Yu-Gi-Oh's Dark Magician archetype is one of the oldest in the game, so of course, it has got plenty of cards. Somehow, Dark Magician cards from Duel Monsters are still being made, with some of these new cards being based on a series that’s two decades old. More recently, Dark Magician got quite a bit of support in the "Legendary Duelist: Magical Hero" set, making them decent if one of the most expensive decks on the market.
Though Dark Magician is a fun deck anyone can play and pretend they’re secretly Yugi Muto (it’s cool, every duelist has done it once), plenty of its monsters, traps, and spells are absolutely terrible.
10 DARK ERADICATOR WARLOCK
Dark Eradicator Warlock was actually rather cool at one point, and its art is boss – it’s the Dark Magician that’s fed up with all the nonsense. It can only be Special Summoned by tributing a Dark Magician on the field, which is a problem, but its effect makes up for it.
Every time a Normal Spell is activated, the opponent takes 1000 damage after it resolves. That’d be amazing, but there are so many better ways to use Dark Magician than this. Still, it wouldn’t take much to make this card go from mediocre to awesome so it’s at the bottom.
9 SKILLED DARK MAGICIAN
Skilled Dark Magician is great if talking about straightforward monster stats, as it’s got 1900 ATK and 1700 DEF. But it relies on an ancient mechanic like Spell Counters, which doesn’t work outside of Endymion.
Each time a spell card is activated, place a spell counter on the card. If it gets three spell counters, Skilled Dark Magician tributes itself to Special Summon a Dark Magician card from the hand, deck, or graveyard. There are different things which could’ve made this card better – it should’ve just allowed players to Special Summon Dark Magician without getting rid of itself, or the spell counters should’ve offered protection of some sort.
8 DARK MAGICIAN KNIGHT
A Level 7 monster with 2500 ATK and 2100 DEF, this card should have been the retraining of Dark Magician players were looking for. In actuality, Dark Magician Knight is a card that can only be summoned by using the card “Knight’s Title,” which involves tributing a Dark Magician on the field to Special Summon Dark Magician Knight from the hand, deck, or graveyard.
When summoned, the player can target a card on the field and destroy it, which is the least Dark Magician Knight can do, but that’s far too much set up for the reward given.
7 SAGE'S STONE
This card is useful for all this Dark Magician support that needs Dark Magician Girl. It can only be activated if the player controls a face-up Dark Magician Girl, as Sage's Stone can then Special Summon one “Dark Magician” from their hand or deck.
Therefore, the player has to first find a way to Special Summon Dark Magician Girl, a Level 6 monster. Assuming this card is not negated, the player can then get Dark Magician. All this work to control two monsters that don’t have an effect and aren’t that strong?
6 DARK MAGIC TWIN BURST
This card is the epitome of “but why though?” It can target a Dark Magician on the field, then make it gain ATK equal to the total ATK of all the Dark Magician Girls on the field and in the graveyard.
Basically, Dark Magic Twin Burst makes your Dark Magician monster gigantic...but why? So much of the Dark Magician deck is about destroying or banishing a monster before it can actually get to the battle phase. Why does Dark Magician ever need to gain a bunch of ATK points? Plus, Dark Magician Girl is essentially its own deck now.
5 DARK BURNING MAGIC
What happens when a player doesn’t read the entire text. A quick play spell that activates when the player controls monsters whose original names are “Dark Magician” and “Dark Magician Girl,” destroying all cards their opponent controls. That’s an incredibly powerful effect but requires too specific a scenario.
It’s quick to play, almost to allow it to be usable on the opponent’s turn, but that requires the player to have both Dark Magician and Dark Magician not merely in the deck, but on the field. Dark Burning Magic is useless without both, and it takes three cards to essentially board wipe.
4 THOUSAND KNIVES
A normal spell usable if the player controls a face-up Dark Magician monster, Thousand Knives destroys a monster the opponent controls. This is pretty impressive since it is non-targeting destruction, meaning Thousand Knives can get over a lot of potential decks.
It can also be searched out because it has “Dark Magician” in its text. But it doesn’t do nearly enough for its requirements and doesn’t work if the player doesn’t have a face-up Dark Magician card.
3 MAGICIAN OF BLACK CHAOS
Let’s not get this confused with Dark Magician of Chaos, which was actually so good at one point the card was on the Forbidden List. Magician of Black Chaos is a ritual card summoned through Dark Magic Ritual. It’s a card that can only be used to Ritual Summon Magician of Black Chaos and requires tributes from the hand or field with total levels equaling 8 or more.
Rituals are bad in a lot of situations because they require the player to spend multiple cards to summon one card. How can we make that worse? By summoning one card that has no effect.
2 DARK FLARE KNIGHT
A fusion of Dark Magician and Flame Swordsman, two cards that would never be in the same deck together unless they were being used to summon this card. The upside is that the player never takes battle damage when this card is involved, which offsets the fact that it’s got weaker stats than Dark Magician.
When Dark Flare Knight is destroyed and sent to the graveyard, the player can Special Summon Mirage Knight from the hand or deck, which is a monster that can inflict 2800 damage one time, then it banishes itself during the End Phase. Terrible.
1 DARK SAGE
This might be one of the most worthless cards ever. The player has to have Dark Magician on the field, use Time Wizard’s effect, call the coin flip correctly, and then they can summon Dark Sage? Then the card has 2800 ATK, 3200 DEF, and can add a spell card from the deck to the hand.
Who cares? All these resources wasted to do something literally any other deck can do just for existing. This card only has a 50-50 chance of being summoned, which makes it 100 percent useless.