Air Symbol Primer
Welcome to the Jasco Games’ Design Team Symbol Primer! Today we are going to help you understand the Air symbol and the ways in which it can play the game. If you are looking for a deck that can move its cards around your board, then Air may be the symbol for you!
Card Movement is the primary theme of the Air symbol. This is commonly expressed in manners such as
- Clearing cards from your card pool
- Readying foundations.
- Moving cards to other piles, such as to the momentum or the removed from game pile.
Card Pool Clearing
Air’s core concept is keeping its card pool clean. This can be achieved by discarding your attacks, adding them to your momentum, or even the bottom of your deck. An Air player is happy when they aren’t getting much progressive difficulty tying down their attack turn.
Let’s look at a few cards that give examples of this theme:
Uses the theme
It’s not just enough that a symbol is able to perform the theme, though! You should have cards that utilize cards leaving your card pool in interesting ways. This can be through a reward if you have already cleared your pool, such as Tongue Smack giving you access to its draw ability, or you could find the reward directly on the card you clear from your card pool, like how Jet Kickback and Frog Kick both give you a stat bonus for clearing them.
Triggers off of the theme
Not everyone is an Air player, though. If you’re sitting across the table from someone who keeps clearing their card pool, you should look into some ways to force them to slow down a bit, or at least punish them.
Interacts with, or restricts rivals playing the theme
Readying Foundations
Readying foundations is a core ability for both Air and Water, seen through multiple cards that happen to share both symbols. This can allow you to extend your attack strings further, or to defend yourself when it looks like you were pushed to your limits.
Uses the theme
Triggers off of the theme
Readying cards for re-use is generally powerful enough unto itself, but there are some cards that activate when things are readied. Check out the Water symbol for more synergies with foundations re-readying as well, cards such as Enamored and Blood Evaluation will serve you well.
Interacts with, or restricts rivals playing the theme
Minor Theme: Momentum Generation
In keeping with Air’s theme of card movement, cards can sometimes be flowing through your momentum. While Air may not be as adept as Chaos at generating momentum, Air certainly has its own ways to get ahead in the momentum department.
Uses the theme
Minor Theme: Speed Pump
The second most efficient way to get momentum is to just make sure your attacks hit, and Air can help you get there with its plentiful speed pump abilities!
Uses the theme
Triggers off of the theme
Interacts with, or restricts rivals playing the theme
Lastly, I’d like to highlight some characters who I believe represent the symbol’s core values the best through their gameplay. You don’t even need to play these characters on Air to feel like you’re playing an Air deck!
As we have highlighted today, the Air symbol is largely about mitigating risks and being able to stay vigilant. If the cards in this article caught your eye, maybe you’d like to explore the Air symbol a bit further in the future! Stay tuned for next time when we go over the deck manipulation that is the All symbol.
