Well, after being thoroughly disillusioned with what my Yi Shan* deck off Life was able to accomplish, I have decided to make the leap across the pond to the (IMHO much stronger) Earth resource symbol. This deck is aggressive and looks to put the opponent down quickly. I have yet to playtest this version, but I will bring feedback when I do.

Here's what I've got so far:

Yi Shan* - Earth

Starting Character:

Yi Shan* (6 HS 29 Vitality) (Earth, Good, Life)

Characters (2):

2 Yi Shan** (6/6 +0M) (Earth, Life, Water)

Actions (4):

2 Tieh Lei, Iron Thunder (2/5 +1H) (Earth, Life, Water)

2 Tag Along (5/4) (Air, All, Earth, Good, Order, Water)

Assets (2):

2 Mysterious Stance (3/4 +1M) (Earth, Fire, Good)

Attacks (18):

4 Yi Shan's Dragon Tail Leg Sweep (3/3 3L3 +2L; Kick) (Earth, Life, Water)

4 Dragon Punch (4/2 4M6 +2M; Punch) (Earth, Life, Water)

4 Yi Shan's Tiger Claw (4/3 3H5 +3H; Stun: 1) (Earth, Life, Water)

4 Striking Thunder (5/3 3M6) (Earth, Life, Water)

2 Rage of the Dragon (6/3 4M6 +1M; Punch, Yi Shan Only) (Earth, Life, Water)

Foundations (34):

4 Battle Prowess (1/4) (Earth, Life, Water)

4 Origins Unknown (1/5 +1H) (Earth, Fire, Life)

4 Torn Hero (1/5) (Earth, Good, Life)

4 Amy's Assistance (2/4 +1M) (Earth, Fire, Good, Order)

3 Cutting Edge (2/5 +2M) (Earth, Evil, Order)

4 Hungry for Battle (2/4) (Earth, Evil, Fire)

3 Inhuman Perception (2/5 +1H) (Air, Death, Earth)

4 The King of Fighters 2006 (2/5 +3M) (Air, Chaos, Earth, Fire)

4 Program Malfunction (3/5 +1M) (Earth, Order, Water)

General Deck Strategy:

This deck is pretty straight-forward aggro (just the way I like 'em): push attacks through with liberal amounts of buffing, and hoard them in your face-up momentum in order to buff further attacks, which makes every attack more dangerous than the last. After a few pieces (such as Tiger Claw and Striking Thunder ) have hit the face-up momentum, even attacks as humble as a Dragon Tail Leg Sweep become lethal. Tieh Lei, Iron Thunder can help you set up a kill turn by stacking large amounts of attacks in the face-up momentum. If that fails, this deck is defensively stout, and can take plenty of punishment from your opponent, so don't be afraid to trade blows with your opponent; most can't keep up with your offensive and defensive prowess.

Card-by-Card Breakdown:

Yi Shan* - Quite frankly, he is all that and a bag of chips. A great effect for offense and defense, and a rockin' 29 starting Vitality.

Yi Shan** - Brings more damage (and more damage reduction) from *Yi Shan* 's E, and has solid stand-alone effects himself. Plus, it flips a 6 and has a +0 mid block.

Tieh L ei, Iron Thunder - A variety of quality effects, including transforming any momentum I may have into face-up momentum, which sets up the kill.

Tag Along - Top-notch character hate (good), and condition-free recursion (also good).

Mysterious Stance - It ignores one attack completely on a once-per-turn basis. Sweet.

Yi Shan's Dragon Tail Leg Sweep - a 3-check, 3-diff off-zone attack that sends itself to the face-up momentum. Sweet.

Dragon Punch - It has great stats (if you can get past the 2 CC), and it packs a MEAN punch on a kill turn, especially with some Striking Thunder in there.

Yi Shan's Tiger Claw - More nice stats, and a great effect if it can stay in your face-up momentum.

Striking Thunder - Another brutal effect you can have in your face-up momentum.

Rage of the Dragon - The de facto finisher of this deck. Put some Striking Thunder in the face-up momentum via direct attack or The Thirst Always Wins + Tieh Lei, and suddenly this gets brutally powerful.

Battle Prowess - Extra vitality, which is always nice to have, especially since this deck doesn't put all that much emphasis on defense.

Origins Unknown - Punches through the kill (I have 18 cards that meet its requirement in my deck, so it can go up to +18 speed).

Torn Hero - Committing effects win games and every symbol has 'em, so it's a good idea to be prepared against them.

Amy's Assistance - Damage redux and asset hate in one convenient package.

Atoning for the Past - Makes kill turns and crucial set-ups easier by getting me the face-up momentum I need, when I need it.

Cutting Edge - There's no such thing as too much protection, and given that this deck attacks like a berserker, a little insurance never hurt anyone.

Hungry for Battle - Puts a little more 'oomph' behind every hit without really having to do much of anything, which is always appreciated.

The King of Fighters 2006 - Quite frankly, this is my utility-box foundation: it buffs damage in a pinch, it can clear my opponent's hand, or it can clean out my own momentum to allow The Thirst Always Wins to work its magic while cleaning out my opponent's (it also helps against opponents who are even better at using momentum than I am).

Program Malfunction - Quality committing power, so you can push your stuff through without having to bait out enemy defenses and the like.

Side Deck:

2 Blinding Rage (1/6 +1M) (Air, Earth, Fire)

2 Holding Ground (2/4 +2L) (Earth, Good, Order)

4 Will for the Fight (2/5 +3M) (Earth, Life, Order)

Any comments will be greatly appreciated.

*bump*

Made some significant changes to the deck. Comments, anyone?

*bump*

C'mon, guys. No one has any comments?

Nice lookin' deck Did you test it against other decks? It looks to me like it punches quite hard

First of all, thanks very much for the comment.

I've yet to playtest him with all the changes, but most of them were already there, and he's quite good. I was cracking through Evil's defenses even pre-ban (it was a pain in the BUTT, though) and I could pretty much hold my own against an Order Defender loop with Lord of the Makai (Rest in Pieces). Hopefully, my new changes and the bans will push it over the top, though I am considering a more aggressive version, which I just posted, so check it out.

take out hierdens and put in Ways of punishment so when you go for kill you make them toss their hand for the win. Also right now since so much was banned at the oppositely to the replacement suggestion side board anti discard and it seems very in right now.

Unless you're only using Origins Unknown as spam fodder, i would replace it for something that would be actually useful. As it is, Origins Unknown doesn't trigger off any cards you would have in your staging area, since it requires both Earth/Fire symboled cards; i only see Earth/Life.

First of all, thanks for the comments, guys.

@joe10lo: Hmm, that's an interesting idea. Unfortunately, I own 0 The Ways of Punishment. I could proxy for them to see if they're worth looking for, but IMHO discard is being hosed pretty hard right now, so they're a bit of a gamble.

As far as the side deck, point taken; Will for the Fight adds a touch of damage and packs quality discard hate.

@RockStar: That's because I haven't written down all the symbols for the cards, instead only writing those they share with my character (old forum tradition). The following cards in my deck have both the Earth and Fire symbols (and thus apply for Origins Unknown 's E):

Amy's Assistance (4)

Blinding Rage (2)

Heidern's Assassination Arts (4)

Hungry for Battle (4)

Origins Unknown (4)

Mysterious Stance (2)

That's 20 cards, so the effect can be pretty devastating, especially in the mid-game (it's usually up to +8 speed by about T4, making it almost impossible to block an attack I use its E on twice).

Made some minor changes to the Side Deck, as well as updated symbol counts to make the synergy with Origins Unknown . Additionally, I just added the great The King of Fighters 2006 foundation to the deck, since it has a crazy amount of synergy with my strategy. Thoughts?

I'm assuming you've been asked this, but have you ever considered starting with the starter version, and then stacking the promo?

...Actually, no, I haven't been asked that (I start promo version because I've always wanted to make a deck with Promo Yi Shan since he was available). It would trade a bit of early-game damage potential and defense for a potentially more efficient momentum-stacking strategy. I'll try it, and bring some feedback.

Read Distractible. Giggle, then throw four in there. It should be in any aggro Earth deck imo with all the ludacrous DR running around.

I don't think there's damage reduction going on quite like people think

Criminal Past, Battle Prowess, Holding Ground, and Healer are NOT damage reduction.

B-Rad said:

I used to have it in there, as the obligatory remedy for Rejection , but I don't feel it's really necessary right now. I can only think of 3 DR enhances that might annoy me: Frogase 's character E (which I can eliminate with Tag Along for a whole turn), Amy's Assistance (play that when I have Torn Hero and 1+ momentum, c'mon, I dare ya), and Red Cyclone of Mother Russia (only gonna hit me for a maximum of -3 in this deck, and it's likely not even gonna get to that, since it only checks ready foundations). So I'm not sure what DR enhances you're referring to, but if this is all, I think I'll be fine.

If Holding Ground isn't Damage Reduction, what is it then? o_O

I think of it as damage resetting, more than anything else. And as far as adding Distractible to combat it, the point is moot, because Distractible only stops Enhance DR anyway.

Yeah, Distractable can't stop Holding Ground anyways.

Ever think of Hulking Brute? You can draw more cards for your set-up turns and it will give +2dmg when you attack them.

Hulking Brute just seems like an all-around great card.

I've actually been trying to figure out what to toss out for them, but I have hit dead ends so far. If you have any suggestions, any at all, as to what Hulking Brute can replace without taking away from my core functions, it would be SO appreciated, man. Thanks in advance.

If you can find room, I find Ka Techniques and Program Malfunctions excellent ways to control problem foundations.

Is there still enough foundation destruction to make Blinding Rage worthwhile. I have been running an Earth/Life Yi Shan for the past month or so and have not encountered any since Olcadan's was banned (and I did not have to deal with it all that much). Granted the main reason I skipped it was I dont have any, but I really have not missed it.

You have a point; it's probably sideboard material right now, considering that just about everything that could make it trigger is running off of Death as a common symbol. I'll see what I can replace it with.

Mild changes to the deck; Blinding Rage has been relegated to the side deck in favor of The Tae Kwon Do Zephyr , which can save me from big damage reduction as well as provide a small damage boost (with 0/5 stats ). As far as Shaneth's and Gaius Marius' suggestions ( Hulking Brute and Ka Technique / Program Malfunction , respectively), I am at a loss as for what I should remove. Any suggestions are welcome.

No one? I really could use some suggestions to incorporate Hulking Brute , since I think it would work wonders for my building speed. Any thoughts?

When I tried The Thirst Always Wins, I found that I never got hit hard enough by my opponent's attacks until it was too late and I always had momentum from attacking before I got it out to use it on my attacks.

Other than that, I don't run Amy's Assistance, Hungry for Battle, Mysterious Stance, or King of Fighters 2008 - but that is 1) because I don't have them and 2) my deck is Earth/Life hybrid and I don't want too many cards that do not share both.

First things first: thanks for the input, man. It's appreciated.

I'm fearing that I'll run into the same results as you with The Thirst Always Wins , but I'm gonna give it a shot anyway. If it doesn't work out, I'll probably toss it in favor of Hulking Brute . I hope it works, though; it looks like it could be a gynormous boost in theory.

To be honest, I tried this deck off Life first, but I feel like it just doesn't have enough options to help deal with control options. Earth seems to be much more capable of getting the job done IMHO, but YMMV.