Magical Scientist is perhaps the most powerful monster in all of Yu-Gi-Oh!: It was part of the very first FTK in the game's history and has been Forbidden in all Advanced formats for fourteen years. It may surprise you, then, to see that the card is Unlimited in the Trinity Format.
If you're unfamiliar with Trinity, you can read an Introduction about it here!
Magical Scientist
In February 2004, Magical Scientist became Limited in the TCG. One year later, in April 2005, he was moved to Forbidden on the second TCG Forbidden list. As he's remained on there for fourteen years, the card may need some explanation. Here's his effect with PSCT:
Pay 1000 Life Points; Special Summon 1 level 6 or lower Fusion Monster from your Extra Deck.
A monster Summoned this way cannot attack your opponent directly, and is returned to the Extra Deck at the end of the turn.
The important things for you to note here is that the Scientist's effect isn't once per turn. In fact, the only real restriction is the negligible life point payment. The "Can't attack this turn" restriction is also meaningless: You can still tribute the monsters he summons, or use them for an Extra Deck summon. In fact, the infamous Magical Scientist FTK used this lack of restriction in conjunction with Catapult Turtle to burn the opponent for over 8000 damage on the first turn of the game (Catapult Turtle didn't always have the "Once per turn" clause).
How Trinity Balances the Scientist
Master Rule #4
Master Rule 4 - Commonly referred to as the "Link Format Rules" - hinders a lot of the degenerate combos that Scientist can create. Without the Link Rules, you would be able to summon multiple Fusion Monsters from your Extra Deck straight away. Because of the inclusion of the Extra Monster Zone, you're only able to summon one Fusion monster at a time. This prevents you from simply paying 2000 LP to summon 2 Fusion monsters, using both to make an Xyz Monster.
The main way to avoid this restriction is to use Link Monsters. If you summon a Thousand-Eyes Restrict off of Magical Scientist, you can use that Thousand-Eyes Restrict to make a Linkuriboh. This opens up a new Link Zone, which Scientist can use to summon another Fusion Monster from your Extra Deck. Using that Fusion Monster and Linkuriboh, you can make a Link-2 Monster. From there, it's possible to summon 2 more Fusion monsters with Scientist, which can result in an Xyz Monster or a Link-4 Monster.
Even so, this setup requires a large amount of dedicated Extra Deck space, and also a hefty life point payment from all of the monsters you're summoning: Essentially, it costs 4000 Life points to make 1 Xyz monster.
Summon Limit
Trinity Format's Summon Limit prevents players from Summoning more than 3 Effect Monsters each turn. This limits what you can do with Magical Scientist by quite a lot. Since the Scientist himself is an effect monster, after summoning him you're only left with two Effect Monster Summons for the rest of the turn.
However, Non-Effect Fusion Monsters, such as Fusionist, don't count towards the summon Limit. Regardless, Trinity's Summon Limit still prevents you from performing the above play; Summoning Scientist, Thousand-Eyes Restrict, and Linkuriboh uses all 3 Summons.
Because of this, Magical Scientist can't really be used as a 1-card combo. The Summon Limit of the format makes the card extremely difficult to break.
Trap Cards
Finally, Trinity Format is a much slower format than the TCG. Trap cards are played in most Trinity decks, making Magical Scientist combos much more difficult to pull off. Most of the commonly played interactive cards can shut down a Scientist before it can even do anything. Some examples of these are:
- Book of Moon
- Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit
- Compulsory Evacuation Device
- Torrential Tribute
- Paleozoic Dinomischus
- Paleozoic Canadia
- Solemn Strike
- Solemn Warning
Trinity Combos
At this point, it should be clear that Magical Scientist isn't broken in Trinity. The combination of the Summon Limit and Master Rule #4 make combos inconsistent at best. Regardless, the Level 1 Spellcaster is still played in the format. Here are some cool (yet balanced) things which you can do with him in Trinity.
Steal & Slacker
Possibly my favourite play in all of Yu-Gi-Oh!, this combo can be included in any deck. All you need to start off with is a Magical Scientist. You summon him, and use his effect to summon Thousand-Eyes Restrict. Restrict can then steal an opponent's monster, much like the effect of Number 101: Silent Honor Ark. From here, you can use your level 2 level 1 monsters on board to Xyz Summon Slacker Magician! Slacker is an impressive wall which many decks simply can't get over without first investing a lot of resources. The best part of this combo is how it can be performed with minimal investment: All you need is 1 Main Deck card and 2 Extra Deck cards!
1-Card Rank 4 XYZ
Slacker Magician isn't the only Xyz monster you can summon with Magical Scientist. Elder Entity Norden can be used to make any Rank 4 Xyz monster, as long as you have a non-effect monster in grave. This isn't that difficult to achieve, especially in decks which play Rescue Rabbit or the Unbound Advanced Ritual Art! Note that Non-Effect monsters can also include Gemini Monsters: Gemini Monsters count as Normal Monsters while in the Graveyard.
1-Card Trishula
Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier is a very powerful card. Here's a way to summon it with just 1 card. You'll also need some Graveyard setup in the form of Angel Trumpeter. Because this combo requires you to play a not-so-great level 4 vanilla, the 2-Card Trishula combo is seen much more often.
This is another easy combo to memorize. Start off by Summoning Elder Entity Norden. Norden's effect summons a non-Effect Tuner monster from the Graveyard. Then Synchro Summon with that Tuner and with Norden! You can even play other non-effect Tuner monsters, such as Flamvell Guard or Genex Controller to make different Synchro monsters if needed.
2-Card Trishula
This next combo requires more setup, but is also quite easy to pull off. You can start it in one of two ways, but essentially you need to start your turn with a monster on the field and 3 summons left. There are lots of ways of achieving this, but it does make the combo difficult to perform on your first turn.
Summon the Scientist. Then, pay 1000 LP to summon any non-Effect Fusion. I've chosen to use Fusionist in the example below. You can then use Fusionist and your other monster on board to Link Summon a Link-2 monster, like LANpholinkus. We now have 2 Link zones open, so we can play out 2 more Fusion Monsters. One of them has to be the Tuner-Fusion, Sea Monster of Theseus. The other can be any level 3 non-effect Fusion (Below, you can see that it's Dragoness the Wicked Knight). We can then use our level 1, 3 and 5 monsters to Synchro Summon Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier!
Other synergies
Instant Fusion
It's important to note that decks playing Magical Scientist should likely also play one copy of Instant Fusion. This card acts as a Scientist which doesn't use your normal summon - this makes Instant Fusion better for summoning Norden, but worse for the other combos. Playing an Instant fusion will also make your (usually dead) Fusion monsters see more play.
Coral Dragon
I didn't mention this in the above combos as Coral Dragon doesn't see as much play as the other cards, but summoning a Sea Monster of Theseus gives you the exact requirements for a 1-card Level 6 Synchro with Magical Scientist. Usually, it's simply better to summon a Slacker Magician with the Thousand-Eyes Restrict play: Coral Dragon makes you discard a card to pop a monster, whereas Thousand-Eyes Restrict does it for free.
Shaddolls
If you summon El Shaddoll Wendigo with a Scientist, you can then Polymerization into an El Shaddoll Winda. It's just another method to get some fiend presence in a Shaddoll deck, which heavily relies on using its Fusion Spell cards at the correct time.
Non-Effect Link monsters
Although they haven't been released in the TCG yet, Traffic Ghost and LANpholinkus can potentially be extremely powerful here. Being non-effect monsters gives them the ability to ignore the summon limit, which leads to some pretty crazy combos (For Trinity Format). It's definitely something to watch out for!
In Closing
It's nothing more than an FTK card in the Advanced format; however, in Trinity, Magical Scientist is a fun, balanced, and powerful toolbox card which can be a perfect fit for any deck. Try splashing it into your own Trinity decks if you haven't already!
