>>56382169It's kind of framed that way in the manga/anime and the card's traits. It has the same type and attribute, only slightly better stats, it's one level better, DMoC is Dark Magician of Chaos - which contains the farmer's name) - and its effect explicitly about reusing Magic/Spells. I don't think it's technically an evolution in the lore, but there are a number of factors that could easily lead someone to that conclusion.
I think it's interesting that we have 3 totally different approaches to evolution here. Pokémon is linear, Digimon is not, and YGO has largely turned to retrains rather than evolutions. Pokémon is the closest to biology if you look at them like stages in a life cycle, Digimon is just data with conditions to reach a particular outcome, and YGO boils down to "it's magic, I don't gotta explain shit"
