I just want to give [Creation Magician] some praise.

[Blake]

Pendulum Effect: Once per turn: You can target 1 Xyz Monster you control and 1 Level 5 or higher monster you control; the Rank of that Xyz Monster becomes the same as the Level of that Level 5 or higher monster, until the end of this turn. If you control more cards than your opponent, this card's Pendulum Scale becomes 4.
Monster Effect: Your opponent takes no battle damage from attacks involving this card. Once per turn: You can target 1 other monster on the field; this card's ATK becomes that monster's, until the end of this turn.

Yuzu Rune-Eyes Creation Magician is the best designed generic pendulum by far. Maybe best designed pendulum in general.
 
While making pendulums vanillas makes more sense from the fact they're free fodder, this can only go so far. Just with Vanillas in the rest of the game, Vanilla Pendulums should exist in small amounts, not the amount we have. Sure, they can miss one effect or the other, but we really shouldn't have more than 1 Flash Knight-like card for high and low, each.
 
Vanillas are cards that should set a standard, such as Chillwind Yeti in Hearthstone. They should not be overly commonplace, as they are generally worse designs than monsters with effects, at least once you get past the few you should have in the game. Just very easy to oversaturate with them.
 
Regardless of the point on normal monster/pendulum design, I want to move onto creation magician herself.
 
We know she's a scale 8, which gives her a very large range of summoning due to her generic nature, so let's start with her Pendulum restriction:

If you control more cards than your opponent, this card's Pendulum Scale becomes 4.

 

At first, I thought this was an Exciton clause when I first skimmed it, but while playing around with her due to YGOhack, I was pleasantly surprised to see this restriction.
 
This means you can't Pendulum Summon with her T1. Or when you have heavy backrow. Or when you're winning, normally.
 
She's an easily choreographed comeback/early setup card, without enabling you to use her for unfair T1 setups without jumping through hoops. She lets you take advantage of the Pendulum mechanic, but only if you've put due time into going ham with her.
 
And if you go second/have less setup than the opp... You get an 8 scale to get you into the game. All in all, that's completely fair. Too fair for the gamestate, most likely, but a very fair design choice.

Her Pendulum Effect is also important to note:

Once per turn: You can target 1 Xyz Monster you control and 1 Level 5 or higher monster you control; the Rank of that Xyz Monster becomes the same as the Level of that Level 5 or higher monster, until the end of this turn.

 

It's good, but it's not too good, because it only works as a piece of a combo. That combo can be a Rank-Up-Magic, which she can help to mitigate the cost of, Destruction Magician, Ptolemaios (good luck getting that to happen), or something of those sorts. She is not good in a vacuum, effect-wise, but in a certain environment. While that environment can give you an edge, it's likely nothing game breaking, just a bit of a push into the gamestate. Bar destruction, the most notable part would probably be Astral Forcing into something else, which seems like it could be cute.

But the point remains that it is just good enough. Not too good. It's actually just strong enough in cute scenarios, and irrelevant otherwise, essentially making her have a restricted 8 scale and nothing else.

Finally, the monster effect:

Your opponent takes no battle damage from attacks involving this card. Once per turn: You can target 1 other monster on the field; this card's ATK becomes that monster's, until the end of this turn.

 

She can't deal damage, so she cannot directly destroy the opponent. She can create power to fight with, but she cannot bring true destruction.

Immediate flavor aside, this isn't a bad effect. You can PS her from the hand/ED or NS her for a bit of slow battle removal, but it's neither too strong or TOO weak. It's a little weak, but not so much so that it's irrelevant. Certainly better than a vanilla, in most cases, as it lets you remove threats (In theory, Djinn-Nekroz come to mind, though Decisive can fuck that up) without giving up too much or being too strong in her own right.

Then let's go back to the fact that she looks like Yuzu and she's Yuya's card (Note: Destruction resembles Yuya/Yuto and Beast-Eyes slightly, or so most people seem to think)... She supports Dark Rebellion, Odd-Eyes (and Rune-Eyes, considering type mostly), AND Clear Wing.

For Dark Rebellion, she's a Level 4. For Odd-Eyes, she's a scale 8. For Clear Wing, he can nom her in order to get +5, akin to Shave Boomerang's usage (albeit for +2K) in the anime. She can also help to clear the way for the dragons to go in for the kill, as all of them are wont to do, by removing another big threat (Odd-Eyes)/letting them hit directly (Dark Rebellion/Clear Wing).

Her flavor is that she won't let you go ham just because you want to, but she'll certainly support you, and try to do it well.

All in all, this is a very well designed card in absolutely every aspect, from stats, to level, to effects, to restrictions, to scale. Everything was one extremely well, and I just appreciate seeing a well designed card like this come out, considering what we've come to expect.

[玄魔の王]

Can I just appreciate the irony that such a well-designed cards supports several monsters that are NOT well-designed in the slightest? It actually works really well with Yuya and Yuzu's dynamic, since she's got her head on straight while he's an emotional wreck under that laughing exterior.

[heraldry_lord]

So...what do you think about Destruction Magician?

[Blake]

So...what do you think about Destruction Magician?

undecided

 

mostly because that is a strange effect that has a lot of possible implications on the gamestate as a semi-generic spell.

 

I'd say it's comparable to a weird rank-up-magic that's less gimmicky for more costly and continuous.

 

summoning it is cute when you can lead into allowing a second copy of itself to go OERD-ham

[Jord200]

I'm just glad we got more Magician Pendulums. Its a bonus that this one is good.

[Toffee.]

You can do some pretty dumb moves with this card.
like, say you made Gigant X, and used that to search Gearframe, to which, the later was used to search Fortress. This card could turn Gigant into your other Level 7 to make Big Eye/etc.
Not optimal or anything, but it's a possibility.

It actually works really well with Yuya and Yuzu's dynamic, since she's got her head on straight while he's an emotional wreck under that laughing exterior.

Similar to Rain and Domon