The X-Saber strategy excels at eliminating your opponent’s cards en masse, even if they haven’t played them yet! Saber Slash can take out numerous face-up cards, XX-Saber Hyunlei can eliminate 3 Spells/Traps at a time, direct attacks from X-Saber Airbellum can pluck cards from your opponent’s hand, and XX-Saber Gottoms Tributes X-Sabers to discard cards! The bread and butter of an X-Saber Deck is Synchro Summoning.  With a balanced combination of Tuners and non-Tuners, X-Sabers can Summon many different powerful Synchro Monsters!

Your First Turn

You want to start with X-Saber Pellina (or Fire Formation – Tenki which can pull it from your Deck) so you can send it to the Graveyard to Special Summon 2 X-Sabers from your Deck. If you’re going second or don’t have it yet, you may need to hang on for a turn or two with XX-Saber Darksoul or XX-Saber Emmersblade to find it. With Pellina’s effect, Special Summon X-Saber Bruno as one of the 2 monsters so you can use its effect to add a “Saber” Spell/Trap from your Deck to your hand (like Saber Combination, Saber Slash, or Saber Hole), and pick a non-Tuner whose Level adds to Bruno’s to equal the Level of your preferred Synchro Monster.

A good basic strategy if you don’t know your opponent’s Deck is to Summon Bruno and XX-Saber Garsem and add Saber Combination with Bruno. Activate it, then use your monsters to Synchro Summon the Level 7 X-Saber Gottoms and activate both effects like this: Gottoms Chain Link 1àCombination Chain Link 2. Gottoms’ effect is the more important of the two, so you want to prevent your opponent from Chaining directly to it. Resolve the Chain, using Combination to Summon an X-Saber then Gottoms to add Gottoms’ Second Call or Gottoms’ Emergency Call to your hand.

The cards you choose here depend on your opponent’s Deck and if you’re going first or second. If you’re going first, you don’t know the opponent’s Deck, and you don’t have either “Gottoms” card in your hand, Summon XX-Saber Darksoul and add Gottoms’ Emergency Call, then Set Call.

In the “unknown Deck” scenario, you’ll be relying on X-Saber Bruno’s Quick Effect to Synchro Summon during the opponent’s Main or Battle Phase. While the other monsters you use for the Synchro Summon must be EARTH Attribute, the Synchro Monster you Summon can be anything. On your opponent’s turn, after you’ve figured out what Deck your opponent is using, use Gottoms’ Emergency Call to bring back Bruno and Pellina. Activate Pellina as Chain Link 1 and Bruno as Chain Link 2, to protect Pellina’s crucial Summoning effect.

It’s best to wait and see what your opponent is playing so you can pick a card appropriate to the matchup with Bruno, then have Pellina Summon another Bruno and XX-Saber Emmersblade, a Level 3 non-Tuner. From here, you can use 1 Bruno and the 2 non-Tuners to Synchro Summon Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier, Mist Wurm, or Ravenous Crocodragon Archethys depending on what your opponent is doing, and the other can combine with Gottoms to make Commander Souza, Swordmaster, who counts as an X-Saber and triggers Saber Combination. Be sure to use Bruno at the start of a Chain, as Chain Link 1, so that the timing for your Synchro effects is correct.

If you do know what you’re playing against, and you’re going first against a Deck with lots of Spells, like the Sky Striker Deck from this box, then after Synchro Summoning Gottoms, have Saber Combination Summon X-Saber Palomuro, and use Gottoms to add Gottoms Second Call. Use Second Call, to bring back Bruno and Garsem, then Synchro Summon Naturia Beast and Swordsoul Supreme Sovereign – Chengying or another Level 10 Synchro of your choice.

Legendary Technique: Total Hand Destruction

If you’re fortunate enough to have drawn XX-Saber Faultroll alongside Pellina or Tenki, the sky’s the limit!  Pellina’s effect Summons the two X-Sabers that fulfill the condition to Summon Faultroll, whose effect allows you Special Summon an X-Saber from your Graveyard.  With this combination you can discard your opponent’s entire hand before they’ve even taken a turn, like so:

1. Summon X-Saber Bruno and XX-Saber Darksoul with Pellina.
2. Pick Saber Combination with Bruno, as above.
3. Special Summon the XX-Saber Faultroll from your hand, then use its effect to Special Summon the X-Saber Pellina from your Graveyard. 
4. Activate Saber Combination. 
5. Use Bruno and Faultroll to Synchro Summon XX-Saber Gottoms.
6. Use Saber Combination’s effect to Special Summon XX-Saber Ragigura and use its effect to get back the Faultroll in your Graveyard.
7. Special Summon Faultroll again!
8. Tribute the Ragigura for Gottoms’s effect to discard 1 card from your opponent’s hand. 
9. Use Faultroll to Special Summon the Regigura again and get back Bruno.
10. Use Gottoms’s effect again Tributing the Ragigura to discard a second card.
11. Banish Ragigura to Special Summon Bruno from your hand and Tribute it to Gottoms to discard a 3^rd card.
12. Tribute Darksoul to rip a 4th card from the opponent’s hand and then in the End Phase use its effect to add an X-Saber from your Deck to your hand!
13. Finally, you can Tribute any of your remaining monsters to discard your opponent’s 5th card!

Going Second and Modifying This Deck

Returning to our initial scenario about resolving Pellina successfully, if you’re going second you’ll want to eliminate as many of your opponent’s cards as possible or at least threaten to do so to force your opponent to act. You can also run Emmersblade into an opponent’s monster so you can Summon Pellina during the Damage Step and avoid certain types of card effect negation.

Use Pellina to Summon Bruno and Darksoul from your Deck and add Saber Slash to your hand. Saber Slash can destroy 2 face-up cards, then you can Synchro Summon XX-Saber Hyunlei to destroy up to 3 Spell/Traps and set yourself up with another Pellina for next turn. The initial configuration of this Deck is set up to have more plays going first than going second – in a tournament situation you’ll want a Side Deck to help adjust this balance between Duels.

Other cards you can include in this Deck include powerful board breakers like Harpie’s Feather Duster, Raigeki, and Lightning Storm, all searchable with Triple Tactics Thrust!  If you want more cards you can play when you draw them with your Mulcharmies, you can include another EARTH Tuner monster like Ghost Belle & Haunted Mansion, or you can pick the Psychic-Type Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit (keep in mind, Ghost Ogre can use its effect while it’s face-up on the field, so you get that protection when you Special Summon it with Emergency Teleport!) You may also want to add more copies of Emergency Teleport. You can also adjust the number of each Mulcharmy you play depending on what kinds of strategies you expect to face off against! X-Saber may be the oldest of the three Decks in Legendary Modern Decks 2026, but there’s a reason it’s a classic!