Deck Profile – Mike Powers’ X-Sabers

 

Mike Powers is playing X-Sabers here today, and if you’ve read his Round 1 Feature Match you’re already familiar with the utter domination this Deck is capable of! We saw Powers open the day by discarding and destroying eight cards in a single turn in Duel 1 of his match, and here’s the Deck he did it with.

 

Monsters	Spells	Traps	Side Deck	Extra Deck
3 X-Saber Airbellum 3 XX-Saber Faultroll 3 XX-Saber Fulhelmknight 1 X-Saber Galahad 3 XX-Saber Gardestrike 3 XX-Saber Ragigura 3 Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter 2 Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress 1 Card Trooper 1 Morphing Jar 1 Rescue Cat	3 Charge of the Light Brigade 2 Solar Recharge 2 Foolish Burial 1 Brain Control 1 Heavy Storm 1 Mystical Space Typhoon 1 One-for-One	3 Gottoms’ Emergency Call 1 Mirror Force 1 Torrential Tribute		3 XX-Saber Gottoms 2 X-Saber Urbellum 2 Armory Arm 1 Colossal Fighter 1 Goyo Guardian 1 Red Dragon Archfiend 1 Thought Ruler Archfiend 1 Stardust Dragon 2 Magical Android 1 Arcanite Magician

 

This Deck can churn out some insane plays. Once it gets two X-Saber monsters onto the field, Powers can Special Summon “XX-Saber Faultroll.” Faultroll can then Special Summon another X-Saber from the Graveyard, and if that monster is “XX-Saber Ragigura,” Powers will get another X-Saber from his Graveyard back to his hand. “X-Saber Airbellum” and Faultroll can also be Tuned together to Synchro Summon “XX-Saber Gottoms,” which lets Powers Tribute X-Saber monsters to force his opponent to discard.

If Powers has two copies of Faultroll, a Ragigura, and a Gottoms at his disposal, he can bounce Faultrolls and Ragiguras in and out of the Graveyard to feed Gottoms’ effect. Here’s how it works:
Faultroll #1 Special Summons Ragigura from the Graveyard.
Ragigura, when Summoned, brings back Faultroll #2 to the hand, if needed.
Powers can Tribute Faultroll #1 or Ragigura for Gottoms’ effect, so the opponent discards.
Then Special Summon Faultroll #2 from the hand.
Tribute again for Gottoms’ effect.
Faultroll #2 uses its effect to Special Summon Ragigura.
Ragigura brings Faultroll #1 back to the hand, which is then Special Summoned. And so on.

This loop repeats until Powers’ opponent has no cards left in the hand!

Powers has pulled out all the stops to make this super-combo happen. Coming into this tournament, the idea of playing Lightsworn monsters with “Charge of the Light Brigade” had been tossed around quite a bit, since Charge can load the Graveyard with combo pieces, making “XX-Saber Gardestrike,” Ragigura, and “Gottoms’ Emergency Call” faster and easier to play. Powers took that concept to the next level and is running five Lightsworn monsters total, plus three copies of Charge and two copies of “Solar Recharge.”

From there, he’s running almost every X-Saber he can get his hands on: three copies of Faultroll, Gardestrike, Ragigura, Airbellum, and Fulhelmknight, plus one copy of “X-Saber Galahad.” The more X-Saber monsters Powers has in his Deck, the easier it’ll be to send X-Sabers to the Graveyard with “Solar Recharge” and Charge.

All those X-Sabers, and all that Graveyard control, allow Powers to play three copies of “Gottoms’ Emergency Call” with confidence. With a nearly full set of X-Sabers in his Deck, Powers can rest assured that Emergency Call will be a playable card in the early game, helping him achieve his super combo or just put huge numbers of monsters on the field for big attacks.

This Deck is a blast to watch (there was a huge swarm of spectators during Powers’ feature match), and it’s probably even more fun to play!

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reported by
Jason Grabher-Meyer

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