In the middle of a mystical lake lies a legendary sword which only the most worthy may yield. Artoria, clad in her armour, was blessed by the lady of the lake. Filled with resolve and bravery, she took the entrusted weapon in her arms, ready to slay the beasts that dare challenged her kingdom. And then, she went with her knights to the local McDs for fries and burgers.
Wielding the sword of promised victory, Saber enters the fray, ready to defend her value meal choices. Excalibur, aptly named, is Saber’s climax name. This is important because, throughout all the releases and additional support for Fate, Saber’s weapon has received various upgrades with new cards that it supports and new triggers as well. Feel free to mix and match based on your own preferences.
As for the two cards shown above, they are the core of the deck. We have a simple goal. We will exorcise the foul evil that persists in the realm. 2/1 Saber accomplishes exactly that by wiping a card from our opponent’s waiting room and sending it to memory permanently, likely our opponent’s finisher’s climaxes. For the sin of making us miserable, we shall call upon a divine light that will purge them of being able to close out the game. Additionally, since 3/2 Saber uses the same climax, she’s a great finisher of choice as she gives a cancel ping ability, making herself or someone else even more deadly should our opponent cancel their damage.
Some other supports for the deck come with Saber Alter and Lancer (Diarmuid Ua Duibhne). Saber Alter also combos with Excalibur and deals a point of damage upon reversing her opponent. Lancer is a climax swapper for green climaxes or Excalibur specifically, but he lets you search the climax from deck instead of the typical exchange from waiting room. Diarmuid wishes to face Saber in an honourable battle, letting his opponent grab their secret treasure.
FS/S36-015U “怒りの拳”士郎 (center)
FS/S64-005R 風纏う聖剣 セイバー (right)
To make our endgame more consistent, Shirou and Saber burst into the fray to help out. Shirou on the left is a climax fetcher that can also pump soul for another character when he swings. 2/1 Shirou has a Jun’you effect to make our Shirou [士郎], Saber [セイバー], and Rin [凛] characters gain an extra soul in front of him. Lastly, 3/2 Saber bounces an opposing character on play and also lets you pay her costs to give all your characters an extra soul and power for the turn.
All the cards above grant additional soul which heavily compliments our finisher Saber. Saber punishes decks when they cancel, and the addition of extra soul and opening board with running Saber opens up that opportunity to let our cards swing for more and force our opponent closer to cancel allowing us to punish it.
Shirou is a great card to act as our early advantage combo. Firstly, his combo ability freely adds hand and mills our deck. Secondly, he combos with a two soul climax, letting us either stick a large amount of damage into our opponent’s clock or force our opponent’s to fill their waiting room with climaxes for Saber to snipe. Additionally, given the rampant amount of soul triggers in this deck, Shirou has a very good chance to just dump a large amount of damage, and even if he misses with a climax trigger, you can use his innate ability to pay them out for a draw.
Because our deck is mostly Shirou or Saber, the two Saber cards above are perfect additions to the deck. Saber on the left is a boost to another Shirou not present in the deck, but more importantly, she gives all Shirou cards hand encore for the turn. Saber on the right gives hexproof to your center character and is a Takitsubo profile (an ACT effect that performs a search Riki effect) for Shirou and Saber.
The last card that I wish to mention directly is the Tohsaka sisters. The Tohsaka sisters are a double salvager on play for Saber. They are especially helpful as you can salvage any Saber character and act as a double filter to fix your hand as well.
FS/S36-023C “清楚な佇まい”セイバー (center)
FS/S36-060U “複雑な想い”凛 (right)
Counters are a potential choice to use if you can keep the 2/1 Sabers alive. They are especially helpful to the deck itself and 0/0 Shirou if they possess soul triggers. Shirou is a Leafa backup that is great for hand filtering. Saber is an oversized backup for Shirou, Saber, and Rin. Lastly, Rin is a standard anti-change counter.
Since Saber is サーヴァント (Servant) trait, Sakura is a great addition to the deck as she is an Adachi and can also spawn out Saber from the waiting room. Musashi Saber is a cheap profile to add that gives some extra finishing power. Saber is a brainstorm that can search for both the main traits of the deck, Master (マスータ) and Servant, and given that she has Saber in her name, she can be searched by the Takitsubo Saber profile. Rin is a Kazuma profile, helping us dig through our deck and add our needed pieces to hand. Lastly, Archer or Saber Alter (both functionally have the same ability), is an additional finisher that has a decent hit rate thanks to all the level one and higher Master and Servant characters in the deck.
Don’t you kind of wish that your opponent wouldn’t slam that climax and deal some unmeasurable number of damage instances to you? What if we were to simply remove the climax entirely, forcing our opponent to play a more fair vanilla game? If so, this is the deck for you. It is by “fate”, that you came to read this profile. Get your 2/1 Sabers out on the board as early as you can and decimate your opponent’s climaxes in their waiting room. Promised victory is in sight!