~X Marks the Spot!~
Hello friends, acquaintences, teammates, dormmates, non-friendly article readers, trolls, newbies, vets, and everyone in between! Today I'll be talking about those ravenous, radical, rapscallions, the X-Saber monsters and their support! I'll be explaining why they're worth playing, what they can do, what are their weaknesses, and then we're gonna be making up a deck for them! For those of you who are big-time KCVDS enthusiasts, sorry but many of the cards being explained today have not yet been added to KCVDS. Go play YVD or get some cards IRL (or go bug seto to make some library updates, I'm sure he'll oblige you by next year sometime). >:D
So, quick summary of contents for this article:
I. Why should I use 'em?
II. Which of 'em should I use?
III. What should I fear?
IV. The Deck.
V. Explanation of deck
------------------------------
I. Why should I use 'em?
Do you enjoy depriving your opponent of a hand? Would you like to be able to summon half a dozen monsters per turn? Do you like loops that can take out every card in your opponent's hand in a single turn no matter how many cards the opponent is holding? Do you like doing this and still being able to use control cards and various synchros? Then X-Sabers are for you. They used to be just some crappy monsters excluding Airbellum who was useful with Rescue Cat. With their new XX-Saber support cards, however, they are now a force to contend with, as they can create enormous amounts of card advantage in a single turn!
II. Which of 'em should I use?
The best-case scenario of an X-Saber deck is to set up the following combo:
1x XX-Saber Gottoms (on the field)
2x XX-Saber Faultroll (1 in hand, 1 in grave, or both in the hand)
1x Any X-Saber monster (on the field)
1x XX-Saber Ragigura (in grave, or on the field if both Faultrolls are in the hand, in which case he counts as the X-Saber monster on the field)
1. Special Summon Faultroll.
2. Use Faultroll to Special Summon Ragigura and use his effect to get the 2nd Faultroll to your hand.
3. Tribute Faultroll for Gottoms' effect and opponent discards a card.
4. Special Summon the 2nd Faultroll.
5. Tribute Ragigura for Gottoms' effect and opponent discards a card.
6. Use the 2nd Faultroll to Special Summon Ragigura and use his effect to get the 1st Faultroll to your hand.
7. Rinse and repeat until the opponent has no cards left in his/her hand, and finish with Gottoms, 2x Faultroll, and Ragigura on the field for a total of 8100 ATK. Savvy?
The combo totally nulifies Honest and Kalut, mocks any deck based on creating card advantage, and scarily enough it's not too difficult to pull off. Scarier yet, use Mass Driver instead of Gottoms and you have potential for an FTK with this loop!!
So, let's look at which X-Sabers we'll be using, starting with those I've already mentioned.
XX-Saber Ragigura
Beast-Warrior/Earth
1/200/1000
When this card is Normal Summoned or Special Summoned, you can add 1 "X-Saber" monster from your Graveyard to your hand.
Basically, aside from the combo he's also just in general a +1 and can allow you to re-use cards like Airbellum or other X-Sabers depending on what you need. He's good people.
XX-Saber Faultroll
Warrior/Earth
6/2400/1800
This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. This card cannot be Special Summoned except while you control 2 or more face-up "X-Saber" monsters. Once per turn, you can Special Summon 1 level 4 or lower "X-Saber" monster from your Graveyard.
Yet another card who is a +1. His effect is worded a bit oddly, but basically he is the same to X-Sabers as Great Shogun Shien is to Six Samurai. If you have 2 of them on the field, he can be Special Summoned from the hand. Then you can use priority to get a free Special Summon of yet another X-Saber so even if he gets BTH'd or Book of Moon gets thrown at him, you'll still profit from his +1. Only things stopping him are Solemn Judgment, Rai-Oh, and Oppression.
XX-Saber Gottoms
Beast-Warrior/Synchro/Earth
9/3100/2600
1 Tuner Monster + 1 or more EARTH Monsters
You can Tribute 1 "X-Saber" monster to discard 1 random card from your opponent's hand.
Note first of all that all X-Sabers are Earth monsters. Aside from being useful in the combo to deplete your opponent's hand to 0, Gottoms also sports that spiffy 3100 ATK to swing over pretty much any monster in the game, and if you fear Honest or Kalut you can still use his effect even without the loop combo to get rid of 'em. The easiest way to summon this fella is going to be Airbellum and Faultroll, but others ways do exist.
Most of you probably know this card from the many Rescue Cat combos he's involved in. Still, even if you don't have Rescue Cat around this guy is a 1600 ATK beatstick tuner with a pretty awesome +1 effect if you can successfully attack directly with him. Yet another +1 effect for the X-Saber deck-type. =D
Same amount of ATK as Cyber Dragon and an effect that is even easier to use? This guy makes things easy. Special Summon him. Summon Airbellum. Special Summon Faultroll. Use Faultroll to bring back Regigura, and use him to get a Faultroll from your grave. Tune Airbellum to Faultroll for Gottoms, and now you have everything ready for your loop combo to rid the opponent of his/her hand. Even outside of the combo, you can special summon him, then summon Airbellum for an easy 8 star Synchro or just use his Special Summon to give you a nice beatstick for the field presence. So many ways this guys is awesome. <3
XX-Saber Fulhelmknight
Warrior/Tuner/Earth
3/1300/1000
Once, while this card is face-up on the field, you can negate the attack of 1 of your opponent's monsters. If this card destroys a Defense Position monster your opponent controls by battle, you can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower "X-Saber" monster from your Graveyard.
Yet another awesome tuner for the X-Saber set. When needed, he can work to help you stall, but his pride ability is being able to get that free +1 from his Special Summoning a monster when possible. Because of this, he works very well with Book of Moon. Since he's also 3 stars, you can use him the same as Airbellum to get out Gottoms and 8 star synchros in a flash through this deck-type. Use his effect to bring out a monster to tune him to or just create even more field presence and be ready to use him to stall. What more could you ask for from a tuner?
X-Saber Galahad
Warrior/Earth
4/1800/800
If this card attacks an opponent's monster, this card gains 300 ATK during the Damage Step only. If this card is attacked by an opponent's monster, this card loses 500 ATK during the Damage Step only. When this card is selected as an attack target, you can Tribute another "Saber" monster to negate the attack.
Ok, so he's not the greatest of the X-Saber set, but he's still able to run over pretty much any other 4 star monster in the game, and he works really well with Fullhelmknight, letting you basically negate 2 attacks on your opponent's turn for the cost of only 1 card. You can use him with either of your 3 star tuners to bring out Black Rose Dragon which is always a welcome sight for field-clearing.
Saber Slash
Spell
Destroy a number of face-up cards on the field equal to the number of face-up Attack Position "X-Saber" monsters you control.
It's at worst a net 0 card advantage, and if you have more X-Sabers it can become a much greater card advantage. Since it's a face-up CARD and not a face-up MONSTER that this card destroys, it can also destroy your opponent's continuous s/t cards like Decree, Oppression, and Skill Drain. It may be a bit situational, but it's worth running 1 or 2 copies for when you need it, and probably worth siding for 3 in case your opponent is running a Skill Drain deck.
Gottoms' Emergency Call
Trap
Activate only if there is a face-up "X-Saber" monster(s) on the field. Select 2 "X-Saber" monsters in either player's Graveyard(s). Special Summon those monsters to your side of the field.
Note that not only is this an awesome card to use with the deck, it is also an awesome card to use AGAINST the deck (since it counts both sides of the field and allows you to summon from either graveyard). Anyways, this is fairly simple. This is yet another +1 from the X-Saber set and it means that all you have to do is summon a single monster and you can immediately have 3 monsters on the field. Use it with Ragigura and it becomes a +2 (+3 if you use it on 2x Ragigura). It can even be used to Special Summon X-Saber Synchro monsters that got sent to the graveyard earlier in the duel for some serious attack power.
III. What should I fear?
The deck focuses on A LOT of special summoning, so fearing Oppression is a good place to start. The deck also works with loading up the grave very quickly so that you can effectively use all of the cards that special summon from the grave or that return from the grave to the hand. This means that Macro-type cards like Dimensional Fissure and Banisher of the Radiance are very scary to this deck-type. Skill Drain can also be a bit of an annoyance, although not as much so as the other 2 problems. Let's check out the deck and then I'll talk about how the deck deals with these nuisances that dare to tempt thy fury!
IV. The Deck.
~X Marks the Spot!~
Monsters(19):
2x X-Saber Airbellum
1x X-Saber Galahad
2x XX-Saber Gardestrike
3x XX-Saber Faultroll
2x XX-Saber Ragigura
2x XX-Saber Fulhelmknight
3x Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter
2x Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress
1x Morphing Jar
1x Plaguespreader Zombie
Spells(13):
1x Saber Slash
1x Book of Moon
1x Heavy Storm
1x Mind Control
1x Mystical Space Typhoon
1x One For One
2x Foolish Burial
3x Charge of the Light Brigade
1x Solar Recharge
1x Mass Driver
Traps(8):
3x Gottoms' Emergency Call
1x Call of the Haunted
1x Torrential Tribute
1x Mirror Force
2x Bottomless Trap Hole
Extra(15):
2x XX-Saber Gottoms
2x Stardust Dragon
1x Red Dragon Archfiend
1x Colossal Fighter
1x Thought Ruler Archfiend
1x Black Rose Dragon
1x X-Saber Urbellum
1x Goyo Guardian
1x Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1x Gaia Knight, The Force of Earth
1x Ally of Justice - Catastor
1x Magical Android
1x Armory Arm
Side(15):
2x Blackwing - Sirocco the Dawn
2x Mirror of Oaths
2x Light-Imprisoning Mirror
2x Necro Gardna
1x Saber Slash
2x Beastking Barbaros
2x Shiny Black "C"
2x Threatening Roar
V. Explanation of deck
So, let's go over the cards in this deck that were not mentioned in the previous sections.
First off, we've got Lightsworns Ryko and Lyla. Remember that the deck needs to load the grave quickly for cards like Ragigura, Gardestrike, and Gottoms' Emergency Call. What better way to load the grave than to use LS? In addition to the monsters themselves being able to help load the grave, their support also helps out with that issue. Additionally, Ryko and Lyla are here to provide some extra control over the field. X-Saber are great at wrecking the hand, but they need cards like Lyla and Ryko to help with shutting down those annoying trap cards that threaten to harm the strategy, as well as getting rid of any big beatsticks that get in the way.
To further help the LS cards load up the grave, I've also included Foolish Burial and Morphing Jar. Morphing Jar is an especially awesome card in this deck. If used properly you should be able to generate card advantage with just the Jar, but that's not where it ends. It also loads your grave with the monsters you need there. Even more importantly, 5 new cards for you will oftentimes be more than enough to set off the loop needed to destroy your opponent's hand! That means you've made sure you opponent has a lot more cards to lose from that combo while you've gained even more card advantage!
One For One works here with Ragigura, because Ragigura turns it from a -1 to a 0 card advantage along with a free special summon and you can basically exchange 1 X-Saber in your hand for a different 1 in your graveyard. It's all very good stuff to allow you to have whatever you want, when you want it.
With all the grave loading involved in this deck, Plaguespreader Zombie is an obvious shoe-in. However, it also means that siding in Necro Gardna and Shiny Black "C" is also very easily done! Gardna can help out again any OTK decks you come across and is also excellent against Gladiator Beast decks, while Shiny Black "C" can be sided against any deck that focuses a lot on Synchro Summons. It may not be able to stop Stardust Dragon or Black Rose Dragon, but any other Synchro monster will get shut down by it and hard at no card loss to you!
And with that, I shall once again say adieu to you all! May we meet merrily once more when next I feel worthy of gracing you with words of wisdom. Take care, and I hope you will all have fun playing with X-Sabers . . . except for those of you who only play on KCVDS of course.
(I would like to give notice that the idea for this article came from a deck made by Mike Powers for SJC Orlando)
Hello friends, acquaintences, teammates, dormmates, non-friendly article readers, trolls, newbies, vets, and everyone in between! Today I'll be talking about those ravenous, radical, rapscallions, the X-Saber monsters and their support! I'll be explaining why they're worth playing, what they can do, what are their weaknesses, and then we're gonna be making up a deck for them! For those of you who are big-time KCVDS enthusiasts, sorry but many of the cards being explained today have not yet been added to KCVDS. Go play YVD or get some cards IRL (or go bug seto to make some library updates, I'm sure he'll oblige you by next year sometime). >:D
So, quick summary of contents for this article:
I. Why should I use 'em?
II. Which of 'em should I use?
III. What should I fear?
IV. The Deck.
V. Explanation of deck
------------------------------
I. Why should I use 'em?
Do you enjoy depriving your opponent of a hand? Would you like to be able to summon half a dozen monsters per turn? Do you like loops that can take out every card in your opponent's hand in a single turn no matter how many cards the opponent is holding? Do you like doing this and still being able to use control cards and various synchros? Then X-Sabers are for you. They used to be just some crappy monsters excluding Airbellum who was useful with Rescue Cat. With their new XX-Saber support cards, however, they are now a force to contend with, as they can create enormous amounts of card advantage in a single turn!
II. Which of 'em should I use?
The best-case scenario of an X-Saber deck is to set up the following combo:
1x XX-Saber Gottoms (on the field)
2x XX-Saber Faultroll (1 in hand, 1 in grave, or both in the hand)
1x Any X-Saber monster (on the field)
1x XX-Saber Ragigura (in grave, or on the field if both Faultrolls are in the hand, in which case he counts as the X-Saber monster on the field)
1. Special Summon Faultroll.
2. Use Faultroll to Special Summon Ragigura and use his effect to get the 2nd Faultroll to your hand.
3. Tribute Faultroll for Gottoms' effect and opponent discards a card.
4. Special Summon the 2nd Faultroll.
5. Tribute Ragigura for Gottoms' effect and opponent discards a card.
6. Use the 2nd Faultroll to Special Summon Ragigura and use his effect to get the 1st Faultroll to your hand.
7. Rinse and repeat until the opponent has no cards left in his/her hand, and finish with Gottoms, 2x Faultroll, and Ragigura on the field for a total of 8100 ATK. Savvy?
The combo totally nulifies Honest and Kalut, mocks any deck based on creating card advantage, and scarily enough it's not too difficult to pull off. Scarier yet, use Mass Driver instead of Gottoms and you have potential for an FTK with this loop!!
So, let's look at which X-Sabers we'll be using, starting with those I've already mentioned.
XX-Saber Ragigura
Beast-Warrior/Earth
1/200/1000
When this card is Normal Summoned or Special Summoned, you can add 1 "X-Saber" monster from your Graveyard to your hand.
Basically, aside from the combo he's also just in general a +1 and can allow you to re-use cards like Airbellum or other X-Sabers depending on what you need. He's good people.
XX-Saber Faultroll
Warrior/Earth
6/2400/1800
This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. This card cannot be Special Summoned except while you control 2 or more face-up "X-Saber" monsters. Once per turn, you can Special Summon 1 level 4 or lower "X-Saber" monster from your Graveyard.
Yet another card who is a +1. His effect is worded a bit oddly, but basically he is the same to X-Sabers as Great Shogun Shien is to Six Samurai. If you have 2 of them on the field, he can be Special Summoned from the hand. Then you can use priority to get a free Special Summon of yet another X-Saber so even if he gets BTH'd or Book of Moon gets thrown at him, you'll still profit from his +1. Only things stopping him are Solemn Judgment, Rai-Oh, and Oppression.
XX-Saber Gottoms
Beast-Warrior/Synchro/Earth
9/3100/2600
1 Tuner Monster + 1 or more EARTH Monsters
You can Tribute 1 "X-Saber" monster to discard 1 random card from your opponent's hand.
Note first of all that all X-Sabers are Earth monsters. Aside from being useful in the combo to deplete your opponent's hand to 0, Gottoms also sports that spiffy 3100 ATK to swing over pretty much any monster in the game, and if you fear Honest or Kalut you can still use his effect even without the loop combo to get rid of 'em. The easiest way to summon this fella is going to be Airbellum and Faultroll, but others ways do exist.
Most of you probably know this card from the many Rescue Cat combos he's involved in. Still, even if you don't have Rescue Cat around this guy is a 1600 ATK beatstick tuner with a pretty awesome +1 effect if you can successfully attack directly with him. Yet another +1 effect for the X-Saber deck-type. =D
Same amount of ATK as Cyber Dragon and an effect that is even easier to use? This guy makes things easy. Special Summon him. Summon Airbellum. Special Summon Faultroll. Use Faultroll to bring back Regigura, and use him to get a Faultroll from your grave. Tune Airbellum to Faultroll for Gottoms, and now you have everything ready for your loop combo to rid the opponent of his/her hand. Even outside of the combo, you can special summon him, then summon Airbellum for an easy 8 star Synchro or just use his Special Summon to give you a nice beatstick for the field presence. So many ways this guys is awesome. <3
XX-Saber Fulhelmknight
Warrior/Tuner/Earth
3/1300/1000
Once, while this card is face-up on the field, you can negate the attack of 1 of your opponent's monsters. If this card destroys a Defense Position monster your opponent controls by battle, you can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower "X-Saber" monster from your Graveyard.
Yet another awesome tuner for the X-Saber set. When needed, he can work to help you stall, but his pride ability is being able to get that free +1 from his Special Summoning a monster when possible. Because of this, he works very well with Book of Moon. Since he's also 3 stars, you can use him the same as Airbellum to get out Gottoms and 8 star synchros in a flash through this deck-type. Use his effect to bring out a monster to tune him to or just create even more field presence and be ready to use him to stall. What more could you ask for from a tuner?
X-Saber Galahad
Warrior/Earth
4/1800/800
If this card attacks an opponent's monster, this card gains 300 ATK during the Damage Step only. If this card is attacked by an opponent's monster, this card loses 500 ATK during the Damage Step only. When this card is selected as an attack target, you can Tribute another "Saber" monster to negate the attack.
Ok, so he's not the greatest of the X-Saber set, but he's still able to run over pretty much any other 4 star monster in the game, and he works really well with Fullhelmknight, letting you basically negate 2 attacks on your opponent's turn for the cost of only 1 card. You can use him with either of your 3 star tuners to bring out Black Rose Dragon which is always a welcome sight for field-clearing.
Saber Slash
Spell
Destroy a number of face-up cards on the field equal to the number of face-up Attack Position "X-Saber" monsters you control.
It's at worst a net 0 card advantage, and if you have more X-Sabers it can become a much greater card advantage. Since it's a face-up CARD and not a face-up MONSTER that this card destroys, it can also destroy your opponent's continuous s/t cards like Decree, Oppression, and Skill Drain. It may be a bit situational, but it's worth running 1 or 2 copies for when you need it, and probably worth siding for 3 in case your opponent is running a Skill Drain deck.
Gottoms' Emergency Call
Trap
Activate only if there is a face-up "X-Saber" monster(s) on the field. Select 2 "X-Saber" monsters in either player's Graveyard(s). Special Summon those monsters to your side of the field.
Note that not only is this an awesome card to use with the deck, it is also an awesome card to use AGAINST the deck (since it counts both sides of the field and allows you to summon from either graveyard). Anyways, this is fairly simple. This is yet another +1 from the X-Saber set and it means that all you have to do is summon a single monster and you can immediately have 3 monsters on the field. Use it with Ragigura and it becomes a +2 (+3 if you use it on 2x Ragigura). It can even be used to Special Summon X-Saber Synchro monsters that got sent to the graveyard earlier in the duel for some serious attack power.
III. What should I fear?
The deck focuses on A LOT of special summoning, so fearing Oppression is a good place to start. The deck also works with loading up the grave very quickly so that you can effectively use all of the cards that special summon from the grave or that return from the grave to the hand. This means that Macro-type cards like Dimensional Fissure and Banisher of the Radiance are very scary to this deck-type. Skill Drain can also be a bit of an annoyance, although not as much so as the other 2 problems. Let's check out the deck and then I'll talk about how the deck deals with these nuisances that dare to tempt thy fury!
IV. The Deck.
~X Marks the Spot!~
Monsters(19):
2x X-Saber Airbellum
1x X-Saber Galahad
2x XX-Saber Gardestrike
3x XX-Saber Faultroll
2x XX-Saber Ragigura
2x XX-Saber Fulhelmknight
3x Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter
2x Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress
1x Morphing Jar
1x Plaguespreader Zombie
Spells(13):
1x Saber Slash
1x Book of Moon
1x Heavy Storm
1x Mind Control
1x Mystical Space Typhoon
1x One For One
2x Foolish Burial
3x Charge of the Light Brigade
1x Solar Recharge
1x Mass Driver
Traps(8):
3x Gottoms' Emergency Call
1x Call of the Haunted
1x Torrential Tribute
1x Mirror Force
2x Bottomless Trap Hole
Extra(15):
2x XX-Saber Gottoms
2x Stardust Dragon
1x Red Dragon Archfiend
1x Colossal Fighter
1x Thought Ruler Archfiend
1x Black Rose Dragon
1x X-Saber Urbellum
1x Goyo Guardian
1x Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1x Gaia Knight, The Force of Earth
1x Ally of Justice - Catastor
1x Magical Android
1x Armory Arm
Side(15):
2x Blackwing - Sirocco the Dawn
2x Mirror of Oaths
2x Light-Imprisoning Mirror
2x Necro Gardna
1x Saber Slash
2x Beastking Barbaros
2x Shiny Black "C"
2x Threatening Roar
V. Explanation of deck
So, let's go over the cards in this deck that were not mentioned in the previous sections.
First off, we've got Lightsworns Ryko and Lyla. Remember that the deck needs to load the grave quickly for cards like Ragigura, Gardestrike, and Gottoms' Emergency Call. What better way to load the grave than to use LS? In addition to the monsters themselves being able to help load the grave, their support also helps out with that issue. Additionally, Ryko and Lyla are here to provide some extra control over the field. X-Saber are great at wrecking the hand, but they need cards like Lyla and Ryko to help with shutting down those annoying trap cards that threaten to harm the strategy, as well as getting rid of any big beatsticks that get in the way.
To further help the LS cards load up the grave, I've also included Foolish Burial and Morphing Jar. Morphing Jar is an especially awesome card in this deck. If used properly you should be able to generate card advantage with just the Jar, but that's not where it ends. It also loads your grave with the monsters you need there. Even more importantly, 5 new cards for you will oftentimes be more than enough to set off the loop needed to destroy your opponent's hand! That means you've made sure you opponent has a lot more cards to lose from that combo while you've gained even more card advantage!
One For One works here with Ragigura, because Ragigura turns it from a -1 to a 0 card advantage along with a free special summon and you can basically exchange 1 X-Saber in your hand for a different 1 in your graveyard. It's all very good stuff to allow you to have whatever you want, when you want it.
With all the grave loading involved in this deck, Plaguespreader Zombie is an obvious shoe-in. However, it also means that siding in Necro Gardna and Shiny Black "C" is also very easily done! Gardna can help out again any OTK decks you come across and is also excellent against Gladiator Beast decks, while Shiny Black "C" can be sided against any deck that focuses a lot on Synchro Summons. It may not be able to stop Stardust Dragon or Black Rose Dragon, but any other Synchro monster will get shut down by it and hard at no card loss to you!
And with that, I shall once again say adieu to you all! May we meet merrily once more when next I feel worthy of gracing you with words of wisdom. Take care, and I hope you will all have fun playing with X-Sabers . . . except for those of you who only play on KCVDS of course.
(I would like to give notice that the idea for this article came from a deck made by Mike Powers for SJC Orlando)
..
but ufortunately they don't exist in kcvds