X-Saber

Overview
The X-Sabers are a series of mainly EARTH Attribute, mostly Warrior-Type and Beast-Warrior-Type monsters whose effects associate mainly during either player's Phase. Some allow the user to gain massive card advantage after battle by causing hand destruction and returning monsters to the top of the Deck, while others focus on increasing their own Attack power. Many were introduced in Duel Terminal followed by further support in Duel Terminal - Invasion of Worms!. With the release of Gottoms' Emergency Call, the X-Saber monsters are the first Duel Terminal Archetype to receive Spell and Trap support, and with the Ancient Prophecy Pre-Release exclusive XX-Saber Gardestrike, the first Duel Terminal archetype to have its own TCG-exclusive card. They also received more support in Ancient Prophecy in the form of the XX-Sabers sub-Archetype and were released to the TCG with the 2009 Starter Deck. The XX-Sabers are still considered X-Sabers though.

Though their effects to maintain hand advantage over the opponent are useful, X-Sabers run into a few strategic problems. The biggest problem is that many of them simply do not have very high ATK; even some of the high-level Synchro Monsters of the set have very low ATK for their level. Unless their user swarms the field (Rescue Cat and Reasoning might help), some of the X-Saber monsters will be of limited use, because several of them require the presence or tribute of other X-Saber monsters to activate.

Faultroll Loop
This combo involves using 2 XX-Saber Faultrolls and a XX-Saber Ragigura with XX-Saber Gottoms or Dark Strike Fighter/Mass Driver/Cannon Soldier to force your opponent to lose all their points or all the cards in their hand. It works as follows: by having two Faultrolls, one Ragigura and one Lv. 3 Tuner X-Saber monster on the field, you can Synchro Summon XX-Saber Gottoms. Then, Tribute Ragigura for Gottom's effect and discard one random card from your opponent's hand. After that, use Faultroll's effect to Special Summon Ragigura, activating its effect to add the other Faultroll to your Hand and Summon it again. Tribute both Ragigura and the spent Faultroll, and re-use the unused Faultroll to repeat the combo. Repeat until your opponent's Hand is completely empty. The exact same combo applies with Dark Strike Fighter, Mass Driver and Cannon Soldier, the only difference is that you do not need XX-Saber Gottoms on the field.(Dark Strike Fighter is now on the ban list)

Monsters

 * Card Trooper
 * Giant Rat
 * Marauding Captain
 * Morphing Jar
 * Neo-Spacian Grand Mole
 * Rescue Cat
 * Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter
 * Sangan
 * Summoner Monk

Spells

 * Foolish Burial
 * Hand Destruction
 * Reinforcement of the Army
 * Monster Reincarnation

Traps

 * Spiritual Earth Art - Kurogane
 * Trap Dustshoot
 * Bottomless Trap Hole
 * Phoenix Wing Wind Blast

SaberSworn
This version of the deck can be anywhere from only a slight modification of normal X-Sabers to a full-on hybrid. The general idea is to use Lightsworn monsters and support cards (primarily Charge of the Light Brigade) to mill the deck, dumping X-Sabers in the Graveyard quickly. This allows greater use of XX-Saber Ragigura, XX-Saber Gardestrike, XX-Saber Fulhelmknight, XX-Saber Faultroll, and Gottoms' Emergency Call.

The most commonly used Lightsworns, in a deck packing only a few of them, are Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter and Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress for their easy destruction capabilities and the fact that they do not need to support Lightsworns. Wulf, Lightsworn Beast may also be used for its non-specificity. (Other cards, like Garoth, Lightsworn Warrior, Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner and Aurkus, Lightsworn Druid do specifically support Lightsworns.) Builds using more Lightsworns will generally only incorporate a few of each, to maximize the playability of Judgment Dragon. In such a deck, an ideal game-ending play would be to special summon Judgment Dragon and wipe the field, then normal summon Rescue Cat, special summon 2 X-Saber Airbellums, special summon X-Saber Faultroll from the hand, special summon another X-Saber from the graveyard, and attack to deal as high as - or higher than - 10,000 damage to the opponent.

Monsters

 * Jenis, Lightsworn Mender
 * Ehren, Lightsworn Monk
 * Jain, Lightsworn Paladin
 * Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter
 * Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress
 * Card Trooper
 * Morphing Jar
 * Rescue Cat
 * Plaguespreader Zombie
 * D.D. Crazy Beast
 * Cyber Jar
 * Morphing Jar 2

Spells

 * Charge of the Light Brigade
 * Cold Wave
 * Foolish Burial
 * Giant Trunade
 * Pot of Avarice
 * Monster Reincarnation
 * Reinforcement of the Army
 * Saber Slash
 * Solar Recharge

Traps

 * Gottoms' Emergency Call
 * Phoenix Wing Wind Blast
 * Threatening Roar
 * Bottomless Trap Hole