Symbol Structure: All the All things
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What are my strengths?
- Drawing Cards: The draw that you have access to on All can range from the simple cycling of a card, such as the bottom enhance here, to quick gated, but easily accessible draw, and sometimes there is even big-daddy draw which is usually expensive, as seen here on Guilty Throne, which coincidentally leads us to the next aspect of the All symbol!
- Manipulating the top of your Deck: What better type of ability to go hand in hand with draw, then the kinds of abilities that make sure that you draw the best cards! Sometimes this involves a simple peep of the top of your deck, other times it could help to move the top card of your deck away, if you want to draw something better. There aren’t really any abilities available these days that let you re-check when you check poorly, so setting up the top of your deck is your best way to ensure good checks, too.
What are my weaknesses?
- Speed Reduction: The speed reduction available to you is extremely lacking. One of the best ones is Faye-Faye, which is certainly a great card, but it’s also only a 1-time use. Telekinetic Mastery also works well, but don’t go too overboard on it, or rely on it too much. You could end up committing your entire board to try and negate some meaningless attacks!
- Getting stuck in Deadlock: You are one of the biggest targets for Deadlock abilities. You are going to have to be aware of your opponent’s Deadlock threats when you are building, because you can easily build past 10 foundations and not really have a good way out of it.
Big name cards
- Searching for Salvation: The more health you have, the better this card is. Being able to skip all abilities on an attack is huge, especially if your opponent is going to rely on big enhances like Gauge or Multiple to get them through.
- True Identity: You are probably going to be drawing a lot of cards, so it would help to be able to pass the attacks you’re drawing. Consider pairing this with abilities that ready it or reset it, such as Scarlet Meteor or Wandering Pirate.
- Let's Cut Loose: This has strong uses on offense, but it really shines (in a vacuum) on defense. You get to grab the relevant block zone to your opponent’s attack, and then it draws you another card to replace itself! It doesn’t matter that this card doesn’t have a block, because it will grab you a block when you need to use it.
- Demon Realm Awakening: This is one of my favourite cards in standard because it just does so much. It can bring a damage pump when you need it, or reduction if you need that more than blocking. It has a fine block if you need it, including even stopping throws, and to top all of this off, it replaces it in your hand when you use any of these abilities!
- Sense of Morals: A very simple card. This counts as a free build when you play it, and it neutralizes stun & targeted committal that your opponent may be running.
Common commons
- A Worthy Vessel: Simple damage reduction/pump that will help push you a bit further, as well as a secondary ability that helps against more than a handful of random strategies.
- Marrying Age: +2 speed can’t be overlooked, it can be absolutely game changing. The bottom ability is a bit more relevant than it seems because of Sense of Morals being around, and wow does this ever have an amazing block! Fun note, this guy is a (nearly) word for word reprint of a very old promo card from the Soul Calibur 3 days.
- Funky Tomato: This card stops a bit more than it has the right to, so it definitely earns its hefy cost on the ability. For example, if poor Faye tries to grab an attack from her discard pile because she has a +4 block on top of her discard pile, Funky Tomato can cancel it because Faye’s ability COULD have pumped damage.
- Face Splitter: This card isn’t really universally strong, but if you do build around Weapon attacks, then this is an extremely strong addition to your deck. It could even work fine if only about half of your attack base is Weapons, too.
- Cryokinetic Assassination: A lot of the time, this card’s enhance won’t trigger. This is a solid 4 difficulty attack that usually does its damage, and features a fine block. If you have some inherent damage pump, then this card can be especially good. As a fine bonus, you can slap this into a deck where it’s the only mid attack and your opponent will usually have to half block it or take it fully!
Off-symbol beauties
- Demon Realm Awakening: You can run this as hot throw hate in any character that has one of its symbols, honestly. The damage pump can even be relevant if your first attack has a symbol matching Demon Realm, too!
- Let's Cut Loose!: This doesn’t see a lot of play in an off-symbol manner, but it can certainly be used defensively quite well. You can use it to pick up a foundation with a relevant block, and then it still draws another card to replace itself. It lets you go positive on cards, and it doesn’t even stick around in your card pool. This card not having a block is not an issue.
- Deliverance: No, I would not like to take your 20+ damage powerful attack. I wish to take 4, thank you.
In conclusion
The All symbol is in a fine point right now, but it isn’t without its issues. If your opponent doesn’t seem to have a Deadlock ability that you care about, feel free to build well past Deadlock and hide behind your All Wall. Be careful about your lack of speed reduction, and as of this writing the only legal All character that can reduce speed is Julia, so be try to stay alive out there!
