This was the second time I had actually looked at Apprentice Magician in its own article, but the little spellcaster is so darn good that it deserves two articles entirely dedicated to it. This second article focused on how important Apprentice Magician was to the new advanced format—it was the best recruiter monster in the game, among other things—and also how it can help minimize the damage from a Hydrogeddon assault. Apprentice Magician has also been a part of four to five winning Shonen Jump Championship decks for this new advanced format, so its power should never be underestimated. If you’ve ignored this card before, then you have no excuse to ignore it now if you intend to play in the premiere tournament scene.
Long-time readers of my articles here on Metagame.com are probably clicking the line “view all articles by this author” right now. The reason for this is because I have written about Apprentice Magician in the past. In fact, it’s been barely six months since I last talked about it. Back then, Apprentice Magician saw minimal play, and it was more or less up to personal preference whether a player chose to run it in his or her deck. There really wasn’t much reason for running an Apprentice toolbox when some of the better cards in the format were traps (Sakuretsu Armor over pro-active removal such as Smashing Ground), and it really didn’t give you a good reason for wanting to search out Magician of Faith. Likewise, decks were more focused on staying out of a top-decking situation, so being able to run Old Vindictive Magician wasn’t as appealing as a great big Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive.
My, how things can change in a mere six months.
Apprentice Magician went through a notable spurt of play since we last looked at it when a ruling at Shonen Jump Championship Philadelphia finally clarified how it works. Before then, the card’s controller would get its effect if it was destroyed as a result of battle. While other recruiter monsters specify that their effects trigger when destroyed as a result of battle and sent to the graveyard, Apprentice Magician lacked that last little line of text after being taken down in battle.
However, in July, a rulings reversal was made. This change noted that the owner of Apprentice Magician is the player who receives its effect. This opened up the spellcaster-searching monster to a lot of play at SJC Philly, and players were more than happy to give their opponents the little monster via a Creature Swap.
Why was this important? Did players just want to try out the new rulings changes for a weekend, or was this a logical and beneficial choice? The format was not only dealing with the heavy play of Chaos-Return and the more recruiter-powered Royal Decree variant, but also a lot of decks that ran multiple copies of Smashing Ground. Unfortunately for monsters such as Mystic Tomato, Smashing Ground really hurt its viability in finding any worthwhile monsters other than Sangan. It also caused Shining Angel to . . . well, simply feed the graveyard more Light monsters, because anything it special summoned to the field was easily destroyed. Apprentice Magician, however, special summons its monsters face down. This gave you monsters that were sure to survive until your own turn, since there was a lot more face-up designated removal (Chaos Sorcerer, Smashing Ground, Snatch Steal), than face-down designated removal (Nobleman of Crossout).
Being able to get your monsters into your own turn was very valuable, and with Apprentice Magician, you were getting powerful flip-effect monsters such as Magician of Faith and Old Vindictive Magician. These monsters would not only give you beneficial effects, but were also perfect tribute fodder once they were flip summoned for monsters like Zaborg the Thunder Monarch.
What made Apprentice Magician even more important was that your monsters were special summoned in defense position, which was another large difference between the spellcaster and other recruiters. With the popularity of the infamous and annoying Cyber-Stein, the Apprentice Magician could act as a method of shielding yourself more easily against a Cyber Twin Dragon assault.
As the format changed, and certain decks (namely Chaos) were finally put to rest, Apprentice Magician became even more important. Some of you might remember a little card I was hyping up like crazy a couple weeks ago named Nimble Momonga. If its effect goes off, it just utterly destroys aggressive strategies. An aggro deck wants to punch through to the opponent’s life points as fast as possible in order keep him or her from ever taking the offensive initiative. Nimble Momonga basically sets an aggro player back by about two turns, undoing the work that he or she would have done during the battle phase in which the Nimble Momonga was destroyed. The multiple monsters summoned and the life point gain from your little squirrel will effectively nullify any tempo-setting attacks during the aggro player’s next turn.
While Mystic Tomato doesn’t really discourage your opponent from going nuts and crashing through with his or her monsters to deal damage to your life points, Apprentice Magician can keep your opponent from inflicting that key amount of damage early in a duel. It acts as a long chain of face-down monsters that your opponent will be forced to punch through before he or she can start punching your face. This allows you to minimize early damage while still leaving you with fuel for tribute monsters. In fact, the defensive strengths of Apprentice Magician and the monsters it can search out and summon into play are what have made it a steady and powerful choice for successful tournament Monarch decks (like at Shonen Jump Championship Austin last Saturday). Being able to keep the opponent off of the offensive, while setting up an advantageous Old Vindictive Magician/Magician of Faith flip summon into a Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch tribute summon play is simply huge, especially if you can pull it off early in a duel.
Another huge strength to Apprentice Magician over other recruiter monsters is that it can do a slightly better job of nullifying an aggressive start from the opponent if he or she summons and gets an attack in with Hydrogeddon. While most other recruiter monsters leave the opponent to get another Hydrogeddon onto the field easily (in which case the recruiter/owner will probably not summon another monster, since it will only make the opponent’s field more threatening after another Hydrogeddon crashes into your new monster), Apprentice Magician can set Old Vindictive Magician face down in defense position after Hydrogeddon destroys it. Now, if your opponent attacks into your new face-down monster, your Old Vindictive Magician can destroy the new Hydrogeddon that attacked your monster. Since flip effects trigger immediately after damage calculation (but before monsters that were destroyed in battle are sent to the graveyard), the Hydrogeddon that you just destroyed will miss its chance to trigger its effect and get your opponent another Hydrogeddon!
That might be a bit confusing rules-wise, so let me summarize it. Your opponent’s Hydrogeddon destroys your Apprentice Magician. He or she gets another Hydrogeddon, and you get Old Vindictive Magician. The new Hydrogeddon attacks Old Vindictive Magician, which in turn destroys the Hydrogeddon that attacked it. Now this is where that Hydrogeddon’s effect would trigger . . . but wait! It’s no longer face up on the field, so it can’t trigger. Sucks to be your opponent!
Actually, it would still stink if you are in that situation, since you lost field presence and your opponent still has the upper hand. However, you are in a less painful situation with Apprentice Magician than you would be if that monster you just lost was a Mystic Tomato. Being able to nullify any part of a Hydrogeddon-based aggro deck’s offensive buys you time until you start dropping Monarchs.
Apprentice Magician, however, still remains in my heart as the ultimate skill-tester for methodical players in the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG. Just this past weekend, I witnessed someone summon Apprentice Magician while Breaker the Magical Warrior was face up on his field. This player’s opponent had a 1000 ATK monster on the field with a United We Stand equipped to it. Go back and read the first line in Apprentice Magician’s effect, and then you will realize how good of the Breaker player’s situation was.
The fact is, players forget these little effects so often that it’s not even funny. Knowing the synergies between the cards in your deck and how to exploit them in the right situations easily separates a player who consistently places in the Top 8 at regional and SJC events, and players who always seem to miss cut. Remember that when you are testing for a big event, and remember to try out the Apprentice Magician line-up of two Apprentice cards, two Old Vindictive Magician cards, and the single Magician of Faith in your control decks if you have a heavy number of tribute monsters. It does wonders in making your deck more powerful. I think Ryan Spicer and Tristan Patillo would both agree.
If you have any questions or comments regarding this or any previous articles of mine, feel free to e-mail me at Mrosenberg@metagame.com.