Mitsurugi no MIkoto, Saji – #SUDA-EN091
If this card is Normal or Special Summoned, or if this card is Tributed: You can add 1 “Mitsurugi” Spell/Trap from your Deck to your hand. If another Reptile monster(s) you control would be destroyed by battle or card effect, you can Tribute this card instead. You can only use each effect of “Mitsurugi no Mikoto, Saji” once per turn.
Date Reviewed: April 14th, 2025
Rating: 3.68
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is awful. 3 is average. 5 is excellent.
Reviews Below:
King of
Lullaby
Hello Pojo Fans,
Mitsurugi Week on Pojo and we’re going to start the look at this TCG archetype, starting with Mitsurugi no Mikoto, Saji.
I know what you’re thinking, and despite it being a TCG-only archetype for now, this archetype is seeing success despite not having many cards so far.
Saji, like all monsters in the archetype, are Reptile and DARK. They are Ritual-based and involve tributing themselves or being tributed to activate their effects. The Ogdoadic archetype matches this type of playstyle and can be used in conjunction together as both are Repitle and need tributing to faciltate effects/Special Summons.
Saji is the Spell/Trap searcher for the archetype. Typical Normal or Special Summon trigger for the search, but also it can tribute itself. The Ritual Spell will do this and can tribute from Deck or hand for the Ritual Summon. Mitsurugi no Mikoto, Kusanagi, the other non-Ritual monster in the archetype, will add back any other Mitsurugi monster from the grave, recovering advantage for you.
You can also tribute Saji to save a Reptile from being destroyed by battle or card effect, which will get you your search as well. Protection is nice to have and if it can trigger card advantage for you that makes it an even better effect. Had this effect been allowed to happen in-hand I think it would’ve served as a better way to interact with your opponent. As is, Saji had to be on the field.
There is a long combo alongside Ryzeal that invovles King of the Feral Imps and the Mitsurugi cards to make a pretty tough board to crack if left unchecked. With six cards in archetype, it is best used alongside an archetype that functions with the tributing Mitsurugi need.
Advanced- 3.5/5 Art- 4/5
Until Next Time,
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
Supreme Darkness coverage ends with the TCG exclusive Mitsurugi archetype, which has seen success in the TCG via Ryzeal variants, but also exists in Ogdoadic variants and whatnot. Anyways, we start the week off with the better of the 2 Level 4 monsters they have: Mitsurugi no Mikoto, Saji.
Saji is a Level 4 DARK Reptile with 1000 ATK and 1700 DEF. Stats aren’t the best, but a DARK monster is always great, and Reptile does have decent generic support thanks to stuff like Snake Rain, King of the Feral Imps, and the Ogdoadics. If this card is Normal or Special Summoned, or if this card is tributed, you can add any Mitsurugi Spell/Trap diectly from your Deck to your hand. Immediately we have a backrow searcher, which is good in an archetype based on Ritual Summoning and has its own Ritual Spell in the form of Mitsurugi Ritual. You also got Mitsurugi Prayers to use Mitsurugi tribute effects on the opponent’s turn while searching and extending plays, as well as Mitsurugi Great Purification for a negate. If another Reptile monster(s) you control would be destroyed by battle or card effect, you can tribute this card instead. Not too effective unless you get the other base Mitsurugis out to protect your others to get their effects when tributed as well, but if the opponent goes directly for the boss monster, this is at least some protection. HOPT on each effect, as we can expect. Saji is pretty good for your archetypal searcher of the backrow, especially since your Ritual Spell can summon a Ritual from the Deck. The protection is also fine, but I don’t know how often it would come up. Multiples in Mitsurugi is fine for the search alone, to be quite honest.
Advanced Rating: 3.75/5
Art: 4/5 Always fun when we get new Reptiles just to see what art they make.
Mighty
Vee
Despite the bad rep of TCG exclusives, they’ve had quite a few breakout hits recently, and that’s no different with the flagship TCG exclusive archetype of Supreme Darkness, Mitsurugi, which has been popular as a Ryzeal hybrid and taken a few tops with Ogdoadic hybrids as well. Mitsurugi no Mikoto, Saji starts us off, a level 4 DARK Reptile monster– that gives it synergy with both Ogdoadic due to their penchant for DARK and LIGHT Reptiles plus, of course, the ubiquitous Ryzeal since you can search it with King of Feral Imps. Other than that, Mitusurgi Prayers and Futsu no Mitama no Mitsurugi can also get to it. Saji’s stats aren’t impressive, with only 1000 attack and 1700 defense, so you won’t want it to stick around too long.
Saji has 2 hard once per turn effects, the first and more important one triggering if it’s Normal or Special Summoned or Tributed (get ready to see that a lot), simply searching any Mitsurugi Spell or Trap. Mitsurugi doesn’t really have any solid 1-card combos yet outside of Ryzeal hybrids, so what you’ll search depends on what else you have; if you happen to have either of the Ritual monsters, you can go ahead and search for Mitsurugi Ritual (very important!). Otherwise, you’ll want to grab Prayers or Mitsurugi Great Purification if you already have all your combo pieces in order. Speaking of Prayers, while we won’t be covering it this week, it’s a fantastic card to pair with Saji given that you can search it and immediately use it to tribute Saji then summon Mitsurugi no Mikoto, Kusanagi and get its recycling effect, getting back Prayers and potentially enabling their boss monster. Saji’s other effect isn’t as useful, but still helpful in its own way– it’ll let you save another Reptile from being destroyed by battle or card effect by tributing itself, which naturally will also trigger its first effect if you haven’t used it yet. The intent is to keep it on the field to protect your boss monsters, which both lack protection, so Saji will sack itself to keep them alive a little longer while also getting you more advantage. It can come up, but like most protection floaters, it’s not an effect I’d count on, especially against banish-heavy decks like Maliss, which is still a major force in the meta in the new format. While pure Mitsurugi likely won’t be topping until their new support, they’ve found a surprising home in Ryzeal, which can make King of Feral Imps without their Normal Summon, letting you save it for Saji and utilizing Eclipse Twins to summon King of Feral Imps again (hooray for soft once per turn?) to search the Mitsurugi boss monster. Saji is a simple but solid card for Mitsurugi considering how strong their backrow is, so in more pure builds and Ogdoadic hybrids I’d personally run 3. In Ryzeal hybrids, normally I’d say just 2 is fine, but after the banlist, you’ll have quite a bit of extra space that a bigger Mitsurugi package can conveniently fill.
EDIT: Now that the leaked support has been officiated (literally today) I feel the need to mention that in pure combos, you’ll want to be grabbing Saji with their new Ritual monster’s effect and search Mitsurugi Ritual, which will conveniently be able to summon their boss monster immediately. Yahoo!
+Excellent combo piece to grab backrow
+Can be woven into combos with King of Feral Imps
-Niche quasi-protection
-Can’t 1-card combo (yet)
Advanced: 3.75/5
Art: 3.75/5 Diluc got powercrept so he decided to jump to another game after getting a lizard-themed makeover.
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