[MW] Surprising Techs In The Meta And More Mega Tin Surprises

From new techs to Worlds hype, let’s dive into a few cards that stood out this week.

As the 2025 Mega Tins have officially been released, let’s take a look at some cards that have been going up over the past week due to the 2025 World Championships and recent trends in the meta and on the market.

For the first couple stops, we will be looking at some cards that didn’t receive a rarity upgrade in the 2025 Mega Tins, with the first card being Dark Magician the Magician of Black Magic. This Dark Magician retrain was made for the Shining Sarcophagus Deck that was released in Legacy of Destruction and was the main focus to retrain Yugi Muto’s Deck during his final duel with the Pharaoh in the final five episodes of the Battle Ritual Arc. This card has many uses, as it becomes Dark Magician while on the field, which is great when you have cards that specifically mention it or if you need a specific material for a Fusion Summon. While a Shining Sarcophagus is on the field, you can Special Summon Dark Magician the Magician of Black Magic, from your hand. And if it is destroyed by a card effect and a Level 5 or higher monster is on the field, you can Special Summon it back to the field, and then you can Set 1 Spell/Trap from your Deck that mentions Dark Magician.

It’s strange that this card didn’t see a reprint for the deck, as this card has spiked to $7 a copy. We will see what Konami has in store for this card in the future.

Succumbing-Song Morganite was another interesting option to not reprint in this year’s tins, as, last year, Time-Tearing Morganite was reprinted as a Prismatic Secret Rare. Succumbing-Song is the main Morganite Spell that you would want to play at 3, since the GY effect allows you to banish it to search any Morganite card from your Deck to your hand, and then you place 1 card from your hand to the bottom of the Deck. Along with this, after you activate it, all monsters you control can make 2 attacks during each Battle Phase, and any battle damage from battling monsters is doubled, which could potentially end the game quickly. 

Even though this card is from Rage of the Abyss, they could’ve held off from reprinting this card to have it with Guilt-Gripping Morganite and Morgana the Witch of Eyes for next year’s tins.

Due to the hype from the 2025 World Championships and Lunalight taking 2nd place, Heavy Polymerization spiked massively as players picked up their cards for Lunalight. This is the first time in the game’s history where all the top 4 Decks in the Worlds format are Decks you can straight up play in the TCG, as none of the 4 Decks needed their missing support or were affected by the Forbidden & Limited List in any way. So you can play those Decks straight up at competitive events in the TCG. With Heavy Polymerization especially, it is the best card for Fusion Summoning Lunalight Liger Dancer in order to clear the opponent’s board at the cost of losing LP to the ATK of the sent monsters.

With it being printed in the 2024 Mega Tins, it is odd that this card didn’t see a reprint this year, but only time will tell if we will see it pop up in an upcoming side set or OTS Pack as a Super Rare or Ultimate Rare.

Last week, we covered 4 of the 6 cards that are currently Forbidden that were reprinted in the Mega Tins, and the first card we will be looking at is Mirage of Nightmare. It is great to see this card get a new reprint, as the last print was a Common and Prismatic Secret Rare in the Speed Duel: Battle City Finals set. This powerful Spell Card has been on the Forbidden section since the April 1st, 2005 TCG list and hasn’t been moved since. During your opponent’s Standby Phase, you draw until you have 4 cards in your hand, and if you do, during your next Standby Phase, you randomly discard the same number of cards you drew. This has its upsides and downsides, as many paired it with a form of Spell/Trap removal so they don’t have to suffer the discard drawback from this card. Nowadays, though, it is weaker and slower than how it was 20 years ago due to the game speeding up and power creep changing everything over time.

Even though this was probably a nostalgic reprint for the tins, it would be interesting to see what this card could do in the modern game, even if it wouldn’t be as powerful as it once was or if it’ll end up weaker than before.

Card of Safe Return is the final Forbidden card from the 2025 Mega Tins and had more impact throughout the years, as it was placed on the Forbidden section on September 1st, 2009. Due to the popularity of Decks that love reviving monsters from the GY, such as Return Zombies in GOAT format, Zombies in Trooper format, and many others in between. Being able to draw 1 card each time a monster(s) is Special Summoned from the GY can be amazing and give you such a great advantage against the opponent. This card even helped with the Manticore of Darkness FTK to draw all 5 pieces of Exodia during the first turn due to being able to loop 2 copies of Manticore of Darkness constantly as it was able to Tribute itself.

Even though the new print for Card of Safe Return isn’t worth that much right now, I still wanted to highlight it, as I failed to do so last week. This card is still as powerful as ever, even with new cards constantly being added to the game to stop the opponent from drawing or destroying cards on the field if they are activated.

Are you all tired of Dracotail yet? The train keeps going with techs that keep popping up, and the main new one is Dark End Evaporation Dragon. Recently reprinted in the 2025 Mega Tins, this card has been seeing Main Deck play in Dracotail as a way to either Fusion Summon with monsters from your hand and field or target 1 other Attack Position monster on the field to make Dark End Evaporation Dragon lose 500 ATK/DEF and destroy that monster. Being able to destroy a monster on the field is great, and being able to Fusion Summon can be worthwhile. Dark End Evaporation Dragon is very easy to summon as well, as all you need to do is banish 1 Level 8 Dragon monster from your Extra Deck, with the downside that you’re locked into Special Summoning Dragons for the rest of the turn, which isn’t really a downside.

With its new reprint released last weekend, the card got bought out on the North American market to where it’s averaging around $2-3 a copy from being under a dollar a few days after its release. Only time will tell where this tech ends up next.

Finally, we will be taking a look at Crowley, the Gifted Magistus, as he is also being teched into Dracotail, since a few people noticed that we don’t need Spenta, the Magistus Sealer, at all to run Dracotail Magistus. The upside with Crowley is that if you Fusion Summon with it as material, it is treated as Aleister the Invoker, so you can have access to Invoked Caliga. If Crowley is added to your hand outside of drawing it, you can Special Summon it. Then if it is Normal or Special Summoned, you can Fusion Summon 1 Magistus or Invoked Fusion Monster by using monsters from your hand or field. This is mainly used to either summon Zoroa, the Magistus Verethragna, or Aiwass, the Magistus Spell Spirit. Aiwass allows you to quickly equip it to another face-up monster on the field, allowing that equipped monster to gain 1000 ATK/DEF, and if it’s an opponent’s monster, you take control of it, but its effects cannot be activated. As for Zoroa, it can target 1 Effect Monster in your GY or on the opponent’s field and equip that monster to Zoroa. When a monster activates its effect, you can send 1 face-up Magistus Monster Card you control to the GY to negate that effect, and then you can destroy 1 card your opponent controls. Both of these Fusion Monsters are great for their respective areas when they are needed for certain situations as interruptions.

Being newly printed from Battles of Legend: Monster Mayhem, this card has been rising up slowly in price, and we don’t even have the main Structure Manga Promo for this engine, so it’s a safe bet to pick this card up if you’re interested in that engine for the future.

Soon, we should be seeing reveals for Doom of Dimensions from Konami and the creators, but so far, nothing has shown up yet, but it could be starting next Monday.

Edited and co-written by Angryjon