Dark Magician is possibly the most recognizable monster in the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game. Whether you’re an avid fan of the animated series or if you’re simply a parent who’s keeping up with the franchise in order to understand what your children like, you’ve probably become familiar with Yugi’s favorite Spellcaster. As a monster that’s summoned in nearly every one of Yugi’s duels, it’s apparent that Dark Magician has been used with countless spells and traps that support it. While other Spellcasters receive spells and traps that add to the different schools of magic that each Spellcaster would use, Dark Magician is given the joy of using cheap parlor tricks.
Yup, that’s right—cheap parlor tricks. While many of Dark Magician’s apprentices rely on building up magical power with spell counters, Yugi’s favorite monster uses sleight-of-hand and escape tactics that are reminiscent of Harry Houdini. However, no matter how corny or ancient these tricks seem, they don’t make Dark Magician any less cool*. There’s nothing quite like seeing a magician reappear safely from one magic box when he was apparently skewered by swords while in a similar box. It’s even greater when Dark Magician makes sure an opponent’s monster was skewered instead.
Of course, the corniness of a cheap hat trick doesn’t make its card form any less powerful. Dark Magician’s signature support card, Magical Hats, has been one of the most underrated cards ever to be released.
The Basic Breakdown
As the most commonly seen support card for Dark Magician in the animated series, Magical Hats plays out a little differently in the real trading card game. For example, the real Magical Hats is a trap card that can only be activated during your opponent’s battle phase. It also creates one less “empty hat” for your opponent to attack, as the cartoon’s version of this card created three hats along with the monster that was concealed by a hat. On the other hand, Magical Hats has a few annoying disadvantages. It’s restricted to the opponent’s battle phase, it requires you to have a monster on the field, the “empty hats” that are created with this card are real non-monster cards, and these cards are destroyed at the end of the battle phase.
But is the use of non-monster cards from your deck truly a disadvantage? Are the disadvantages to Magical Hats enough to dismiss this trap card as a potentially powerful option for a deck? Well, if its cons outweighed its pros, Magical Hats probably wouldn’t have gotten an entire column devoted to it. One of the more powerful aspects of Magical Hats is that it acts as a Book of Moon for your flip effect monsters. In this environment, powerful recursive flip-effect monsters such as Magician of Faith and Mask of Darkness can easily switch control of a duel between players. Magical Hats allows you to reset these monsters once they’ve been flipped, and it adds to your defenses for a turn.
What makes Magical Hats even better with cards like Magician of Faith is that you’re summoning non-monster cards to your field as 0 ATK and 0 DEF walls. This effectively allows a duelist to run a single copy of powerful spell cards with the knowledge that you can return it to your hand with your recursive flip-effect monsters. Magical Hats can effectively turn your graveyard into a toolbox** of options, as it fills your graveyard with useful spells and traps for your recursive flip-effect monsters to return to your hand. Most importantly, it gives you limitless options in the later turns of a duel. Are you looking for some quick draw power? Summon Pot of Greed through Magical Hats, and then return it to your hand with Magician of Faith. Do you have the desire to lock the opponent into a no-win situation? Then that Time Seal in your deck might make a nice empty hat, and your Mask of Darkness might be begging to be flipped face down once again.
What if you don’t have a recursive flip-effect monster out, and you realize that a few of the cards in your deck are dead weight in a certain duel? Perhaps you have too many Smashing Grounds in your deck while you’re playing against a Tsukuyomi lock deck. Magical Hats also has the ability to make your future draws more consistent by removing cards from you deck that you feel won’t help you out. If you find that you can’t use certain spell or trap cards against your opponent, then you can use Magical Hats to stall through a turn, and you no longer have to worry about future dead draws.
Magical Hats has quite a few uses, but its ability to reset flip effects and its ability to turn the graveyard into a toolbox of useful spells and traps is incredibly powerful. This card certainly isn’t just another cheap parlor trick.
Combos and Strategies
There are two specific trap cards that simply scream out to be abused by Magical Hats. Dark Coffin and Statue of the Wicked, unlike normal trap cards, cannot be activated at will. Instead, these cards are activated when they are destroyed and sent to the graveyard. Magical Hats can special summon these cards as monsters, and they will be destroyed—either because your opponent will attack them, or because they’ll leave the battle phase and Magical Hats' effect will destroy them. Either way, this triggers the abilities of these unique trap cards.
While Statue of the Wicked is a straightforward method of providing field presence, Dark Coffin forces your opponent to make a difficult decision. If you summon two copies of Dark Coffin with Magical Hats, then your opponent will take a painful hit to his or her overall card presence. The use of this combo with Magical Hats creates a nasty two-for-one, or a +1 advantage. You’re losing only one card from your field or hand, while the end result provides you with either two tokens, one token for yourself and one less card for your opponent, or it removes two cards from your opponent’s overall card presence. You can also use this same trick with Black Pendant and Fuhma Shuriken, though Dark Coffin is still a better option since it causes the opponent to lose some of his or her available options.
As a single monster, Penguin Soldier is a solid form of tempo control due to its ability to bounce monsters back to their owners' hands. However, this little monster can be turned into the ultimate search effect when combined with Magical Hats. Once your non-monster cards are summoned to the field with Magical Hats, they become legal targets for Penguin Soldier’s effect. This places a tough choice on the opponent. He or she can either attempt to attack and hope to reduce the number of targets for Penguin Soldier before attacking the penguin itself, or your opponent can simply end the battle phase and give you a free turn. Giving an opponent a free turn can be devastating, but if your opponent attacks during the turn that this combo is set up, it could cause you to add two cards back to your hand.
If you’d like to expand on the aspect of turning your graveyard into a toolbox, then remember that Mask of Darkness can continuously return Magical Hats to your hand. This allows you to loop through Magical Hats each turn if your opponent doesn’t have any removal available. You can fill up your graveyard with any spell or trap that you might need during a specific duel. This allows you to thoroughly abuse Magician of Faith and Mask of Darkness, because you can quickly and effectively add your best options to your graveyard. Now imagine if you were to recycle flip effects through Tsukuyomi or Book of Moon after you’ve filled up your graveyard with the multiple activations of Magical Hats.
Final Thoughts
When combined with certain monsters such as Magician of Faith and especially Mask of Darkness, Magical Hats can make a combo deck ridiculously consistent. This trap card’s ability to put non-monster cards from your deck into the graveyard is especially valuable, since it gradually gives you more options with the previously mentioned flip effect monsters. Magical Hats allows you to consistently play single copies of powerful spell cards during a duel, and its ability to act as a Book of Moon for your monsters only adds to this card’s overlooked power.
With the updates to the Advanced format and the updated list becoming legal for tournaments on October 1, Magical Hats may see some play as a Book of Moon for your monsters and as an ability to thin your deck. While cards such as Painful Choice may do a better job of filling your graveyard with options than Magical Hats does, this trap card has multiple uses for multiple scenarios. It’s also legal to play in Advanced format tournaments, as Painful Choice is still stuck in the Traditional format.
Next week, I’ll be focusing on reader responses, including the ideas that were submitted for Dream Clown and a deck built around its ability. I’m serious this time! Meanwhile, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me at Mrosenberg at Metagame dot com.
*I’m a sucker for Spellcasters, so it’s pretty obvious that Dark Magician is one of my favorite monsters.***
**Calling a card a toolbox in a trading card game refers to a toolbox in real life. It means that you can have a card, or a tool, for every single situation at your disposal. This means that you can run one copy of powerful cards that can assist you in specific scenarios during a duel.
***Tsukuyomi is a Spellcaster too. I guess I really do like the Spellcaster-type the most.