Has anyone tried there hand at earth latley? Its freaking devistating what I can do. The symbol block 3 contains:

A ton of 6 check foundations - Blinding rage, end it all, Will of Iron, Speak the Truth

3 different 0 drop foundations - DBK, The Tae Kwon Do Zephyr, Human weapon of steel

Discard and hand strip - Ways of punishment, The glare from the Abyss, KOF2006

Negation - Anything with Zasalamel on it, Tag along

I've been playing with this deck off pure earth that really reminds me of some old school Void control style builds, it's pretty freaking nasty. Whats everyone elses thoughs on the symbol? Is it the next one to make the big splash onto the competitive scene.

I would absolutely love a good earth deck, I have not tried it all yet as I really have no idea where to start, but its number one on my to-do list. It has a lot of cards that are pretty surprising in how good they actually are when played.

Earth'd be good if it had y'know Attacks!

Seriously I've attempted to build a good earth deck countless times and while i've had some success ( I won the earth patch ) I HATE it that i've had to rely on midnight pleasure as a finisher.

In short, yes i do love earth and want it to succeed, but honestly, that chance is minimal right now.

P.S hey person with Gaira avatar maybe Gaira will introduce new Earth cards xD

Earth still lacks quite a few things, it doesn't lack damage reduction though (Amy's, Government sponsorship etc. take a bow).

At the moment Earth doesn't have a lot of draw power to fuel things like ways of punishment, there isn't a lot of speed boost and there are lots of 2 check throws except maybe air backbreaker which is the only decent earth throw I can think of. Don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with 2 check throws they just have to be worth running. Like Bloodruns said, earth can't really kill at the moment save maybe tiger fury.

I run earth as the main symbol in a lot of my dual symbol decks.

earth is great it just has a hard time against tap down and fudging cc hax. other than that it's epic good no doubt. it's just hard when what you will face at a major in almost every round most likely is what fails you.

but man no doubt i have a earth jivatma built with tiger fury/plasma beam kill, it's sexy time. he combos so awesome with plasma b/c he commits stuff

Kinda funny you bring this up Fred Vik built a earth deck and its great . I love the symbol it has a little of everything aggro , negation , damage reduction , answer to commit effects and commit effects as well .

Bloodrunstrue said:

High Plasma beam, Reverse flayer, Tiger fury, Big cyclone (4 point watermark), Chaos Flare (also 4 pointed), Gravity storm , almost anything with Anakaras picture on it.

These all sound liek qualified finishers to me. Granted they may not be Feline spike, but right now access to things like ways of punishment make them easier to get through.

As for CC hax, End it all is a handy stop to that and to a lesser extent Inhuman perception. And its not stellar at card draw but considering the stats on a character like Gen, 8 Hand size Leona, or 7 Hand size koshiro with his commit to draw 5 (the new Ukyo perhaps?) seems to me like they have ways to compensate. DBK also helps but that foundation is just generally and all around useful.

I've been turn 2ing people a lot the past few days with this earth concept deck I built and the more I look at it the more the symbols stratgies start popping at me. I really think this last release made the symbol stand out, but we have all just been distracted buy spike so much we forgot that earth was printed on battle prowless, Ways, Glare, KOF2006, end it all, Flayer, Leonas stuff which is great, Anakarases stuff wich is even better when not used with anakaras, and more.

You have a great point fred earth has one of the best attack base so far in block 3 .

I had considered running Kyoshiro for the Earth patch tournament, but found him to be a little bit too squishy for the format. He'll be the new Ukyo.. once an Earth/Chaos/Order version of Genkotsu Stamp shows up, thats for sure He's somewhat of a black sheep, in that he has draw power and momentum gain, which Earth aren't usually associated with, so I reckon he'll be a sleeper character for Block 3. I turned to Yun for the Earth patch tournament instead, and he's working really rather well, I must say. His ability + End It All + Tiger Fury = win.

I think that you make a good point on Earth. There are so many nasty things that you can do with Earth. Unfortunately, Earth's Attack pool could be a little better. Sure you have Midnight Pleasure which is one of my favorites. But IMHO, there needs to be a solid attack line. Now I am not talking super jank attacks, but I am think that there has to be something that allows for a better flow.

Earth has some great characters, but they are overshadowed by the other symbols on the card.

Like Iori for example. If earth had a steady momentum flow, he would be positively amazing off of Earth. For the most part, outside of KOF 2006, it doesn't though. (Steady in this case means momentum gen that is reusable every turn-i do not consider DBK steady, that would fall under the Burst Momentum gen category).

It's the symbol that's almost there, but not quite yet. Just give it a finisher or two and it'll have a face to it-damage reduction to the extreme with commital power to boot. Fweem and Tiger Fury are techincally finishers, but they aren't early game finishers. Though this might sound confusing since Earth is about the late game via damage reduction, other symbols have more powerful late games, and as I've said before, a tournament winning deck should be defined by a strong early and strong late game. Mill got around that earlier on due to it's access to game breaking cards like HH, Revitalize, and Rank.

Earth Yi-Shan was pretty strong before Set 10, I'd be a little frightened to see what he can do now -.-' Also thinking promo Yun might have some potential, as the number one question when deckbuiling these days imo is "can this deck punch through Rejection looping" ; anytime the answer to that question is an easy yes, the idea is worth looking at.

Presumably, you could just control/survive long enough to go End it All --> Tiger Fury + Ways of Punisment --> Laser Beams (with assorted damage boosts) And don't forget Origins Unknown - a number of Earth foundations you'll want to play anyway happen to have fire, so it's a pretty relevant speed boost. military Discipline is out there as well.

Davachido said:

Point A: definitely true, to be honest tanking is all Earth seems to excel at actually hence why my earth bishamon tends to win games through boredom or y'kno mill

Point B: AHEM MIDNIGHT PLEASURE TOO! ( though i'll agree tiger fury is smexy.)

Midnight Pleasure is just this big ol techy thing that everyone is hyped up on with Frogase and Fio. It's not much of a true finisher in my book.

Anakaras'ess (SP?) attack base is deceptivley amazing. Normally I hate 2 checks mostly, but earth has 3 solid 0 drop foundations and the difficulty on most of his stuff is a 4 check.

Cobra blow is a strong attack with a split action that is BRUTAL when combined with things like origins unknown. Its Deceptive look in action form and legal in block 3 with NO MOMENTUM COST.

Mirror drop has the beloved throw keyword and only a 4 difficulty + a block which is rare for throws.

Pharoh Spirit has an enhance that in alot of decks says this attack gets +6 damage (add in iga master it gets better)

Price of foolishness. Must I say more.

Price of Foolishness made me a happy boy when i saw it had order on it.

It's in the back of my mind if i ever make the Spinta/Spiral Arrow Seong-Mina lock down deck, as you really can't legit run Spike in a deck like that and expect to get away with 8 2CCs and 2~4 1CCs.

The only thing I wish earth really had after the next rotation is something akin to Moon Salut Slayer. Off zone, decent damage, decent effect, multiple 2, with a decent difficulty and a 2 or 3 cc.

All you guys are pretty on the mark with all your comments about Earth. Lots of DR. No especially ground breaking (no pun intended) Attacks, too many 2 checks and stuffs. We need a 3 check multiple attack for Earth, (I can't think if there is one that's block 3) and a bit more recursion to make the symbol really cool and viable like back in the day. That's what Earth needs to become the new black in my opinion.

I'm not sure Earth needs a 3 check multiple. A 2 check multiple like Moon Sault Slayer would be perfect.

Earth is pretty devastating, especially with the new 'Gief. As has already been mentioned, all it needs is more reliable momentum gen (DBK is great, but only for a one-shot), and card draw (especailly since most Earth characters have 5-6 handsize).

Gaius Marius said:

For drawing cards, Fantasy shop is pretty good. Its better with battle prowess. even then, it needs more

Has anyone gotten decent output from Flying Edge? I was thinking about using it in Life, so if Earth (which isn't exactly known as the momentum gain symbol) can use it well that's a good sign.

Earth now give the just balance in middle of def and aggro decks

Polygon said:

The max i could get during some games was around +5 dmg