In-Depth Supreme King Magician Guide

Published on June 21st, 2024 by

Introduction

A new era of Pendulum is here, bringing with it 1 and 2 card combos, ~~no longer is the mechanic relegated to 3 card combos and 35 engine slots.~~ The new Loading... support modernizes the so-called "Pendulum Soup" (even if it's the Yuya/Z-ARC equivalent of Jaiden/Aster's HEROs), later backed up by the long awaited Melodious Pendulum support.

The Supreme Kings are servants of Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V's final antoganist, Z-ARC, and are divided into the "Supreme King Gates" and "Supreme King Dragons", or reference Loading... by name. Z-ARC itself was initially fragmented into four dragons, each representing one of the four Extra Deck summoning mechanics available at the time. Loading... , Loading... , Loading... , and Loading... (hereafter collectively referred to as the Dimension Dragons), their respective owners, and their unification served as the basis for the series' plot. Z-ARC, together with series protagonist and the owner of Loading... , Yuya Sakaki, make use of the Pendulum "Magicians".

However, reception to the new support is varied. Some OCG lists seem to weigh very heavily into the new support, while others deny their existence entirely. For a format such as Master Duel, optimization seems to lie in the middle, keeping a majority of the old core while making room for both the new support and a higher non-engine (handtrap/board breakers) count.

The reason for this being that while there are plenty of good cards in our deck, none of our cards have text that explicitly says "1 card starter" while also being "extenders" like decks such as all of the Snake-Eyes brews and Rescue-Ace do (and later on Melodious, Voiceless Voice, Tenpai, etc.), and we therefore necessitate 2 or 3 cards to combo. This leads us to a max of about 12 non-engine slots in a 40 card deck (scalable up to about 18 non-engine in a 60 card deck)*. And with the lowered non-engine count, any handtraps we do choose to play would have to be either format mandatory or extremely high impact.** As we simply cannot compete with the aforementioned decks in terms of the handtrap game, we should instead rely on having enough extenders and pushes available to us to bring us through to a favorable gamestate.

*While the specifics on the math are not set in stone, the general idea will still apply.

**For the current Master Duel format, this would probably equate to just the Master Duel Tax (3 Loading... , 3 Loading... , 2 Loading... , 0-1 Loading... ) and 2 Loading... (as well as the 1 Loading... ).

A Quick Refresh

Pendulum Monsters can be activated as Spell Cards into the far left/right Spell/Trap (S/T) Zones as Pendulum Scales (while these are counted as a Spell Card Activations, they are still treated as Monster Cards).
While Scaled, they gain access to their Pendulum Effects (but not their Monster Effects). The reverse is true everywhere else.
When a Pendulum Card would leave the field, they would instead go to the Extra Deck face-up (this can still be overridden by Loading... and similar effects).
Once per turn, you can perform a Pendulum Summon of Monsters from your hand or face-up Extra Deck (ED) whose levels are between the Pendulum Scales (exclusive), with summons from the ED limited to the Extra Monster Zone (EMZ) or zones a Link Monster Points to.

The Monsters

The Reliable Pendulum Magicians

Wisdom-Eye Magician

While this card's Monster Effect is pretty useless (99.99% of the time), its Pendulum Effect is where it really shines. By destroying itself, Wisdom can activate any "Magician" Pendulum Monster from your deck as a Pendulum Scale, but you have to have another "Magician" or "Performapal" scale active. Quite easily one of the best searchers in the deck, Wisdom gives you constant access to your Magician cards, as it is essentially an extra 3 copies of every Magician card in your deck. The one drawback is that Wisdom is a LIGHT Monster, and so is not searchable by Loading... (but is through Loading... ) nor is it able to be revived from the GY by Loading... .

Generally this gives you access to Loading... , Loading... , or Loading... during combo, and Loading... and Loading... for your endboard or on turn 2 or later.

Due to the effect not having any once per turn clause, Wisdom creates synergy with Loading... 's protection effect, and then just be able to activate its effect again and completely resolve.

The New Supreme Kings

Supreme King Dragon Darkwurm

Z-ARC's most loyal servant as an insane starter.

Darkwurm actually has three good effects, surprising for a card printed before Link Monsters were created. On Summon, Darkwurm can search for a "Supreme King Gate" Monster. While previously limited to Loading... and Loading... , the introduction of Loading... reintroduces Darkwurm into viability, being the primary search target for this effect.

What makes Darkwurm stand out is its effect to Special Summon itself from the GY if you control no Monsters. By running 4 copies of Loading... /Loading... , this deck essentially gets its own Loading... or Loading... .

While Darkwurm's Pendulum Effect is a 1 card full Scales, as it activates a "Supreme King Gate" from Deck into your other Scale, it does have quite a restriction in that you can only Pendulum Summon DARK Monsters for the rest of the turn. A bit counterintuitive from Konami's part to make the new support LIGHT, but as Darkwurm is a Scale 5, you wouldn't be able to Pendulum Summon Gate Magician, a level 7, anyways by using its effect once placed into Scale to activate Gate Zero. This effect doesn't quite come up as much, as you would rather have Magicians as your Scales as well as not being the most inclusive Pendulum Summon.

Double Iris Magician (DIM)

Loading... (OEPD) in human form as one of our most vital combo pieces.

If destroyed, DIM can search for a "Pendulumgraph" card. The process of destroying Double Iris Magician two times in a turn generates a ton of advantage through Loading... (and later on through Loading... as well), numerous link materials, and level 4/7 bodies for Xyz/Synchro summons. Creating a resource loop with the searched Star and Time Graphs is vital to the gameplan, and once set up and running, is hard for your opponent to reel back in due to the constant advantage being generated through Star's followup and Time's disruption.

DIM can use its Pendulum Effect to destroy itself and double the battle damage of a targeted DARK Spellcaster you control, somewhat mirroring OEPD's signature ability. However, this can only be done on turns with a remaining Battle Phase, so you cannot use this turn 1 or during the Main Phase 2. Because of this restriction, the Pendulum Effect mainly acts as a way to activate DIM's Monster Effect on its own to search for Loading... when going second.

DIM is very accessible card in the deck. It is a very searchable high scale (8) through Loading... , Loading... , Loading... , or even Loading... , but is more commonly placed by Loading... 's Pendulum Effect.

Supreme King Gate Magician

A purified Loading... , Gate Magician tries its best to cosplay Loading... .

Getting straight to the point, Gate Magician can summon itself from your hand by sending a Dimension Dragon name from your ED. While this mirrors Circular's effect, Gate Magician unfortunately does not fully start our combos, as this requires a "Supreme King Gate" card, other than another copy of itself, already scaled to activate. Generally sending Loading... (or any other Dimension Dragon in your ED), this effect can also send a Double Iris, Black Fang, or Purple Poison that's already in your face-up ED instead, setting up an additional DARK Spellcaster in your GY for Black Fang, Selene, Exceed, and other extenders. The effect itself serves as a great extender, as it more easily enables your Link plays pre-Pendulum Summon. On top of that, Gate Magician, on Special Summon, can search for any card that mentions Loading... . However, this explicitly excludes Spellcaster Monsters, so no searching Loading... , Loading... , or itself. While this restriction is quite saddening to read, Gate Magician still has some very good search targets in Darkwurm (by way of Loading... ), both the original Loading... and its retrain Loading... to cheat out Z-ARC, or Loading... .

Quite similar to Wisdom's effect, Gate Magician can destroy itself to activate a "Supreme King Gate" Pendulum Monster from your deck as a Pendulum Scale. While this effect is a lot more lenient in that it does not require a specific card in the other Pendulum Scale, its targets are not very good. Unless you know you will be doing some cookery, you will just be placing Loading... for a very low scale.

To help bring Loading... a little bit up to speed with the current state of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Gate Magician also prevents Z-ARC from being banished by your opponent's effects, something that was missing from its own protection effect..

Harmonizing Magician

When Pendulum Summoned, Harmo can Special Summon any 1 "Magician" Pendulum Monster from your Deck, but it is summoned negated and banished when it leaves the field. As a level 4 Tuner that can Special Summon non-Tuners from your deck, being able to Pendulum Summon Harmo equates to either a Link-2, rank 4 Xyz, or level 8/10 Synchro. By Summoning any level 4 "Magician" Pendulum Monster such as Loading... , a Loading... can be easily made, eventually giving you access to your missing engine pieces. Alternatively, Loading... can be Summoned off of Harmo in order to make an early Loading... and insulate your plays or interact with your opponent's established board.

However, Harmo does have some restrictions in its use. For one, Harmo cannot be Special Summoned from the Extra Deck, meaning that it can only be Pendulum Summoned from the Hand. In addition, Harmo can only be used for a Fusion, Synchro, or Xyz Summon if all other materials are also "Magician" Pendulum Monsters. As there is little reason to be sending Harmo to the Extra Deck and as well as the fact that Harmo provides extra Synchro/Xyz Material with its own effect (as well as no restriction on Link Summoning using Harmo), these restrictions do not get in the way most of the time.

While scaled, Harmo boosts all of your Monsters' ATK by 100 for each uniquely named "Magician" Pendulum Monster in your Extra Deck. While minor, this ATK boost isn't inconsequential and can help some of your lower ATK Monsters out (such as Loading... , Loading... , or Loading... .

Supreme King Gate Zero

Really nothing to be said about Gate Zero other than its stats. Its your target for Gate Magician's Pendulum Effect, being a Scale 0. Being a level 7 may help in accessing any rank 7 Xyz Monsters you may be running such as Loading... or Loading... . As most builds won't even be running Loading... or any targets for this card's Monster Effects, they are not any worth explaining.

Interestingly enough, you take no damage while you control Loading... .

Purple Poison Magician (PPM)

Loading... (SVFD) in human form as a key going second tool.

If destroyed, Purple Poison (PPM) can target any face-up card to destroy it. While this may not seem very strong, this can trap your opponent into an extremely bad position, due to its nature of not being once per turn. This means if targeting a Loading... , Purple Poison will either destroy Baronne, or force a negate. And if the negate just so happens to destroy the card again (such as in the case of Baronne), Purple Poison can activate its effect again to target another card on the Field for destruction.

PPM can use its Pendulum Effect to destroy itself and boost a DARK Spellcaster's ATK by 1200, somewhat mirroring SVFD's signature ability. While this may not seem significant, this can get things like Loading... to the 3000 ATK threshold, able to eliminate threats or force activations such things as Loading... or Loading... , while also triggering its Monster Effect for further removal.

Supreme King Dragon Lightwurm

Lightwurm, in complete contrast with Darkwurm, is not particularly awe-inspiring, but does have its neat uses. It has use mostly for being a Scale 8 searchable from the Supreme King side of the engine, but with a large majority of the Magician side being high scales, this will not come up unless you were unable to access that side of the deck (which is very rare due to the existence of Loading... and Loading... , as well as the numerous searchers in the deck). It being a Tuner is commendable, though.

Lightwurm's Pendulum Effect activates whenever a Monster is Special Summoned and you control "Supreme King Z-ARC" and another Pendulum Monster, (this is an extremely harsh condition for such an effect) Lightwurm can Special Summon itself from Scale and make the level and attribute of either itself or 1 other Pendulum Monster you control equal to the other.

As a Monster, Lightwurm can add 1 face-up "Supreme King Dragon/King" back from your Extra Deck to your Hand, then perform a Synchro or Xyz Summon of a "Supreme King Dragon." The only Monsters you can Summon with this effect are Loading... (SKDCW) and Loading... (SKDDR).

Putting these two effects together, the idea is to Summon Lightwurm with its Pendulum Effect and turning it into a DARK like Darkwurm, Synchro Summoning SKDCW and destroying all of your opponent's face-up Monsters. Although, this is assuming you have already summoned Supreme King Z-ARC one way or the other, which can be very tricky.

Alternatively, by making use of Loading... 's Quick Effect to revive Lightwurm, Lightwurm can bypass the Z-ARC restriction and still quick Synchro Summon into SKDCW. This is a much easier interaction to set up than needing to go into Z-ARC using one of the Soul traps.

Lastly, Lightwurm can add itself back from Extra Deck to Hand whenever a face-up Pendulum Monster you control is destroyed. Not much to say, except that this helps in the grind game to recycle through resources, although it does hurt that it does not trigger off the destruction of any of your Scaled Pendulum cards.