Decklist.: Sept 2010 format: X Sabers

So, as a tradition, before every banlist, i will reveal the decklist i have been using and perfected for the whole format.

As most of you know, im running X Sabers and am the ONLY X Saber player in Malaysia who runs Dark Souls and Boggarts (basically the TCG exclusives). Aside from Loo of course, who uses the printed out versions.

So, here's the decklist.

Deck Count : 41

Monsters : 20

2 Dark Soul
3 Emmersblade
2 Pashuul
1 Ragigura
2 Boggart Knight
3 Fullhelm Knight
2 Faultroll
1 Sangan
1 Gorz
1 Giant Rat
2 Debris Dragon

Spells : 10

1 Dark Hole
1 Monster Reborn
2 MST
2 Book of Moon
2 Pot of Duality
1 Giant Trunade
1 Cold Wave

Traps : 11

2 Gottoms Emergency Call
2 Trap Stun
1 Torrential Tribute
3 Solemn Warning
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Solemn Judgment

Some rambling and foreword

The 2 most interesting decks in the format has of course been Six Samurai and Debris Dandy which both have explosive capabilities to gain significance advantage over the other.

While Debris Dandy can gain advantage, they cannot do it without at least a few turns of setup while slowly netting abit of advantage here and there. The best thing about Debris Dandy is the card : Debris Dragon, which creates a Heavy Storm effect, where you are forced not to commit too many cards to the field if you do not have Book or Warning saved up for Debris Dragon.

Samurai on the hand is the total opposite, where it gains advantage at a very high frequency and quick period before locking you with Warning + Shien.

My general playstyle combines the 2 decks playstyle together , well sorta.

You may say that Sabers are nothing like Six Samurai because they do not possess Gateways or Kizan. But i would beg to differ. Because in my opinion, Sabers are the closest thing to Samurai in the current game.

Why?

Boggart= Kageki
Faultroll= Weakened mash up version of Gateway + Kizan
Gottom Emergency Call= Double Edge Sword Technique.

Also, the similarity between Sabers and Samurai is how they can gain advantage and drop 8000 points of damage in a single turn.

Samurai: All you need is Kageki, Kizan, Kagemusha, Gateway etc.

Sabers: Darksoul (in grave), Boggart, Faultroll . (the combo must be backed up by stun/ cold wave/ trunade etc)

Choice of Playstyle and Strategy

The general idea of this deck is to do two things:

1) Swarm with sabers
2) Destroy field with Debris.

The deck should be able to swarm with Sabers quickly with the combo because of high consistency rate.

If the deck is unable to produce a good hand, you can just stall with Dark Souls and Emmersblade to get to combos.

The reason i ran 2 Debris Dragon is to incorporate Debris Dandy's explosiveness. And, nobody is ready for TWO Debris-es. Also, this gives me several chances to carry out mass destruction, to reset the field while gaining advantage over opponents.

Because the thing is, if you do not have the combo pieces (boggart, faultroll, darksoul, fullhelm/ pashul), you can summon Debris Dragon to disrupt your opponents tempo.

But the beauty of Debris Dragon doesnt just stop there. The best part is that, after blowing up the field, Debris Dragon netts you any X Saber monster from your deck via Dark Souls search effect, making it one of the most dangerous plays i have ever seen this format.

And that is why i run 2 Debris. For one card, i get a search from my deck and a free Black Rose Dragon. If the banlist is not too harsh to Debris/ Black Rose, i highly recommend Saber duelists to run each.

The good thing about running 2 Debris + 1 sangan + deckthinning + 2 pot of duality is that i will see Debris Dragon in at least 3/5 games. This gives me the chance to play conservatively and stall with Dark Soulls and Cockroach, then i sweep the field with a Debris, and conduct an OTK the following turn.

And thats what differs my saber build and playstyle from others.

Its been doing pretty well too.

Card Choices + Opinions.

Now to explain some card choices:

2 Faultroll- ONLY? simple. 3 is too greedy and can hand clog alot, I honestly only need 1 Faultroll to gain plus ones and to change the game around. The decks consistency rate is very high so i can see 2 very often, and if not, i have Gottoms Emergency Call.

2 Dark Soul - ONLY? Oh. My bad here. I only have access to 2 Dark souls because i was not in a financial position to purchase a 3rd , few months ago. Anyways, 2 Dark Soul is doing very very well anyways.

2 Debris Dragon- nuff said.

Gorz- Trusty monster. Favourite in the game. Partner I've carried with me in all my duels (quote from Yugi). Won too many games because of Gorz.

One of my favourite plays is to open the game without playing a card to telegraph Gorz (even though I have it) (and also because Im infamous about my Gorz plays).

Then next turn i set 1 card (emmerblade/ Dark soul) and make it seem that i did that just to avoid discarding a card from my hand to the grave (6 hand card limit rule)

Then my opponent destroys my card, and after all the overcommitment he has done to my field, i drop Debris Dragon in my next turn.. Simply lovely.

2 Pot of Duality- I have played every single deck with 2 Duality (every since it was released). The consistency provided is just too good. And activatin it on turn one and set Darksoul/ emmersblade is just too good too.

Many may say, in a special summon heavy deck, Duality should be avoided. But, my version of Sabers is not too special summon heavy and usually explodes in one or two turns only. You will see this deck simplifying the game and stalling in the early game.

Also, I agree that Duality should be avoided for decks like Samurai because that deck TOTALLY focuses on special summoning for every move they play, but i also see Duality in decks like X Sabers.

In the recent coverage in a feature match for YCS Dallas, I saw X Saber veteran Roy St Clair lose out because he had no access to a Dark Soul or Emmersblade. For X Saber players, this situation is the most scary as it meant you almost would not have any big play.

I also saw one or two other feature matches whereby the Saber players suffered the same fate and lost because of that.

I also saw players running maxx C just to curb off special summoning. I saw a few duels where Maxx C was helpless when smurai swarmed the ppl to death. Now, im curious to why ppl would run maxx c, when they can just run some counter traps or cards that can stop the mass special summoning itself.

I was also curious why some Saber players ran Thunder King Rai-Oh in the main deck. Too much deck space i think. Good tech choice? No.

2 Book of Moon- ONLY? Well, thats because i do not have enough deck space, and i do not like drawing 2 books at once.

2 Bottomless Trap Hole- I have space for it and i much rather main it over Mirror Force. Guess what, i still have space for 2 books, 3 warnings!

So, i'd guess thats pretty much it. The rest is pretty standard but the difference would probably be the user's playstyle i guess.

Matchup VS other meta decks

I'd say this deck has a very good stand in the current meta, because its easy to side cards in and out without disrupting any consistency.

It handles BF pretty well because the deck can play control similar to BF, and everything, but fears Bora. Constant Bora poking is painful.

It handles Debris Dandy pretty well too because the deck is faster than Debris Dandy and can go control with all the Warnings etc too. Dark Soul attacking into Ryko is so good too.

It handles Six Samurai quite well already for a meta deck and i'd say it has a 50-50 matchup (in KL). However i have yet to test it out vs any Samurai variants since i upgraded the deck.

3 warnings, 2 Books, 2 Bottomless, 2 MST are a good lineup. I'd admit that.

If i go first, and sync Naturia Beast, the Samurai player would scoop almost immediately.

If the samurai player went first, and i did not have an answer to his backrow (i need Trunade Cold Wave etc), i'd lose. I'd still be able to sync stuff and control the field, but i'd not be able to answer to my opponent's Solemn Warnings and Books.

Okay im starving and that is the end to my wall of text. I hope you enjoyed reading it, or at least enjoyed the decklist and the general strategy part because its slightly different playstyle to how Sabers are played.

Thank you for readind =)