[MW] The Dark Magic of the Market has Returned

Enter the World of Dark Magic!

It has been very interesting to watch the market this week, with cards rising due to new releases and meta shifts. This week will cover missed cards from last week that still haven’t received a reprint, cards rising up due to the new Dark Magician support, and even stars of the format to watch out for. Let’s not waste any more time and dive into this week’s Market Watch snapshot.

Last Week’s Misses

Last week, a few cards got missed out on due to too many cards being mentioned that still haven’t had a reprint as of the current date. First on the list, let’s take a look at some of the oldest Tournament Pack Ritual Monsters that have never seen a reprint since their release. The first card is Skull Guardian from Tournament Pack 2. This Ritual Monster was retrained as the centerpiece for the Voiceless Voice Deck when it was released in Phantom Nightmare and was tied into the Deck because of Barrier of the Voiceless Voice and Guardian of the Voiceless Voice. Being a non-Effect Ritual makes it extremely weak in today’s metagame, but it is currently holding a price tag of over $130, and it’s even seeing a print in the Asian-English version in their Phantom Nightmare along with a reprint in the Simplified Chinese Entry Pack 2024 Vol.1 to make sure it’s available to players who want to use the card.

Garma Sword happens to be a rare Tournament Pack card, as it was released in Tournament Pack 8 as a Super Rare. It is currently holding a price of over $230 for a foreign language card, or over $400 for an English version of the card, and as more time goes on, the higher the price will get. Being one of the few original Ritual Monsters in the game, this card has yet to see a retrain or a new theme to tie it to, like Skull Guardian and Magician of Black Chaos. Only time will tell what happens with these old Ritual Monsters, but hopefully we see new themes around them in the future.

Dupe Frog is another card many players have been wanting to see a new reprint of, as the last time it saw one was a Super Rare from OTS Tournament Pack 3 back in November 2016 and only two Common prints before that. This card has been used massively with the Frog Deck in Edison Format but also over the years to make Toadally Awesome in a vast amount of Decks like Ice Barrier and Spright as another card to banish for Ronintoadin’s Special Summon. This card would be perfect to see in multi-rarity from a Rarity Collection set so players will have easier access to the card, or even a reprint set like Battles of Legend for a higher rarity like Ultra Rare or Secret Rare.

It was going to happen sooner or later, but players bought up copies of Imperion Magnum the Superconductive Battlebot, to the point it hit $10 a copy but has now settled down to around the $8 range. This is because it was only printed in Structure Deck: Yugi Muto in 2016 with the last wave of Magnet Warrior support that was mostly reprinted in Maze of Muertos. This card requires both Valkyrion the Magna Warrior and Berserkion the Electromagna Warrior as Fusion Material, which can be bricks for your Deck, but they allow you to run a powerful boss monster as a form of negation against Monster Effects and Spell/Trap Cards. Then if this card leaves the field by an opponent’s card effect, you can Special Summon 1 Valkyrion and Berserkion from your hand and/or Deck, ignoring their Summoning condition. With the new Magnet Warrior support, you can send both of these cards easily to the GY thanks to Magnet Warrior Sigma Minus and search the other with Magnet Bonding, to then use another Magnet Bonding to shuffle them from the GY into the Deck to Fusion Summon Imperion Magnum on either turn.

Hopefully in the future, we see some reprints for these cards and many others, as accessibility is one of the greatest things any game can have, especially if it’s one that hasn’t seen a reprint in well over 10 years.

Entering the Realm of Dark Magic

With Maze of Muertos adding the brand new Dark Magician cards to the TCG format, players are having a field day trying to find new Decks to splash the new Dark Magician of Destruction and The Gaze of Timaeus into any Deck they can. This card can either be Fusion Summoned using a Dark Magician and 1 LIGHT or DARK monster or be Special Summoned from your Extra Deck during the turn a Spell Card or effect was activated by banishing 1 Level 6 or higher DARK Spellcaster you control. This has been useful to convert cards like Dark Magician Girl the Magician’s Apprentice, or Diabellstar the Black Witch into this card, and on this card’s Special Summon, you can add 1 Dark Magician or 1 card that mentions it from your Deck to your hand. This allows you to search for the new The Gaze of Tiameus, which then can shuffle back the Dark Magician of Destruction into your Extra Deck to Special Summon a copy of Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon from your Extra Deck as your 3rd summon before committing to any plays.

Before we look into the Sinful Spoils bit, Dark Magician Girl the Magician’s Apprentice from Alliance Insight has skyrocketed since the last time it was mentioned within these articles. From being nearly $10 in mid-July, it is now over an outstanding $40 a copy, all because of the new Dark Magician support from both Maze of Muertos in the TCG and Limit Over Collection -THE HEROES- in the OCG. This card happens to act the same as Diabellstar the Black Witch, as you can Special Summon her by discarding 1 card from your hand. Then on this card’s Normal or Special Summon, you can add a Shining Sarcophagus from your Deck to your hand, which can access Gandora-G the Dragon of Destruction if you’re going second. With Gandora-G, you can pay half your LP to destroy as many other cards on the field as possible and banish them, and then you can Special Summon 1 Level 7 or lower monster from your Deck that mentions Shining Sarcophagus, and its Level is increased by the total number of cards destroyed by this effect. You can opt-in to Special Summon another copy of Dark Magician Girl the Magician’s Apprentice, or even a copy of Archfiend’s Advent from your Deck.

With the release of these new cards, it has caused plenty of cards to rise up in price, and most notably, this happened to Diabellstar the Black Witch. This card sends 1 card from your hand to the GY to Special Summon herself from your hand, and on her Normal or Special Summon, she can Set any Sinful Spoils Spell or Trap Card from your Deck to your field, which is perfect for Setting Deception of the Sinful Spoils from your Deck. Since she is a DARK Spellcaster monster, she can be converted into Dark Magician of Destruction so you can access a copy of Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon through the copy of The Gaze of Timaeus you searched for from Dark Magician of Destruction. Diabellstar can also be useful as a Link Material if needed, or if she is sent from the owner’s hand or field to the GY during the opponent’s turn, you can send 1 card from your hand or field to the GY to resummon her from the GY if it is removed by a copy of Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit or discarded by an opponent’s effect.

With Deception of the Sinful Spoils, after being set from Diabellstar the Black Witch, you can send 1 monster from your hand or field to the GY to add any Azamina card from your Deck to your hand. Adding a copy of The Hallowed Azamina can net you a Special Summon by sending that Deception of the Sinful Spoils to the GY in order to make a copy of Azamina Ilia Silvia as your FOURTH Summon. This allows you to have two forms of interruption as insulation for your combo against the opponent to stop Nibiru, the Primal Being, Infinite Impermanence, and plenty of other interactions from the opponent.

Even cards like WANTED: Seeker of the Sinful Spoils and Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon have been caught rising slowly over the past couple weeks, and hopefully we see a fresh reprint for these cards people are using for these engines.

Finally, we will look at a card that has been falling for a bit since its release in Burst Protocol, Forbidden Crown. This card was hyped up extremely by the player base because of how powerful the card was, but now it has been slowly creeping down and has crossed the $50 mark and is going lower. This card has seen plenty of play, though! From Radiant Typhoon and Yummy to even Dracotail siding the card in their list, it’s a card to watch out for, as one wrong move can end the game completely if you’re not careful. By making a monster on the field unable to use its effects, unable to attack or be destroyed by battle or card effects, unable to be affected by activated effects outside of its own, and unable to be Tributed or used for a Fusion, Synchro, Xyz, or Link Summon, this card can be a complete lockout against specific cards in the format.

Even with the price descending downwards, maybe soon we will see a Deck that can capitalize on the effects more, outside of Radiant Typhoon, which can use it fully, and use it more as a passive or offensive option in the future.

It has been interesting seeing what players have been doing for techs and cards they have been picking up, and I cannot wait to see what this month could have in the way of new reveals. Hopefully it can get players excited with new motivation for future formats.

Edited and co-written by Angryjon