Dark Magician Starter [Trinity Format | August '23]

Update of March Version Here.

Chronicle Sorceress still hasn't come home for some reason and it's actually the most painful thing ever. Regardless, very liitle has changed since the previous build outside of more cards and options being available to us to the point where it's a little overwhelming. Between Bystials being nearly full power, Rescue-ACE only receiving a hit with Durendal (which would net us a .5p card anyway in addition to the engine filling the deck space for itself), and the Runick engine only being hit with its Field Spell in a Highlander format, the number of directions you can take this strategy and generally, any tempo Chaos Attributed strategy are exponentially silly. To not make things too confusing, we'll be focusing primarily on keeping things mostly pure- within reason.

- Difficulty -
★★★★☆
With Dark Burning Magic still banned at this time, the deck's not entirely unga bunga insta-win, but it doesn't exactly feature any real complexities when it comes to finding routes to winning games. The difficulty with this deck lies entirely with managing one's hand, GY, and copies of Dark Magician either between the Deck, GY, or Hand and knowing just how many are where. To get the absolute most out of the deck, you'll likely need to be mindful of where Dark Magician Girl is and how to get Combination in rotation. Resolving Illusion is great and all, but remember that our main deck monsters aren't the greatest here like most other decks you'll encounter, so resolving a search each turn and doing nothing with it will set you further behind compared to a typical turn in modern Trinity.

 - Consistency -
★★★★★
Illusion, Servant, and Rod all communicate with one another very well and so long as you can find any one of those pieces in the opener, then you're basically golden for the remainder of the duel. If you're familiar with the Orcust Trinity then this can be seen largely the same way. As such we have a myriad of ways of accessing Illusion of Chaos (even more so than Rod who is our primary starter since it grabs all of the S/Ts we actually care about). Cycling Rod every turn with Illusion back up is a double search that snowballs rather quickly.

- Sackiness -
★★★★☆
Unfortunately this build isn't on very many Semi and Co-Forbidden cards, so the powerlevel lies strictly within the realm of DM's capabilities. While we do have blowouts with Dark Burning Attack and Dark Magic Attack within their respective gamestates, neither being quick-play is a serious downside when it comes to Trinity tempo. Regardless, Soul Servant's GY effect on average drawing 2 cards with a maxiumum of 4 is pretty hilarious and downright unfair (in a better archetype). If you want to upgrade the sackiness factor, look into jamming more Pointed cards, Bystials, and relevant backrow to steal games. Reduce the skill required to execute DM combos and you'll reduce the skill required to win randomly via a topdeck, frankly speaking.

- Viability -
★★★★★
Chaos Attributed deck with decades' worth of support. The deck also plays nicely with reliable backrow, nukes, and can play Bystials of its own when they're sided in against them. While I wouldn't consider Dark Magician to be META, it is without a doubt viable enough to be played in virtually any format that doesn't feature Normal Summon Fallen of Albaz.

Pros:

• Snowball: You rack up advantage pretty quickly once you get going with this strategy. Between all of the layers of protection and nuance regarding the disruption lines on top of all of the means of searching from over a decade's worth of support? It's honestly difficult not to win after taking the lead.
  
  
• Runick Engine: The advantages provided through the currently legal Runick line-up are a bit concerning, at least when it comes to control decks that don't just turtle behind a Link Monster. Being able to chain any one of them in order to either get a free Link Material for Lyna or Dharc; or protection from destruction; or just generating a token to convert later while also blanking a monster/attack in the same way Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon would; on top of just their natural effects is frankly a little silly for a package that doesn't tax the Main Deck in any meaningful way. It also goes without saying that being able to just randomly banish cards from your opponent's deck in a Highlander format is incredibly broken on so many levels as most decks these days require specific cards to function and do not feature ways of recovering said banished cards. You may honestly just win games through the inclusion of this engine alone, so if you find yourself with it, just know that you've not only gotten insurance, but also some pretty potent plusses under The Dark Magicians Fusion.
  
  
• Comeback Potential: Just having Illusion, Rod, Controlling the Dark Magician, or even just having Soul Servant in the GY during mid-to-late game will keep you in the game regardless of how things are going. Just don't play too zealously into something like a Trickstar Candina!
  
  
• Rewarding Ceiling: While a lot of the early lines are pretty straightforward, most of the complexities with the archetype as a whole come from the usage of cards in tandem with one another. As opposed to early TCG builds where you kind of just drew cards and hoped it was enough to combo or amass a handtrap/backrow advantage, in Trinity, you'll be much more rewarded for your mastery of the cards at your disposal and how to best navigate the board you're dealt with or expecting. At times the pressure can be nigh suffocating from this deck.

Cons:

• Possible to Brick: Unlike its TCG counterpart, due to the nature of the format, DM can't exactly take advantage of so much deck-thinning and draw power and while some cards like the Spellbook engine would help with the cycling process a bit, they will always be setting you a turn behind and adding more additional cards to cycle through in the long run. A brick doesn't necessarily equate to your searchers and passing, it's more of the unplayable circumstances of drawing... all of the Dark Magicians and having no way of summoning them. Hence why we've got some backrow to fall back on and ways to cheat him out in the event of a crisis.
  
  
• Bond Between Teacher and Student: This particular list makes great use of Dark Magician Girl and cards concerning her (without playing the Magician Girl archetype of course) and as amazing as the cards surrounding her are, she herself is terrible to use. You'll be wanting to bin her whenever possible or simply control her when under gamestates like Magician's Combination. There's even a cheeky setup concerning Brain Controll (or Big Eye) and using her as Xyz material to go into Dhampir Sheridan. All of those applications aside, she (and her Signature Spell) aren't that great and don't feel that great to have until necessary for certain combos.
  
  
• Stat-Checked: If faced with too many monsters that are 3000 ATK/DEF or above you might run into a brick wall sometimes. You can tech in the Honests to get around this a bit better, but you'll need to hard draw those. Mahad can clear all things that are DARK and Apprentice can help the respective targets clear certain thresholds but most of the time those will be one use situations. Fortunately you can use Soul Servant to stack them from the GY to the top of deck for one final use.

With introductions over, let's get into the setups you'll want to seek seek more.

OPENERS

Thanks to all of the years of support this archetype has received it has gained a number of searchers and retroactive searchers to help boost its consistency and lines of play to be very reliable which is a massive boon when it comes to limited formats like this one. Generally, any starter will net you the same gamestate no matter what goes down; however, there are some combinations of 2 or more cards that do require a bit more setup.

• Manju & Senju: Opening one of these cards enables you to grab Illusion of Chaos (or Sauravis if you already have it) then search Magicians' Souls. Using Souls you'll want to setup your GY with either Mana to protect your plays going down the line or DM/DMG to establish them early and get them in rotation for the later stages of the game. Then you'll pivot into either Dharc or Lyna. With Dharc you can grab Magikuriboh and use it during that same battle phase (or main phase later) to summon a Dark M agician immediately, Witch of the Black Forest if you have particularly greedy setup lines to go for in future turns with fusion plays or revival, or simply Magician's Rod who is the best starter in the deck when combined with other cards in the strategy and it's not even close! As for Lyna, Witchcrafter Golem Aruru will be our primary find; however, Diviner of the Herald isn't particularly bad either. The reason why is below.
  
  
• Diviner of the Herald: Using its effect to send, we'll pitch Arc Light from our Extra Deck to make it a Level 6 tuner, then we'll use Arc Light to grab Illusion of Chaos from the deck. Using Illusion, we'll pick up Magicians' Souls and send the appropriate targets like within the Manju & Senju lines to the GY to summon it directly from the hand. Then we'll Synchro Summon itno Fortune Lady Every. This card being a Level 7 who revives itself and answers the board during the SP is very handy for Rank 7 lines and getting rid of pesky monsters. It's worth noting that her banish effect to bring herself back does come up in this deck so don't use it willy-nilly. Banishing Souls is fine, but everything else in this list definitely is not. Use it within moderation as her effect can be used even on turns where she wasn't sent to the GY since it checks during each of their End Phase's. If you happen to need Rod and have a usable S/T at your disposal, you can summon her back, then use that S/T to tribute her and add back the Magician's Rod at EP to start your turn with your primary searcher. Very handy indeed.
  
  
• Magician's Rod: This card probably has the highest ceiling regarding its uses since now, with Illusion of Chaos, it can search the entire archetype and its support including adding Dark Magician to the hand when necessary. You may also want to (if on the second turn or later) Link it off into Clara & Rushka so that during the opponent's turn, when you activate an S/T, you can tribute the link to add Rod back to hand. One line I like to particularly setup involves using it as fusion material for The Dark Magicians by grabbing Secrets of Dark Magic, that way in the event that the Fusion would be destroyed and I have a S/T I can use, I'd usually tribute away the Dark Magician girl to recycle Rod for next turn. You can also go for some pretty devastating Bond Between Teacher and Student setups when going second (or later in the game) to nuke your opponent's S/Ts or Monsters. It was this particular line of play that actually winded up getting Dark Burning Magic banned here. Oops.

The majority of the time you'll want to stick to opening with one of these cards but if you happen to find yourself opening things like just DM or ways to him, it's still fine to cycle your respective S/Ts and support him as necessary. He's still the star of the deck and it's important to make sure you keep up your advantage until you can snowball the game out of controll.

MIDGAME

This is where most games can end for you since the deck can swarm pretty decently after being setup or be rather controlling between Aruru and Mana being a devastating duo.

• Bystial Baldrake: This card challenges most strategies with just its D.D. Crow effect; however, also being able to bin Dark Magicians, Rods, or resolved Manju/Senjus comes in handy for its tribute cost while still representing a lot of pressure. Additionally, it's a Dragon for a potential Fusion play into Dragon Knights and finally, it is a Level 6 that can be used to make Sheridan or Wollow to completely turn the game on its head proactively rather than reactively. If you can only banish out of your GY, then Servant, Mahad, and the Ritual Package should be fine banishes without any notable lasting consequences. You lose 1 draw for banishing out Palladiums but that's a sacrifice you have to make sometimes.
  
  
• Eternal Soul: Don't flip this card too early without insurance, it immediately puts a target on itself and players usually try to remove it when its face-up every time. That said, it can revive DMs for free and search out your one-sided Heavy Storm whenever you want. Use it to secure a lead or establish one. The safest setup to use it under midgame is definitely when controlling The Dark Magicians fusion monster, since if Eternal Soul leaves, the fusion would be destroyed but still float into the master and student, ultimately not setting you too far behind.
  
  
• Soul Servant: This card's GY effect is rather potent and is virtually unrivaled when it comes to Unlimited power cards in Trinity Format. You'll usually be resolving it to draw two; however, with this build it's possible to draw up to four cards naturally from this effect- and we play TWO copies. The most important things to note about the stacking (and not searching) effect is that you can use it during the EP of your opponent's turn to rig your next draw and the fact that this card can stack cards from your GY to the top of the deck which is very, very potent in a limited format. Don't forget this as it might save you when piloting the deck!

Should the game not end at this point and you find yourself in a complex, mind-boggling gamestate then you're probably going to want one of the following closers.

LATEGAME & CLOSERS

• Dark Magician the Dragon Knight & Eternal Soul: This combination is really rough to deal with, especially since S/T removal is very limited in Trinity, so if this is established you have virtually won. DMtDK is treated as DM so it can be revived by Eternal Soul and is constantly under its protection, additionally, Eternal Soul is protected by DMtDK's continuous effect, making this a really rough situation to navigate for the opponent in most cases. Additionally, since DMtDK is treated as DM, it works with the field spell Magician's Salvation and Magician's Combination so even something like a DMG can represent DMtDK coming back over and over while protecting said cards in the process. This card is a monster and needs to be respected when properly established.
  
  
• Magician's Combination: Probably the most underrated support card this deck has at its disposal. You tag out your DM/DMG to their counterpart and negate any card or effect (just not the activation so no Damage Step shenanigans). Once the opponent has had enough and decides to blow up Combination, it even has a revenge effect to clear a card on their side of the field. You can also force this effect yourself with Timaeus the United Dragon and Magicians' Souls turning those plays into removal.
  
  
• Signature Move: Though these cards are often considered bad and I even think so most of the time myself, I cannot understate how potent their effects are when they resolve. In all of my history playtesting this deck in any iteration, the games in which the Signature Attacks of the duo have resolved have always resulted in my win. Whether that be the easily accessed Dark Magic Attack or the trickier to pull off Dark Burning Attack (though you can access it easier with Bond), the signature moves can really just blow away opponents regardless of their deck type and cut the game shorter than what they might have been expecting.

Since the lines from the archetype itself are rather consistent, the deck can be easy to get started with, but might take a bit to get used to and master; however, it's usability allows a great deal of customizability to cater to most tech choices like Dragonmaids or the legal Bystials to establish DMtDK easier or SPYRAL to do Master Plan setups with Magicians' Souls. Regardless, here's a handful of ideas just to throw your way should you aim to adjust this baseline into something more focused elsewhere:

Viability Boosters: Kashtira Monsters & Birth | Magician of Dark Illusion (more consistent with Runicks than its own archetype) | Bystials (more Dragon Knights and Rank 6s) | Protecting Spirit Loagaeth | Mana Dragon Zimitron (Runicks do the protection better, this is more so just to loop Servant) | Blazing Cartesia, the Virtuous | Rescue-ACE (You can summon Cavalry with like every hand and represent draws with DMs Fusion) | Witchcrafter

General Purpose: Magician of Chaos, & Chaos Form, Chicken Game, Destined Rivals, Traptrix Engine, Fiend Engine, Dragonmaid

I'm sure you might've noticed but this version of the build doesn't actually feature very much in the way of gameplan changes despite the modifications done to the main and Extra Deck. Just goes to show how potent the individual cards can be when it comes to promoting and establishing those wincons faster, or just outright being them by themselves. It does rub me the wrong way a bit, but there isn't much to be done about it besides adapt. Dark Magician is timeless and with more support coming in AGOV we're bound to adapt to an even more disgusting level as the card quality increases. Hopefully it just doesn't reach a point where the only Dark Magician cards a DM Deck will play are simply Souls and Illusion of Chaos.

50 Card Deck = 4 Points with 4p used.
1p Magician's Rod (Extra Copy)
1p Soul Servant (Extra Copy)
1p Witchcrafter Golem Aruru
1p Magikuriboh

Gloomy brooding aside, study up on your incantations and variant spells as this build is only a taste of a pretty compotently consistent version of the Dark Magician strategy. Chronicle Sorceress for the love of the Egyptian Gods, please come home.