Notes & Combos

Dark Magician (Master 1)

Hello! This is my 2nd time submitting a Master 1 DM list. Once I settled on this deck, the climb wasn't too bad tbh.

3 Dark Magicians, because DM in hand is useful in this deck. It turns on Drilbeam, Secrets, Eternal Soul. It makes Circle whiff less often, it makes you less suceptible to Bystials. Of course bricking can be an issue, but that's the trade-off.

2 Drillbeam, because with the Primite engine (7 cards) + DM engine (x3 DM, x1 IoC, x2 Souls) you have 13 cards that turn on Drillbeam. It's a great card going 1st or 2nd that you can keep in circulation in both player's turn. Sometimes your opponent sees you search Drillbeam, you set it, and they think they are safe, then you reveal the 2nd Driillbeam you were saving in your hand, those kind of mind games happen too.

Turn 1 play

Ideally, your end board is Hieratic Seal + Drillbeam + a foodgate or handtrap. It depends though, if your opponent Maxx C's, then you can stop at summoning DM + Beryl, setting your disruptions and passing. This deck's not complicated to play so there's no intricate combos or spreadsheets, but it gets the job done.

Other card choices I unironically tried both Dark Magic Attack and Thousand Knives at some point and it wasn't as bad as you'd think. Thinning the deck helps, having a free card to discard with Dragoon or Souls helps, having a free card to send back with IoC without helps, and the mental damage from resolving Thousand Knives on an opponent often made them scoop (I'm serious, it happened more than once). I cut them in favor of more handtraps, but maybe 1 Dark Magic Attack or Thousand Knives instead of one of the 3 DMs could work.

No Ash Blossom and other staples. Going first this deck doesn't spams summons like combo decks do. Getting hit with Maxx C is annoying but you can set disruptions through it. Going second, Ash Blossom is usually not enough on its own to disrupt your opponent meaningfully. It's a similar story with Imperm. It's not enough to end your opponent's turn on its own, so running Mulcharmys instead seems like a better trade off since the amount of non-engine you can run in this deck is limited (since the DM engine takes a lot of space).

Haggard Lizardose, seems like a random pick but its an useful monster you can make through your own There Can Be Only One while using DM as a material (A lot of Links need Effect monsters so what you can Link summon with DM + another monster is limited)