Dark Magician
Generation 1:
Duel Monsters
User: Yugi Muto
Original Artwork:
Latest Artwork:
Here we go, probably the most iconic card in the game. When you think about Yu-Gi-Oh! this is the card that comes to mind. Yugi's Signature monster is here.
Dark Magician is a level 7, DARK, Spellcaster-type normal monster with 2500 ATK and 2100 DEF. No gimmicks no special abilities, what you see is what you get. "The ultimate wizard in terms of attack and defense".
In terms of design, Dark Magician's armor strikes me as something that I´ve never seen in any other media. It has a lot of uniqueness to it and is the trend setter for almost all "Magician" cards to come. When you see a Magician with that style of armor/staff, you know it's a Yu-Gi-Oh card. Another great element that makes the artwork so great is the Dark Magic circle behind him, the dark magic circle is present in almost all of the card's interpretations and gives a much needed "mystical" element to the art that I feel would be missing if the Dark Magician was there on his own. Which is the reason why I feel the
"Stone tablet" artwork is the weakest out of all the Dark Magician artworks. The circle is a much needed ingredient in making this card what it is.
The main problem with Dark Magician´s multiple interpretations is how inconsistently he is portrayed, purple armor one day, then red, blue, black anything goes, same goes for his skin and hair color. From a white purple haired man to a weird blonde zombie with green skin. It's just so inconsistent that I feel it diminishes the idea of him being THE Dark Magician, instead giving the feel that there's multiple Dark Magicians, I kinda hate that. Hilariously enough, the only artwork for this card that reflects the card's lore as an ancient egyptian brown skinned wizard is the one popularized for being an "Evil" version of the card.
The version wielded by the antagonist Arkana. Not a good look.
So yeah, while the original artwork was amazing, turning it into one of the cards with the most alternative artworks definetely works against it in my opinion.
As a card...It's sad to say that Dark Magician is not great...Requiring the tribute of 2 of your monsters to summon a 2500 ATK beater with no effects caused him to be immediately outclassed by "Summoned Skull" (Which only requires 1 tribute for the same ATK value) from the moment they were printed together for the first time in "Starter Deck: Yugi"
Fortunately Dark Magician is the single most supported card in the game with 15+ cards specifically stating "Dark Magician" as part of their effect. Dark Magician might not be amazing on his own, but he can definetely work together with other cards to form extremely powerful control plays that always keep a Dark Magician on your field.
Dark Magician also has the option to use the power of Fusion and Xyz summon to combine with other popular monsters and bring out powerful new forms.
Still, Dark Magician is not anywhere near meta-level sadly and it's mostly used as a casual deck, however it can definetely stand up against the most modern strategies and is widely beloved, to the point the cards in the deck are very pricey!
Now some trivia! Dark Magician is the card that started the tradition of having the anime protagonists all have 2500 ATK main cards. A tradition that has been somewhat broken by Gen 6 due to some unforeseen circumstances we´ll get to later.
Overall, a card deserving of being the face of the franchise, even if it hasn´t aged that well on it's own, it's fantastic design and continuous support more than makes up for it.
