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Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel

Dark Magician Deck List and Card Guide

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★Events: NIJISANJI Campaign | Duelist Cup
★Updates: 12/05 Maintenance | 12/05 Banlist
★Newly Released Card Packs:
┣ Secret Packs: Atonement's End | Fruits of the Sinful
┗ Selection Pack: The End of Guilt

Master Duel - Dark Magician Top Image
This is Dark Magician, a Control Deck in Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel featuring one of the most recognizable monsters in the card game's history. Check out the core deck list, key combos, how to play & beat as well as F2P or budget options!

Dark Magician Deck List

Main Deck: 42 Cards
Dark Magician Icon x2 Red-Eyes Black Dragon Icon x1 Magicians x3 Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring Icon x3 Magician x3
Mulcharmy Fuwalos Icon x3 Maxx "C" Icon x2 Dark Magician Girl Icon x1 Apprentice Illusion Magician Icon x1 Timaeus the United Dragon Icon x1
Illusion of Chaos Icon x3 Magician x3 Dark Magical Circle Icon x3 Soul Servant Icon x3 Preparation of Rites Icon x2
Called by the Grave Icon x1 Crossout Designator Icon x1 Magicalized Fusion Icon x1 Red-Eyes Fusion Icon x1 Secrets of Dark Magic Icon x1
The Eye of Timaeus Icon x1 Eternal Soul Icon x3 - - -
Extra Deck: 15 Cards
The Dark Magicians Icon x2 Dark Cavalry Icon x1 Dark Magician the Dragon Knight Icon x1 Master of Chaos Icon x1 Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon Icon x1
Quintet Magician Icon x1 Ebon High Magician Icon x1 Ebon Illusion Magician Icon x1 Red-Eyes Flare Metal Dragon Icon x1 Divine Arsenal AA-ZEUS - Sky Thunder Icon x1
Dharc the Dark Charmer, Gloomy Icon x1 I:P Masquerena Icon x1 Predaplant Verte Anaconda Icon x1 S:P Little Knight Icon x1 -

Dark Magician Breakdown

Alternate Cards for Dark Magician

MagicianMagician's Robe Magician's Robe is one way to get Dark Magician on the field as soon as possible, but you have to discard a Spell Card in order to trigger its effect. It can Special Summon itself back onto the field if the opponent uses a Spell or Trap, but this card is banished the next time it leaves the Field.
Palladium Oracle Mahad ImagePalladium Oracle Mahad Palladium Oracle Mahad is more of a situational monster, given that its effect makes it stronger against DARK monsters. When this card is drawn, this can immediately be Special Summoned after being revealed as part of its effect. As a floating effect, it can Special Summon a Dark Magician from anywhere should it be destroyed by battle or card effect.
Primite Engine The Primite Engine actually does have synergy with Dark Magician, given that the iconic monster is a Normal Monster Card. The usual set up with Primite Lordly Lode can Special Summon one on the field, while setting up a powerful negate in Primite Drillbeam, and all it takes is one Normal Summon of Primite Dragon Ether Beryl.
Primite Dragon Ether Beryl Primite Lordly Lode Primite Drillbeam
Bystial Engine With the unbanning of Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon, this incentivizes players to run more Dragon-centric Decks to add synergy as Fusion Material. The Bystial Dragons are crucial here, being additional bodies for free by banishing a LIGHT or DARK monster from either GY. Branded Regained lets them constantly revive the Bystial Dragons from said GY if the opponent does a Special Summon, and you get a free draw once per turn if a LIGHT/DARK monster is banished!
Bystial Magnamhut Bystial Druiswurm Branded Regained

Dark Magician Deck Guide: How to Play

Dark Magician Play Style Tips
Search with Illusion of Chaos Engine
Summon Dark Magician with Magical Circle
Fusion Summon with Timaeus
Protect Eternal Soul at all costs
When in Doubt, Go Verte into Dark Dragoon

Search with Illusion of Chaos Engine

The Illusion of Chaos Engine allows the Deck to be far more consistent with its card advantage, and can be used as material for certain boss monsters. Though players can bring out the monster in a Ritual Summon, its ability to get cards from the Deck just by revealing itself is too potent to not use most of the time.

Ideally, you want to use Illusion of Chaos to search Magicians' Souls, then use Soul Servant to place the former on the top of the Deck. You then send the top card of the Deck to the GY, which in this case is Illusion of Chaos, to Special Summon Magicians' Souls, which can then give you 2 draws by sending Spells or Traps on hand or field to the GY.

Summon Dark Magician with Magical Circle

While Dark Magician is not the strongest monster in the entire Deck, it is the key monster the entire Deck is built around. Normally it is used as fodder for Fusion Summons as part of the required materials, but you also want to summon it on the field whenever you can while you have Dark Magical Circle active on your field.

Dark Magical Circle's effect triggers once per turn, and it banishes a card from the field if Dark Magician is summoned. Magician's Salvation helps in summoning the Normal Monster to the field whenever you summon a different monster with the name Dark Magician.

Fusion Summon with Timaeus

Timaeus the United Dragon is easy to summon from the hand, but what gives its value is its ability to conduct a Fusion Summon without the use of a Fusion Spell on hand. If you do not have Secrets of Dark Magic or Magicalized Fusion on hand, Timaeus will be enough.

It can also use itself as material to Fusion Summon Dark Magician the Dragon Knight, but ideally you want to use this effect for Master of Chaos or The Dark Magicians.

Protect Eternal Soul at all costs

Eternal Soul is the sole key Trap Card for the Dark Magician Deck. It lets you Special Summon a Dark Magician from the hand or GY once per turn. This Trap Card also acts as protection, as while it is active, all monsters with the Dark Magician name are immune to the opponent's card effects.

However, if this card leaves the field other than being shuffled into the Deck (as it does not activate its effect from there), your field is essentially wiped. Try not to let that happen by setting up protection, like the effect of Dark Magician the Dragon Knight and Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon.

When in Doubt, Go Verte into Dark Dragoon

If you feel like you have one more summon to do, or all other options have been denied, you can always use 2 Effect monsters as material to Link Summon Predaplant Verte Anaconda.

Use its effect to send Red-Eyes Fusion to the GY and copy its effect, where you send a copy of Dark Magician and Red-Eyes Black Dragon from Deck to GY to Fusion Summon Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon.

Budget Dark Magician: F2P Friendly Options

Lower Rarity Replacements

Droll & Lock Bird ImageDroll & Lock Bird Somewhat a budget Ash Blossom & Joyous Summer but with its own downsides. You can trigger its effect whenever a card is added to your opponent's hand, sending it to the GY, stopping any and all new cards to be added to both player's hand for that turn.
Twin Twisters ImageTwin Twisters Another quick spell that can aid in taking down back row cards. Works in lieu of having Solemn Judgement.
Transcode Talker ImageTranscode Talker Transcode Talker can be used in lieu of Accesscode Talker in a pinch. Both it and the cards it's linked to get an additional 500 ATK.
Prohibition ImageProhibition A budget Called by the Grave as a Continuous Spell. However, its may be more useful in some ways as it is not limited to just monster cards, and the card remains unable to be used until this Continuous Spell leaves the field.

How to Beat Dark Magician

Tips in Beating Dark Magician Decks
Remove Eternal Soul
Stop Any Search Attempts
Limit Dark Magician's Use of Spells
Best Decks to Use Against Dark Magician
Best Cards to Use Against Dark Magician

Remove Eternal Soul

Eternal Soul made it really easy to Special Summon Dark Magician, even on its opponent's turn. Pair that with Dark Magical Circle, and its a free banish of your cards if Dark Magician hits the field.

At all costs, you should remove Eternal Soul from the field and trigger its self-nuke effect. Cards like Harpie's Feather Duster, Lightning Storm or Heavy Storm should do the trick. Keep in mind that it only gets harder once some the boss monsters are on the field to protect it, like Dark Magician the Dragon Knight's protection effect or Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon's omni-negate.

Stop Any Search Attempts

Compared to other archetypes, Dark Magician Decks often do not have reliable searchers to get their key cards on hand as soon as possible. The Illusion of Chaos Engine may provide some sense of card advantage in pitching two unusable cards for draws, but outside of that it is far slower compared to other Decks.

A well-timed search stopper like Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring or Droll & Lock Bird should prevent the Dark Magician Deck from adding to the hand.

Limit Dark Magician's Use of Spells

Dark Magician relies a little too heavily on the usage of Spell Cards to get to their needed cards and start their combos. Try to set up counters that focuses on denying the activation of Spell Cards.

For those that can do Rank 8 Xyz summons, Number 38: Hope Harbinger Dragon Titanic Galaxy is a classic. Diabellze the Original Sinkeeper forces the opponent to Set Spell Cards before activating them, giving you enough time to pop them quickly with card destruction like Mystical Space Typhoon.

Best Decks to Use Against Dark Magician

Branded Despia Branded Despia
Branded Despia is strong all around, both defensively and offensively, with multiple floating effects that can disrupt a Dark Magician Deck. The most troublesome is its punishing the use of multiple effects, through the effect of Masquerade the Blazing Dragon.
Runick Control Runick
Runick can cause problems for Dark Magicians, banishing their cards straight from the Deck if they manage to get the right cards and start the Duel at Turn 1. Take note that Dark Magicians do not get any benfit having cards banished instead of being sent to the Graveyard.
Gravekeepers :Gravekeepers
The original control archetype, Gravekeepers protect and lock down the Graveyard. Especially with its signature Field Spell, Necrovalley, no cards can exit the GY once sent there, and effects that can be activated there are negated so long as the Field Spell is active.

Best Cards to Tech Against Dark Magician

Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring ImageAsh Blossom & Joyous Spring One of the main goals of this Deck is to search out and/or Special Summon Dark Magician and get it onto the field as soon as possible. Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring will help stop the acceleration of this Deck, and the bad thing is that just about every deck runs this hand trap.
Super Polymerization ImageSuper Polymerization Most of the monsters in this Deck have the DARK Affinity on them, which is one of the most represented Elements in the game. With this in mind, Super Polymerization has become a very popular counter against any DARK-heavy Decks, especially with one of the most popular Extra Deck monsters being Starving Venom Fusion Dragon.
Anti-Spell Fragrance ImageAnti-Spell Fragrance True to a Spellcaster's roots, a Dark Magician Deck is rather reliant on Spell Cards to continue combos. Stopping them at any point will derail any chance for them to get to their win condition. Anti-Spell Fragrance is a very popular counter against Spell Card-heavy Decks, since players cannot activate their Spells immediately, and have to Set them first, making them prime targets.
Macro Cosmos ImageMacro Cosmos A Dark Magician Deck treats the Graveyard as a secondary resource. The last thing a Spell Card or a Dark Magician wants in a Duel is to end up being Banished. Macro Cosmos banishes any card that were supposed to go to the GY, so long as this card is face-up and active on the field.

Related Packs to Dark Magician

Secret and Selection Packs

Darkest Magics Inevitability of Chaos
Knowledge of the Mythlords Legacy Pack
Master Pack Soldiers from the Storm
Space-Time Transcendents Star-Studded Futures
The Cerise in the Ebony Vortex of Magic

Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel Related Guides

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Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel Deck Archetypes

Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel Decks

Deck Tier List: Best Decks for Season 48

List of All Covered Decks

World Champion Decks

2024 World Champions: Team 7
Horus Tearlaments Yubel Fire King Snake-Eyes
Salamangreat Purrely Vanquish Soul
2025 World Champions: Ragnarok
Atlantean Mermail Maliss Ritual Beast
Ryzeal Goblin Biker Memento Millennium Fiendsmith Snake-Eyes

Decks Used in Worlds 2024

Decks Used By All Teams in Worlds 2024
snipehunters CER Hero's Future
BOTB MYYGO Thank Love
CER 2 x FCG BRAZ IL Maxx “Yee”
Double Noir Rogue Ruler

Aggro Decks

List of All Aggro Decks
D/D/D Aggro Code Talker / Prank Kids Zoodiac
Blue-Eyes Virtual World SPYRAL Control
Toon Kingdom Red-Eyes Blue-Eyes
Zoodiac Prank-Kids Zoodiac Tri-Brigade
Pure Tri-Brigade Ancient Gear Dragonmaid
Tri-Brigade Lyrilusc (Bird Up) Dinosaur Raidraptor
HERO Dragon Link Despia
Magikey Adamancipator Black Luster Soldier
Pendulum Magician Stardust Dragon Tenyi Swordsoul
Cyberdark @Ignister Cyber Dragon
The Winged Dragon of Ra Despian Predaplant Despia Darklord
Odd-Eyes Performapal Numeron FTK Six Samurai
ABC Trickstar Windwitch Blackwings
Fluffal Cupid Pitch Turbo Lunalight
Vampire Ultra Athletes Thunder Dragon
Z-ARC Pendulum Magician Adventurer Rose Dragon Tenyi Adventurer P.U.N.K.
Suship Pure D/D/D Numeron Egyptian Gods
Galaxy Eyes OTK Borrelend Dragon Link Vaylantz
Beetrooper Icejade Ra Therion ABC
Libromancer Mathmech Spright Evil☆Twin
Spright Tri-Brigade Ishizu Chaos Slifer Arcana Knights
Gaia OTK Vernusylph Ancient Warriors
Ghoti Springans 8-Axis Gizmek Orochi
Danger! Dark World Mikanko Scareclaw Kashtira
Zombie World P.U.N.K. Hungry Burger Nouvelles Obelisk the Tormentor
Mannadium Gate Guardian Gold Pride P.U.N.K.
Superheavy Samurai Nemleria Dragon Rulers
Snake-Eye T.G. Diabellstar Skull Servant
Kaiju Resonators Earthbound
Malefic Kozmo Armored Xyz Shark
Unchained Battlin' Boxer Chimera Illusion
Fire King Snake-Eyes Vaalmonica Memento
Horus Tearlaments Centur-Ion Dragon Master Magia
Ice Barrier Infernoid Lightsworn
Ogdoadic Ragnaraika Genex Tenpai Dragon
Goblin Biker Infernoble Armed Dragon
Flame Swordsman Melodious Gimmick Puppet
Ashened White Forest Mekk-Knight
Fiendsmith Snake-Eyes White Forest Azamina Millennium
Blue-Eyes White Dragon ABC-XYZ Allure Queen
Primite Blue-Eyes Primite Red-Eyes Amazoness
Infernity Atlantean Mermail Evil HERO Fiendsmith
Fiendsmith Yubel Maliss Arcana Force
Jurrac Fabled Battlewasp
Invoked Onomat Utopia -

Control Decks

List of All Control Decks
Invoked Shaddoll Eldlich Control Drytron Fairy
True Draco Dark Magician Traptrix
Phantom Knights Madolche Relinquished
P.U.N.K. DPE Scythe Evil★Twin
Paleozoic Frog Salamangreat Gravekeepers
Monarch Tellarknight Agent
Exosisters Darklord Plunder Patrol
Rikka Floowandereeze Adventurer Phantom Knights
Dinomoprhia Tri-Brigade Gladiator Beast Adventurer Witchcrafter
Dark Magician Gravekeeper Branded Tri-Brigade Branded Despia
Zombie Vampire Blue-Eyes Jet Dragon Spellbook
Branded Cyber Dragon Branded Zombies Pure Scareclaw
Dinomorphia Runick Labrynth
Harpies Buster Blader Umi Control
Endymion Nekroz Spright
Spright Runick Ishizu Runick Branded Ishizu
Crystal Beasts Orcust Altergeist
Witchcrafter Subterror Krawler Mayakashi
Ishizu Tearlaments Evilswarm Melffy Spright
Bystial Branded Dogmatika Bystial Naturia Runick
Generaiders Kashtira Purrely
Ninja Rescue-ACE Gishki Spright
Prediction Princess Vanquish Soul Jinzo
Egyptian God Ojama Control Aromage
Ghostrick Kuriboh Anti-Meta Stun
Runick Spright Fur Hire Horus Control Toy Box Dark Magician
Yubel Voiceless Voice Rikka Ragnraika
Ritual Beast Shining Sarcophagus Fiendsmith Magical Musketeer
Galaxy-Eyes Tachyon Red-Eyes Metalmorph Fiendsmith Kashtira
Argostars Mimighoul Crystron
Ryzeal Ryu-Ge Clear World
Ryu-Ge Voiceless Voice Regenesis Heraldic Beasts
Mitsurugi Mitsurugi Ryzeal Ancient Fairy Dragon
Orcust Mitsurugi - -

Burn Decks

List of All Burn Decks
Red-Eyes Burn Timelord Burn Chain Burn
D.D. Dynamite Igknight OTK Cubic
Dinosaur Bishbaalkin FTK Volcanic Snake-Eyes Transaction Rollback Burn

Alt-Win Decks

List of All Alternate Win Decks
Crooked Cook Exodia Flower Cardian Exodia Treasure Panda Exodia
Suicide Defense OTK

All Budget Decks

List of All Budget Deck Guides
Budget Shark Xyz Budget Eldlich Budget Hippo Turbo
Budget Despia Budget F.A. Metalfoes Budget Blue-Eyes White Dragon
Budget Chain Burn Budget Majespecter Budget Yosenju
Budget Flower Cardian Budget True Draco Budget Amorphage
Budget Ishizu Tearlaments

Best Cards for Decks

Lists of Best Cards for Deck Building
Best Staple Cards Best Searchers Best Hand Traps
Best Board Wipes Best Negates Best Fusion Monsters
Best Synchro Monsters Best Xyz Monsters Best Link Monsters
Best Structure Decks Best Decks to Go 1st or 2nd

Comment

10 Anonymous Anonymous over 3 years

The description is a bit misleading, unless I am missing something you can't link summon selene with only DM and effect veiler, you would have to use them to link summon a link 2 monster then revive DM then summon selene use the effect to summon a spellcaster and then summon accesscode talker

9 Game8: Master Duel Team Game8: Master Duel Team@Game8 almost 4 years

Hi Anonymous, There seems to be an issue. We'll get it fixed ASAP, but for your reference, the card is Magicians' Combination. Hope this helps!

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