Custom Card Creations

Role: Designer
Creation Date: February 2025
Websites used: Making the cards https://ygopro.org/yugioh-card-maker/, https://duelingnexus.com/yugioh-card-maker/
Official card images used from https://yugioh.fandom.com/wiki/Yu-Gi-Oh!_Wiki
Links to existing terms or cards: https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Yugipedia
Summary: I created personal custom cards for the Dark Magician archetype in Yu-Gi-Oh that I think would fit the archetype's playing style in the game and help fix problems that are in the archetype. I also explain my reasoning behind each card's abilities and how they would be used. Specific terms may also be linked to websites for further context.
Assets: I did not create nor own any artwork for these cards. The cards I made use preexisting images that are as follows.
Dark Magic Realm: https://www.deviantart.com/nhociory/art/Dark-Magic-Veil-Artwork-1010539100
Servant Of Hope And Chaos: https://fyeahygocardart.tumblr.com/post/36968503994/chaos-sorcerer
Palladium Guardian Shimon: https://fyeahygocardart.tumblr.com/post/88507742236/summoners-art
Dark Magician of Pure Chaos: https://yugioh.fandom.com/wiki/Card_Artworks:Dark_Magician_of_Chaos

Dark Magician's Problem

In the trading card game of Yu-Gi-Oh!, one of the most famous cards in its history is Dark Magician. This card has been around since the beginning, and while it still can be played today, it has not aged well. Dark Magician has seen a lot of support added to the game to help use it, but compared to other decks in the game, it has a lot problems.

Using my experience of playing Dark Magician (also referring to as DM) decks and what other decks use or can do, I created a few cards that I would personally add to the game with the focus on strengthening the use of the DM archetype. To start improving the DM archetype, we have to identify the biggest problem with using it. I believe that the problem is simple.

Dark Magician decks are SLOOOOOOOOOW.

Because of this, smaller issues appear from it:

If your opponent manages to get rid of your cards on the field, you can't set up your board fast enough again to have a presence
Going second in a game against an opponent that has a board set up is incredibly difficult
Any card your opponent plays to interrupt you is usually enough to stop your entire turn
Mixing DM with other deck types is pretty difficult

When losing a duel using my DM deck, I ask "Why did I lose that duel and what could I have done differently?" There was a thought that kept popping up over and over which was "I don't have the right cards to set up with." This came from situations like: DM does nothing in my hand by itself; I don't have DM in my hand; I only have 1 of 3-4 cards that I need to set up my board; my only card that can search for DM or support cards was negated and now I have nothing. All of these lead to feeling like DM takes forever to get started, or worse, recover from any interaction from my opponent.

These cards are what you will usually see with a DM deck when the player is done setting up their board (more commonly just Dark Dragoon or Dragon Knight and Magic Circle with Eternal Soul). This gives a possible 1-3 points of interaction with the opponent during their turn and that's IF the player starts with the perfect hand and IF nothing was interrupted when setting up.

With the core issue identified, let's get into the cards I think would help this problem. When making these cards, I created a list of rules I had to follow that will hopefully feel like how Yu-Gi-Oh! cards are made.

Dark Magician has to be the star of the deck. He cannot be replaced by a new monster that takes the name and just has a useful effect added on.
Make the DM deck feel faster and consistent, but NOT unstoppable. I can't just add to everything "cannot be negated, your opponent can't do anything" and so on. There has to be weaknesses for your opponent to use against you.
Do not make the strongest monsters for DM any stronger than they are. Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon and Dark Magician the Dragon Knight already give powerful effects to help with the DM decks. They should not have more effects or protection added to them to make them invincible, nor easier for other decks to bring out easily that don't use the DM archetype.
Make the possibility of playing DM more viable when going second in a duel.

And with that, we have the first card.

The Field Spell: Search And Protect

When this card is activated: You can take 1 "Palladium Oracle" monster, "Dark Magician", or "Dark Magician Girl" from your deck, and either add it to your hand or send it to the GY. You can normal summon "Palladium Oracle" monsters, "Dark Magician", and "Dark Magician Girl" without Tributing. The activation of your Spell/Trap cards and effects that mention "Dark Magician" cannot be negated. You can only activate 1 "Dark Magic Realm" per turn.

The first effect of Dark Magic Realm has the biggest use. There are a surprising lack of efficient searches a player can do to get DM into their hand, if they don't have it. Illusion Magic, Apprentice Illusion Magician, and Illusion of Chaos can search for DM and add it, but the first two have either too high or specific costs, and Dark Magic Circle can possibly fail. This first effect can help the player grab the star of the deck, or DM Girl or Palladium Oracle Mahad for other possible plays, right at the start of the duel.

Now that they are in our hand, how do we get them on the field? All three need a tribute summon (which is too slow) and if you don't have Magicians' Souls to get DM or DM Girl on the field immediately, they're all stuck in your hand. Which is where the second effect of Dark Magic Realm comes in. Being able to normal summon any of the three possible cards that was just added to the hand gives the player more choices on how to set up their board without having to wait on another card to help them.

Finally, the third effect gives the player a chance to complete their DM spell and trap actions without getting negated by the opponent. DM is known for using a lot of spells and traps, so I thought it would be fitting to give them protection to have the player feel like they are using a deck that specializes in them. While this helps on turn one, it helps also immensely when starting on turn two when trying to break through an opponent's board. While Dark Magic Realm itself can be negated, destroyed, or removed, forcing the opponent to use up an interaction on this can give the DM player more space to do their plays.

With this card, DM could search for their main card, have an alternate summoning method, and have some protection from the opponent's cards. All in one card, too! Now we need a fast way to grab the spells/traps from the deck.

The Monster: STEP ON THE GAS

If this card is in your hand: You can reveal 1 "Dark Magician" or 1 Monster/Spell that mentions it from your hand; Special Summon this card. If this card is Normal or Special Summoned: You can Set up to 2 Spell/Trap cards with different names that mention "Dark Magician" directly from your Deck or GY, also they can be activated this turn. You can only use each effect of "Palladium Oracle Shimon" once per turn.

A lot of modern Yu-Gi-Oh! monsters have the ability to special summon themselves, especially the cards that start the most important combos for archetype decks. Giving this flexibility to this card allows DM players to not use up their normal summon for the turn and save it for something like Magician's Rod, which only activates on normal summon, or possibly DM which could be searched and summoned with the Dark Magic Realm card I made.

The main effect for Palladium Guardian Shimon to search 2 different spell and/or traps and setting from the deck OR graveyard drastically speeds up the deck in setting up actions or interactions with the opponent. This also gives so much more room for the player to take out duplicates of other spell/traps in the deck and add different cards for variety or to combine with another archetype.

This was the trickiest card to come up with on what would be fair in how many spell/traps to search for, how and where they can be acquired, and if a third effect would make this card too powerful. I also purposefully chose to name it "Palladium Guardian" and not "Palladium Oracle" to avoid being searched by Dark Magic Realm to balance it by having to search for this card through other means. I could switch it later after playtesting.

Out of all the cards, I feel this would need the most playtesting. Being able to activate the spells and traps the same turn they are set would be the first part of the card I would look at taking out if this was too powerful.

Now, let's say you start off on turn one. You have only one DM searcher monster in hand. You play it to search for anything. Your opponent then negates your search and now you have nothing. Well, not anymore.

The Link Monster: The Extender/Back-Up Plan

1 Level 3 or lower Light or Dark Spellcaster
If this card is Link Summoned: You can add 1 "Timaeus" card or "Chaos" ritual monster from your deck to your hand. During your opponent's turn (Quick Effect): You can banish this card from your GY; Special Summon 1 "Dark Magician" or "Dark Magician Girl" from your hand, deck, or GY. You can only use each effect of "Servant of Hope and Chaos" once per turn.

With this link monster, you can tribute any level 3 or lower monster (that has to be a light or dark spellcaster) to go into another search! Grabbing an Illusion of Chaos can help you grab more DM cards, or a Timaeus card can help you extend your plays into the end board you need as a DM player. The Timaeus card could be Timaeus The United Dragon or The Eye Of Timaeus (which is worded in a way that has been hard to search for previously).

On top of the main effect, the second effect of getting DM and DM Girl out faster is always appreciated. Especially when an opponent thinks they have the upper hand, and you can use this to make either of them appear.
Feedback: This card actually got it's condition changed for the quick effect from "When your opponent declares a direct attack" and into "During your opponent's turn" after getting feedback saying that the former condition felt too situational and didn't have that much appeal. So, I increased the timing of when it can be activated. Actual playtesting would then be needed to see if that would be enough for just a Link 1 monster.

I had to be very careful with this card. Having a way to search Illusion of Chaos is dangerous in how other decks could use this in a very unbalanced way. With easy summoning conditions, any deck could potentially go into this, grab Illusion of Chaos, get Magicians' Souls, and use that to draw cards in decks that don't care about DM. For playtesting, I would pay attention to how quickly people would summon this and think about restricting it's summoning condition, if needed.

With new ways to speed up DM's plays during our plays, let's look at a possible new boss monster for DM that incorporates more interaction during the opponent's turn.

The Fusion Monster: More Interaction

"Dark Magician" + 1 "Chaos" monster
Unaffected by monster effects with the same type as any banished monster. Once per turn (Quick Effect): You can banish one Spell/Trap card that mentions "Dark Magician" from your field or GY face-down; banish 1 card on the field. If this Fusion Summoned card leaves the field by your opponent: You can shuffle into the deck, 3 banished cards; draw 1 card. You can only use this effect of "Dark Magician of Pure Chaos" once per turn.

In Yu-Gi-Oh!, targeting a card allows your opponent to make plays to potentially dodge the effect you use, and sending it to the GY can also still give your opponent options during their turn. The ability to non-target banish a card as a quick effect is one of the strongest forms of interaction in the game. Naturally, I had to make a high cost for it. Sacrificing your spell/trap cards was already a limitation I considered, but I made it more specific to DM spells and traps to feel like they're giving up something important to use an extremely powerful effect. Banishing them face-down also increases how difficult it is to recover them.
(Fun idea: using this effect's cost to banish your Eternal Soul face-down stops its effect from destroying your monsters, if you opponent is about to remove it from the field)

Along with this, having Dark Magician Of Pure Chaos gain protection from monster types that are banished gives the player a choice to make when they use its effect. Do they target spells, traps, and monsters whose types are already banished, or do they gain more protection banishing different monsters? All the while using up more and more DM cards and being mindful of how much they have left. This, hopefully, will feel like the player has a powerful monster that is just as powerful to use as deadly as it is to rely on it for too long.

Finally, being able to send back any banished cards upon leaving the field is vital in helping the player feel like the game is not over if the opponent is able to get rid of Pure Chaos.

With these four cards I made, I feel like this outdated archetype would get a serious boost in speed. Modern Yu-Gi-Oh! cards have insane amounts of speed in how fast a player can make a board. Sometimes one card is all that they need. Well, why not give some of that juice, and more, to older cards that don't have it? I don't think all of these would completely fix the archetype, but it would seriously add much needed variety and consistency to an archetype that is sorely lacking it.