-Main Post-

So tired of control and hybrid. So time to go with agro and what not better than to try my old favorite symbol, or was, earth. I hope to play Leona competitively and to break the glass cannon stereotype, however having not played an earth deck since the introduction to CE and Domination has left more than rusty with earth's mechanics and play style. I really don't have anyone within my play group who can give me advice for the deck besides what has been mentioned on the other Leona deck lists, so I am calling out to all earth and what not fanatics for help. So please do treat me as a noob and go nuts with you critiques. All is welcomed and I hope this thread has lots of opionions and arguments as this should be great for getting the feel as to what earth is and difficulties that I will face.

-New Edit-

:Leona:

Cards: 61

Actions:
3x Tag Along

Assets:
3x Assassination Arts

Attacks:
3x Gravity Storm
4x Monster Lariat
4x Tsuji Hyate
4x High Plasma Beam

Foundations:
4x Origin's Unknown
4x Heidern's Assassination Arts
3x Blinding Rage
3x The Tae Kwon Do Zephyr
3x The Ways of the Punishment
3x Honor Your Dojo
3x Holding Ground
4x Revenant's Calling
3x Distractible
4x Programming Malfunction
3x Battle Prowess
3x Inhuman Perception

tag along, dormant for millions of years, hulking brute, will for the fight, holding ground, the ways of punishment, glare from the abyss, a giant of a man. all fun cards to play with and you might want to take a look at em

and as much as you may not want to admit it, its kinda a hybrid deck that goes for the one shot kills

and rising conquering crunch doesnt help you do that really, its nice tech but you can get the same life gain from battle prowess

4x Origin's Unknown
4x Heidern's Assassination Arts
3x The Tae Kwon Do Zephyr
3x Speak the Truth
3x Honor Your Dojo
3x Will of Iron
3x More Machine than Woman

i really think that in your deck these cards have higher cost than their usefullness

Origin's Unknown and Heidern's assassination Arts give very limited speed bonuses which if you use glare/TWOP you wont need

holding ground has more utility than The taekwondo zephyr with only more diff

speak the truth is very conditional

honor your dojo is also very limited because its 1 or 2 pump for commiting 2 foundations

will of iron and more machine than woman only work if you can play a action side dancing battle kabuki

consider some of the cards i mentioned in previous post maybe

Navitude said:

Actions:

Tag Along's are a must in today's meta. Also they recurr crap lol.

Attacks:

Pick one, Tiger Fury or Gravity Storm. Personally if you're going for the quick win, then go with Gravity Storm. Tiger Fury is too reliant on having a BIG staging area and you wanna t2 people. Another attack that could potentially kill is Sardine Beach Special. It'd replace Gravity Storm and you could throw in like, Monster Lariat (a fricken great attack if it sticks) or Tsuji Hyate (another amazing attack).

Assets:

Replace Cat's Reflex's with Assination Arts... Otherwise yer good.

Foundations:

Earth is a discard and hand control heavy symbol now, with Ways of Punishment and Glare from the Abyss outright discard, while King of Fighters 2006 is hand to momentum (arguably better in some decks). All three of those should find a home in yer deck. Program Malfunction also should be in there, as it deals with pesky foundations such as Chester's, Chinese, or BRTs when ya wanna kill. End it All isa third choice, it's kinda pricey but no Rs on a kill turn is hawt. Big Dreams is a great damage pump too.

B-Rad said:

Definitely agree with the cards recommended here. I'd also like to mention Siberian Training, which I'm pretty sure you're very familiar with. Not only is it a very good low block, but it's a low difficulty damage reducer. Prince of Darkness is a good foundation, but it has no block and only a four control check, which you wanto stay away from if all possible. But, if you don't have that many four cc's in the deck, Prince of Darkness would be good, since it can reduce any attack to zero. Why no Red Cyclones? The Red Cyclone of Mother Russia is one of my favorite earth foundations. Red Cylone is a low difficulty, 5 CC, +1 high block, breaker 1, damage reduction foundation, which can potentially reduce up to four or five damage, depending on the difficulty of foundations in your opponent's staging area.

Lastly, I'd like to recommend The Curse of Immoratlity. Two difficulty, 5 CC, +2 mid block, and it reduces the damage taken from an attack by four. The thing that separates Curse of Immortality from other damage reduction foundations, is that it doesn't give negatives to the damage of your opponent's attack, so if they have ways to restore their attack back to printed damage, or if they have ways of preventing their attack's damage from bring reduced, it will not work on Curse of Immortality, because Curse of Immortality only affects the damage YOU take, not the damage of your opponent's attack.

Navitude said:

I actually had a build very close to this one, using Reverse Flayer into big cyclone. My only real recomendation is that if you can run the ways of punishment, the glare from the abyss, and the king of fighters 2006 its generally a good idea to do so. KOF especally cause it provides some defence against spike and other multiples. Will of iron seems wasted in the deck because your not really a momentum build at all, and battle prowess deserves a 4th copy I think.

All right, so:

+3 Tag Along
-3 Cat's Reflexes / +3 Assassination Arts
-4 Tiger Fury / +4 Monster Lariat
-4 Rising Conquering Crunch / +4 Tsuji Hyate
-3 Speak the Truth / +3 The Ways of the Punishment
-3 Honor Your Dojo / +3 Glare of the Abyss
-3 Will of Iron / +3 Holding Ground
-3 More Machine than Women / +4 Programming Malfunction
-3 Dancing Battle Kabuki

So I have made changes for most of the recommendations. I completely forgot about Tag's and Assassination Art's is far better than Cat's Ref's. I stuck with Gravity Storm an added Monster Lar for the sweet draw up ability, and Tsuji hyate for the responce kill. I wanted to stay away from *** but it really is a good alternative if I can not produce the speed boost. Also on the note of speed boost, I still want to give Leona's foundations a try though it seems I have mush less duel symbol cards to usethem off of. Ziephnir is right about the fact that this is deck is more a less a one shot hybrid, but I hope to chage that.

So keep them those posts going!

strongly rerecommending a giant of a man and hulking brute

they are amazing card draw, even if you have an 8 handsize you can stand to draw more cards to build faster and play faster.

if alex has proved anything more cards in hand= better

the problem I encountered time and time again with her was that if I couldn’t hand strip answers away i NEEDED to have distractible in the deck or rejection would eat me alive.

Also since you deck is primarily foundation spam I would recommend building on a curve to optimize foundation dropping early on. It allows you to play less attacks and get better control checks overall. Since Leona is 8HS she is amazing at this, and if you can manage to drop any attack with less than 2 control and an average check of 5 on your foundations you can run a curve of 3-2-1-0-1-0. Meaning that for every foundation of 3 or less difficulty you can run with a 2 or less, and Two with a 1 and two with a 0 . This helps ensure than on your first turn you will most likely be able to guarantee 4 foundations, have a guaranteed attempt at more, and have a **** good chance of getting 6 in play. Since all your best kill cards rely on you having more foundations in play than not i think this is the way to go.

Just as an example of a curve based on earth, not saying it’s the correct foundations for you but you’ll get the idea.

3 - Program Malfunction x 4, The King of Fighters 2006 x 4
2 - The ways of punishment x4, Distractible x 4
1 - The Glare from the abyss x 4, huge wrestling army x 4
0 - The tae Kwon Do Zephyr x 4, dancing battle kabuki x 4
1 - Blinding rage x 4, , Origins Unknown x 4
0 - The Human weapon of steel x 4, Olcaladans Mentoring

Also a card I love to use lately Valerias shop. Just use one copy as you don’t want to get multiples in play. its a 6 check, +0 high block, and since your a very high hand size character allows you to spam even more cards as the game goes on, and it pays for itself the first time you use it.

So did you disregard every suggestion I made? Thanks, now I know who not to help out.

Hold on man. Currently going through midterm's and I con only do so much right now. Okay looking at your suggestions Gummy Bear well prince of darkness is deffinetly good and I would probably run about 3 copies in side bored, however I want to stay away from 3 diff foundations as much as possible for the spill reason. If you took a look at the list its pretty much in shambles right now. I am trying to work on adding stuff in, it's just I am prioritizing trying to balance in control to make sure that I can kill, cause what's the point of living when you can't be killin? RCoMR is a great card and it will be slot in as a +4, but I can't take the curse of immoratlity. With no momentum what can I do with it?

About the spill and draw... Well I want to make a point, and I will probably get shot to hell for this, but whats the point of spilling foundations when quite a few just can't pull the weight. KOF 2006 ain't that great to a certain extent in this deck, but all of the other juggestions work well. Drawing is the same boat. I would work on that after I get a good solid base of foundations. B-rad, you remember my Seth deck right. Only played one to two foundations first and second turn but each one was able to lock down my opponent in some way and how.

King of Fighters isnt all that great on its own but if your going to run Ways of punishment and glare it fits in perfectly. It provides some defence from spike as well which can make all the difference in the world considering your vit. Ive not seen a deck recently that hasent run it if they can, its really can be that useful.

Navitude said:

Not to mention each foudnation is +1 damage to tiger fury and porential damage to high plasma, your decks best kill cards. Every foudnation will "pull its weight" if having it to commit makes you not end your turn.