Okay, I have been only looking at the cards from Block 4. Trying to determine what I might like when it comes to card play.

From my analyst I have determined what some of these symbols benefit most from so please correct me if I'm wrong or provide more insight for the ones I may have missed. Okay so maybe I don't have alot of analyst since I don't have alot of cards and I'm at work just hoping we can get some discussion going.

AIR: ???

ALL: ???

Chaos: ???

Death: RFG maniuplation (i.e. making cards dead)

Earth: ???

Evil: Building Momentum at the Cost Foundation destruction (that's my guess based on the cards I've seen)

Fire: Damage Pump

Good: ???

Life: ???

Order: ???

Water: ???

Void : Card destruction from hand.

I'm doing this to break down by the simplest means to help me understand the symbols better.

Before rotation, I would've easily pointed out what each symbol does. Right now, the card pool is 4 sets, and there's 12 symbols, so it's kind of hard to single out every symbol as the main user of X mechanic.

Sad to say that, as a result, I have no input...

life: Speed, alot of speed. Untouchable staging area. Limited card draw. Only real damage pump is acrobatic/playful

Fire: Speed and damage about equal, Fire is the most hardhitting symbol right now.

Earth: Stun controll, Blanking controll and also untouchable staging area

Chaos: Momentum and check haxing shenanigans

Water: Lifes little sister??

Order: Commiting stuff, with amy attacks goes unblocked, Yoshi gives it discard.. pretty undefined symbol atm

Evil: um??

Death: Destruction based Control

All: Selective Card draw, got some pretty interesting tricks

Air: Um..??

AIR: ???

ALL: A little bit of everything

Chaos: ???

Death: RFG maniuplation (i.e. making cards dead)

Earth: Throw, and still a little damage redux damage boost

Evil: Not much at the moment

Fire: Damage Pump and stun

Good: defensive. stop from tapping, blanking, life gain etc

Life: gain a little life and play tons of small attacks

Order: supposed to control but doesn't do much now

Water: working on it...

Void: Card destruction from hand.

oh yeah and I agree, life has pretty good speed pump. Water and life also do well at reversing.

Just to add to what's being said...

Chaos...also encourages and rewards players for playing Character Cards as blocks, or just having them in your deck. Particularly if you are Heihachi, Jin Kazama, or Kazuya.

Air is the momentum symbol at the moment, and by that I mean it has Yun-Seong, some support like Assassin's Secret, Solitary Assassin, Mishima Zaibatsu Leader, From the Mouse Humility; and ways to use it, like Yun-Seong and Menuett Dance.

squall14 said:

But chaos does this pretty well too.....its got treacherous offspring, Maniacal laughter, MZL, all of Zi mei's momentum stuffs, and cards to use it like spinning demon, Curse of the ancient Mariner, etc.....

Wind is probably more card readying and card pool clearing at the moment. Its got Yun-seoung, Quick Exit, Lost, Partner, Hall of the Warrior God, Driven By Fear, Tira(Gloomy side), Shredding Vibrato, and a few more that i probably cant think of at the moment

I believe Air has the strongest Combo mechanic use of any symbol, due to Temujin and Xianghua, and Nina and Zi Mei's attack base. It also tends to be strong in ignoring progressive difficulty, based off Taki's and Temujin's support. It is also strong in momentum generation and multiples, based off Zi Mei's support and Mishima Zaibatsu Leader.

I believe Evil focuses around damage boosts (Astaroth, Nightmare, Kazuya) and foundation destruction (Nightmare, Kazuya). It also has some Remove-from-game mechanics and generalized control (Zhao Daiyu). Lizardman's support has expanded Evil's focus a bit. The aforementioned articles on Evil are excellent.

Good is Evil's opposite. It focuses on damage reduction (but through Hilde's support, can turn that into damage boosts) and on keeping foundations available and ready. It is extremely reactionary, with strength in Reversals. (Good and Water tend to be the blocking/reversing symbols.)

Air - Momentum manipulation, some vitality drain, some multiples.

All - Card advantage through drawing, Stun.

Chaos - Momentum manipulation, Character Cards, some multiples, some powerful.

Death - Removed From Game, Staging area destruction.

Earth - Damage reduction, Throws.

Evil - Heavy damage pump, high stat vanilla attacks.

Fire - Damage and Speed pumps, Attack zone manipulation.

Good - Reversals, Blocking, untouchable staging area.

Life - Reversals, untouchable staging area, speed pumps.

Order - Situational effects, A little of everything.

Void - Hand advantage through discard, tutoring, and denial.