that it’s easily possible for one player to have a Spellcaster-type monster remaining in their deck while the opponent does not. What will become of Magician’s Circle’s effect at that point?

In this situation, the player who has a valid monster will special summon it. The other player will have to reveal his or her deck and verify that he or she has no Spellcaster-type monsters to summon. This doesn’t mean you can sit down and start writing a list of all of your opponent’s cards. You’re just taking a quick look to make sure their monsters aren’t legal choices for Magician’s Circle’s effect, and then you need to return the deck so that your opponent can shuffle it.

Suppose you declare an attack with Silent Magician LV4. You activate Magician’s Circle and your opponent decides to respond with Magic Cylinder. You know that when this chain resolves, Magic Cylinder will negate your monster’s attack. But does it also stop the effect of Magician’s Circle?

The answer is no. Even though the attack may have been negated, it does nothing to prevent the effect of Magician’s Circle from resolving. The opponent will need to use cards to negate Magician’s Circle’s effect if he or she hopes to stop it. Even using cards to destroy the attacking monster won’t negate Magician’s Circle’s effect.

Until next time, send all comments to Curtis@metagame.com