Dark Magician support

[Scarman3317]

(I couldn't find the picture that I modified for the image of this card. Still, all the credits go to the original artist(s).)

Incarnation of Darkness
Continuous Spell Card
This card's name becomes "Dark Magician" while in the Deck.
During each player's turn, when you activate a Continuous Spell/Trap card, Special Summon this card from your Spell & Trap Zone as a Normal Monster (Spellcaster-Type/DARK/Level 7/ATK 2500/DEF 2100). (This card is still a Spell Card.)
During the End Phase: If this card is in your Main Monster Zone, place this card in your Spell & Trap Zone as a Continuous Spell.

With this Dark Magician support card I wanted to explore a concept for Spells that would mirror that of Trap monsters, as well as a name clause that's limited to the Deck, and therefore applies when selecting cards in it.

[gmaster1991]

The first problem with this is the fact that it's a Dark Magician in the Deck...which means it's subject to the "maximum of 3 copies" rule. One copy of this means only two actual Dark Magicians in your Deck when building it.

My second problem is that it doesn't seem to add anything to the archetype. It can summon itself over and over again to keep banishing cards with Dark Magical Circle...but so can Eternal Soul. It could be used with Eternal Soul to basically have two Dark Magicians for a Link or Xyz Summon...but so can Magicians' Souls, which also thins your Deck. The kicker is that the effect isn't even optional. You HAVE to summon it when you activate a Continuous Spell/Trap Card, so you can't pick when you might want to summon a Dark Magician and potentially banish a key card with Dark Magical Circle (which Eternal Soul also does).

This needs to be completely reworked, plain and simple. If I were to offer a suggestion with the card art, I'd say this could be more geared toward Magician of Black Chaos. Maybe this could be changed into a Dark Magician Ritual support card instead?

[Scarman3317]

8 hours ago, gmaster1991 said:

The first problem with this is the fact that it's a Dark Magician in the Deck...which means it's subject to the "maximum of 3 copies" rule. One copy of this means only two actual Dark Magicians in your Deck when building it.

My second problem is that it doesn't seem to add anything to the archetype. It can summon itself over and over again to keep banishing cards with Dark Magical Circle...but so can Eternal Soul. It could be used with Eternal Soul to basically have two Dark Magicians for a Link or Xyz Summon...but so can Magicians' Souls, which also thins your Deck. The kicker is that the effect isn't even optional. You HAVE to summon it when you activate a Continuous Spell/Trap Card, so you can't pick when you might want to summon a Dark Magician and potentially banish a key card with Dark Magical Circle (which Eternal Soul also does).

This needs to be completely reworked, plain and simple. If I were to offer a suggestion with the card art, I'd say this could be more geared toward Magician of Black Chaos. Maybe this could be changed into a Dark Magician Ritual support card instead?

I must say, I did not know that the card would count as a Dark Magician even when deckbuilding.
If the wording is the problem, I could rewrite the effect to be a facultative name replacement (something like: "If a card or effect has you choose a "Dark Magician" in your Deck, you can choose this card instead").
I disagree that the card doesn't help the Deck at all, since not only it serves as fodder for easy Link and Xyz summons, but it also increases the firepower of the Deck in a quick and consistent manner (respectively by virtue of not being a Trap, and being searchable with Magician's Rod and Illusion Magic, and pickable by Dark Magician Circle).
Regardless, I can definitely make the summoning effect optional.
I might cosider creating another card as support for (Dark) Magician of Chaos decks, but I don't think it's efficient to completely rework this card instead.

[gmaster1991]

9 hours ago, Scarman3317 said:

I must say, I did not know that the card would count as a Dark Magician even when deckbuilding.
If the wording is the problem, I could rewrite the effect to be a facultative name replacement (something like: "If a card or effect has you choose a "Dark Magician" in your Deck, you can choose this card instead").
I disagree that the card doesn't help the Deck at all, since not only it serves as fodder for easy Link and Xyz summons, but it also increases the firepower of the Deck in a quick and consistent manner (respectively by virtue of not being a Trap, and being searchable with Magician's Rod and Illusion Magic, and pickable by Dark Magician Circle).
Regardless, I can definitely make the summoning effect optional.
I might cosider creating another card as support for (Dark) Magician of Chaos decks, but I don't think it's efficient to completely rework this card instead.

When I say "doesn't help the Deck", I really mean "players wouldn't pick this over other Dark Magician support cards." There are only so many openings for a 40-card Deck, and as far as any competitive Dark Magician Deck goes, Dark Magician, Apprentice Illusion Magician, Magician's Rod, Magicians' Souls, Faithful Servant, Eternal Soul, and Dark Magical Circle, are all usually 3-ofs. That's 21 cards just like that, and that doesn't even cover the staples like Ash Blossom or Monster Reborn, or even other Dark Magician support cards that would go in the Deck. Where would this card fit?

[Horu]

I would actually like the card if it counted as DM or MoBC in the grave so can serve as DMG support. But taking up my DM/MoBC slot in the deck is really just annoying imo.

[Scarman3317]

On 12/31/2019 at 7:43 PM, gmaster1991 said:

When I say "doesn't help the Deck", I really mean "players wouldn't pick this over other Dark Magician support cards." There are only so many openings for a 40-card Deck, and as far as any competitive Dark Magician Deck goes, Dark Magician, Apprentice Illusion Magician, Magician's Rod, Magicians' Souls, Faithful Servant, Eternal Soul, and Dark Magical Circle, are all usually 3-ofs. That's 21 cards just like that, and that doesn't even cover the staples like Ash Blossom or Monster Reborn, or even other Dark Magician support cards that would go in the Deck. Where would this card fit?

Well, I see that these decks often run some kind of engine (some time ago Spellbooks were very popular, for example), even sacrificing power cards like Monster Reborn itself. So I think that there is room for this card, provided that it actually serves a purpose.

The thing is, it seems to me that DM decks do not have any real power play, and to solve that problem I was thinking of synergies, with Illusion Magic more specifically. Would it change anything if it read "when you activate a Continuous Spell/Trap card or its effect"?

On 12/31/2019 at 9:03 PM, Horu Ishayuki said:

I would actually like the card if it counted as DM or MoBC in the grave so can serve as DMG support. But taking up my DM/MoBC slot in the deck is really just annoying imo.

Well, that can be easily solved, I think (see my previous post for that).

While flavorful I do not think that DMG or MoBC builds are exactly the most competitive; Graveyard synergy can definitely be implemented, though. I'm but worried: would that not be too powerful, especially considering the other change (see my reply to gmaster 1991 in this post) that I'm considering to make?
I could have to make the Incarnations not able to attack, not that that's strictly necessary.

[Horu]

12 minutes ago, Scarman3317 said:

Well, I see that these decks often run some kind of engine (some time ago Spellbooks were very popular, for example), even sacrificing power cards like Monster Reborn itself. So I think that there is room for this card, provided that it actually serves a purpose.

The thing is, it seems to me that DM decks do not have any real power play, and to solve that problem I was thinking of synergies, with Illusion Magic more specifically. Would it change anything if it read "when you activate a Continuous Spell/Trap card or its effect"?

Well, that can be easily solved, I think (see my previous post for that).

While flavorful I do not think that DMG or MoBC builds are exactly the most competitive; Graveyard synergy can definitely be implemented, though. I'm but worried: would that not be too powerful, especially considering the other change (see my reply to gmaster 1991 in this post) that I'm considering to make?
I could have to make the Incarnations not able to attack, not that that's strictly necessary.

Well, think about it like this. For the card's that require DM to be in grave to work, I feel being able to have up to 3 DMs or MoBCs in the grave ready to summon at any given moment would be amazing. Although, if I was controlling the list, I'd probably leave this at 2 regardless of what monster it acted as. I just hand/field/grave synergy is more important than deck synergy. If it acts as DM/MoBC in the deck, it takes up that monster slot that could be used for a real DM/MoBC. But yeah, getting a free magician everytime a continuous card is played would be nice and it really wouldn't affect DMG all that much. The thing is that most DM support tends to synergize with DMG on some level. Also, it's nice to have that 1 tribute monster just lingering in your deck that can potentially hit 3000+ on summon. Generally, when it comes to raw ATK, DMG would be the hardest hitter for any deck running this card.

[Scarman3317]

10 hours ago, Horu Ishayuki said:

Well, think about it like this. For the card's that require DM to be in grave to work, I feel being able to have up to 3 DMs or MoBCs in the grave ready to summon at any given moment would be amazing. Although, if I was controlling the list, I'd probably leave this at 2 regardless of what monster it acted as. I just hand/field/grave synergy is more important than deck synergy. If it acts as DM/MoBC in the deck, it takes up that monster slot that could be used for a real DM/MoBC. But yeah, getting a free magician everytime a continuous card is played would be nice and it really wouldn't affect DMG all that much. The thing is that most DM support tends to synergize with DMG on some level. Also, it's nice to have that 1 tribute monster just lingering in your deck that can potentially hit 3000+ on summon. Generally, when it comes to raw ATK, DMG would be the hardest hitter for any deck running this card.

I see where you're coming from. I tried reworking the card a bit, although I couldn't find standardized language for the first effect. See if you like it better:

Incarnation of Darkness
Continuous Spell Card
Cards and effects count this card as "Dark Magician".
When you activate a Continuous Spell/Trap card or its effect, you can Special Summon this card from your Spell & Trap Zone as a Normal Monster (Spellcaster-Type/DARK/Level 7/ATK 2500/DEF 2100), but it cannot attack. (This card is still a Spell Card.)
During the End Phase: If this card is in your Main Monster Zone, place this card in your Spell & Trap Zone as a Continuous Spell.

I eventually added the "not-able-to-attack" clause because I think that the interaction between two copies would cause them to summon themselves reciprocally and, if that is the case, it may provide too much pressure for the card investment. This also probably discourages from running a full playset of this card.

[Tinkerer]

Just wanted to pop in to clarify a likely ruling + add my two cents about this card.

Fortunately, based on how it's written, there would not be any loops between two copies of "Incarnation of Darkness".  Their effects don't actually "activate", so they'd only be able to trigger each other when you activate 'em from the hand.

As for this card being treated as Dark Magician in the deck... I don't really see why that has to be a thing.  The only benefit it gains is that it would be additionally searchable by "Apprentice Illusion Magician" and "Illusion Magic"; the latter of which is a 1-of card in the deck at best.  Rod, Inheritance, and Circle can already "search" it, so there really shouldn't be much issue of getting the card to your hand.  As long as its name is treated as "Dark Magician" on the field + GY, it should cover 90% of its utility.  However, I won't press you on it; if you want to keep the name in the Deck as well, it looks like you found a good workaround.

Past that... It just seems odd that it relies on Continuous cards.  Looking through the deck's options, there are 3 "in archetype" S/T that could summon this card.  However, if any of them are activating, then that usually means you are already in a relatively good position.  Either you're summoning a Dark Magician (Eternal Soul), banishing an opponent's card (Circle), or negating an opponent's effect (Combination), so the card feels "win-more".

As interesting as the concept of a "Spell Monster" is, I'm not entirely sure what this card in particular adds to the deck other than an easier time going into Rank 7 plays.

Sorry if that came out harsh...

[Scarman3317]

19 hours ago, Tinkerer said:

Just wanted to pop in to clarify a likely ruling + add my two cents about this card.

Fortunately, based on how it's written, there would not be any loops between two copies of "Incarnation of Darkness".  Their effects don't actually "activate", so they'd only be able to trigger each other when you activate 'em from the hand.

As for this card being treated as Dark Magician in the deck... I don't really see why that has to be a thing.  The only benefit it gains is that it would be additionally searchable by "Apprentice Illusion Magician" and "Illusion Magic"; the latter of which is a 1-of card in the deck at best.  Rod, Inheritance, and Circle can already "search" it, so there really shouldn't be much issue of getting the card to your hand.  As long as its name is treated as "Dark Magician" on the field + GY, it should cover 90% of its utility.  However, I won't press you on it; if you want to keep the name in the Deck as well, it looks like you found a good workaround.

Past that... It just seems odd that it relies on Continuous cards.  Looking through the deck's options, there are 3 "in archetype" S/T that could summon this card.  However, if any of them are activating, then that usually means you are already in a relatively good position.  Either you're summoning a Dark Magician (Eternal Soul), banishing an opponent's card (Circle), or negating an opponent's effect (Combination), so the card feels "win-more".

As interesting as the concept of a "Spell Monster" is, I'm not entirely sure what this card in particular adds to the deck other than an easier time going into Rank 7 plays.

Sorry if that came out harsh...

No worries: it didn't sound harsh to me, but I appreciate your concern.
Thank you for your ruling clarification, I will go back on that change, then.
As for the name clause (which is the part of Incarnation of Darkess that I like the most), I tried something new specifically for Apprentice Illusion Magician, because it happened to me that there were no more Dark Magicians in the Deck to take advantage of her on-summon effect.
The fact that my card relies on Continuous spells has been bothering me a little, to be honest. The initial concept was related to the fact that the deck is most of the times not good enough to win without Dark Magical Circle and Eternal Soul. Therefore I designed my card to function with those cards on the field, but I can opt for something else instead (e.g. Normal Spell or Trap, or even by banishing something from somewhere).
By the way, your guess about my intentions aren't that far off, since my idea consisted in giving the Deck an easy 2500 damage boost + Xyz/Fusion fodder.

[Horu]

Well, it would be cool to summon Amulet Dragon without actually losing Dark Magician.

[I Hate Snatch Steal]

On 12/30/2019 at 5:51 PM, gmaster1991 said:

The first problem with this is the fact that it's a Dark Magician in the Deck...which means it's subject to the "maximum of 3 copies" rule. One copy of this means only two actual Dark Magicians in your Deck when building it.

Actually not true, see rulings on Harpie Queen or proto cyber dragon. I'm not familiar with all the legacy support Dark Magician has these days so I can't comment on that. I do wonder what would happen if you activated Dark Magic Curtain since this isn't a monster though.

[Tinkerer]

1 hour ago, I Hate Snatch Steal said:

Actually not true, see rulings on Harpie Queen or proto cyber dragon. I'm not familiar with all the legacy support Dark Magician has these days so I can't comment on that. I do wonder what would happen if you activated Dark Magic Curtain since this isn't a monster though.

Proto Cyber Dragon + Harpie Queen only have their name changed on the field/GY, not in the deck. The "max 3 copies" comes from stuff like - well, let's just be silly - Cyber Harpie Lady.

[I Hate Snatch Steal]

3 hours ago, Tinkerer said:

Proto Cyber Dragon + Harpie Queen only have their name changed on the field/GY, not in the deck. The "max 3 copies" comes from stuff like - well, let's just be silly - Cyber Harpie Lady.

I guess there is no official ruling for this exact situation then

[Tinkerer]

42 minutes ago, I Hate Snatch Steal said:

I guess there is no official ruling for this exact situation then

The old ruling is that you can't have more than three cards with the same name in your Deck; as far as I know, that's never been reversed.  I gave the example of "Cyber Harpie Lady" because it treats itself as "Harpie Lady" even in the Deck.  You can't run 3 Cyber Harpie Lady alongside any copies of the original Harpie Lady.  There are a few other cards that fall under this category: "Umi" cards, the old Harpies, and "Fusion Substitute".

Having this card treat itself as "Dark Magician" in the deck also makes it fall under that category, so you couldn't - for example - run a total of 3 Dark Magicians and 1 of this.