Consider this a tech talk discussion. I just kinda discovered something 1337 just now:

Journey of Repentance + Blinding Rage = <3

Earth was known for its flexibility in the first block, and then come cycle, it was nothing more than a giant wall of crap. Between Zangief and Maxima and Demitri, the symbol seriously just didn't move.

Now, though, it has a lot. Criminal Past/Prince of Darkness/Mysterious Stance + Battle Prowess means that you take nothing from their attack, then continuously benefit from it being in the discard pile.

Soul Calibur + Torn Hero is an absolute magnet for heavy control decks, and one that will seriously make them think twice about touching your staging area.

No Forgiveness! + Ka Technique give Throw attacks the dreadful enhances they've always needed.

Brooding + Lives for Battle will give all of your attacks +1 damage and you'll gain 1 vitality every turn.

Atoning for the Past + Dark Past will grant you almost instant momentum, and then creates an aggressive engine.

That's just a small list for now. Anybody else care to join in on this newly-awesome symbol?

MarcoPulleaux said:

Earth isn't newly-awesome.

It has always been really good, just the characters couldn't bring out the full potential of it cause they all were sub-par. Now it can be played with pretty much anyone.

Otherwise, Torn Hero can be fueled also with Dancing Battle Kabuki, which is good to play anyways for the +1 handsize.

Why does Brooding + live for battle = gain 1 vitality per turn?

Hazno Punch(Slash Elbow + American made +Hanzo) was pretty fun.

babelfish666 said:

Doesn't "Live for Battle" require that you pay at least 2 vitality. Brooding only makes you pay 1.

You're missing:

• Mysterious Stance
• Cutting Edge
• Revenant's Calling
• A Cat's Reflexes
• Big Cyclone
• Inhuman Perception
• TWOP
• Ready for Anything

Earth kicks a major amount of bum.

This is not news in ATL. You may have noticed a gief deck that top 4'ed at the SEC. It was there for a reason: Access to rev's, inhuman, dormant, battle prowess, amy's, criminal past, hulking brute, giant of a man, holding ground, distractable, sardines beach, will for the fight not to mention all of the dumb stuff to be had off of all. This set kind of solidified mountains brutalness, as it got great tech against both evil and order from siegfried, and some of the best foundations ever from Rashotep. Mountain is pretty high tier right now; its biggest downfall has been that olcadon's mentoring could eventually eat away at blinding rage and loop decks would take it out from there. Now it has more olcadon's defense so who knows, I think it could win big.

Brooding + Altered Mind and Body.

Might as well say "your attacks get +1 damage for each copy of this card in play" at that point.

Brooding is really good for Earth insofar that it gives your lifegain cards a purpose outside of jerking the aggro decks around.

Earth is dumb-strong now, it can definitely compete with a big boy deck and come out ahead.

Earth had some nice characters. It was just the fact that they couldn't be made useful, or were just better off other symbols.

Starter Sagat, for example, is pretty good. But, despite the fact that you can E off of your opponent's attack, It's very handy to have spammable attacks. I think, more or less, Earth acquired some good 3 check attacks.

Over here in the Uk, or in my games club at least we've always considered Earth to be, indeed an Uber resource symbol.

My favourite part is that I feel Earth and to a lesser extent Air are the only symbols to remain true to the games roots.

Would you like to throw down some Uber damge to your opponent and kncok them out like a man would? I'd love to see Order try that one =D

Earth's always been my second favourite symbol (first being Air because i'm a total fanboy...) and i'm just so happy to see on such a competitive level.

@ Mister HDC: Yes, you're right Earth has always had GOOD cards. too many to list in B3. Yet the cahrcters weren't solid as far as handsize and consistency were concerned.

E.G New promo Giefy. Great abilities for earth attacks, in particular throws. yet his 5HS and the fact that high vitality doesn't mean so much right now held him down.

On to your point of starter Sagat, pretty much the same point in case 6Hs/28 is OK amazing tutor is wicked, sadly he was just too slow.. Or was he??

But what about 7HS earth characters? There aren't too many 7HS earther's good ones being Kyoshiro, the problem is they well were few and far between.

Still better off using 7HS'ers to 6Hs'ers even in one of the most original resources...

Well I hope you enjoyed my input Guys.

Remeber, Earth is awesome

Cheers

HanzoSlash.

Homme Chapeau said:

I misread Live for Battle, horribly. I thought it worked the other way; lose 1 gain 2 =D

Oh well, both are still tremendous, especially if you combine Live for Battle with Mongolian Trample.

Anyways, I think Earth can finally be played solo-symbol, and yes, I'm talking more about its support and less its characters. Although I've always been negative on Earth's repertoire, I was mostly negative on its lack of good cards to use. Set 11 did give us some okay stuff with Monster Lariat and R. Mika's latest butt-to-the-face throw, but I've never truly felt influenced until now.

And yeah, I had played some friends with my Earth deck just to see how it was, and man, I've never seen somebody get so annoyed with the whole Journey to Repentance + Blinding Rage combo. I'm serious, that combo is golden.

hugo and leona are earth's headliners. they both draw like crazy, and can play agro or control. hugo can turtle like nobodies business, leona can t2 realy easy. earth is good.