Mastering the Ailments in EKO TCG: Understanding the Power of Elemental Effects
In EKO TCG, the elements you control don’t just determine your strategy—they also inflict unique ailments that can shift the balance of power in your favor. These ailments, tied to each of the 10 planetary elements, have the potential to cripple your opponent’s aliens, disrupt their strategies, and give you the upper hand in the cosmic battle for survival.
The key to mastering these ailments is understanding how they work. Each ailment lasts for 4 turns, and players can easily keep track of this by rotating the affected card. During this period, any additional ailments inflicted on that alien will also be cleared after those 4 turns, a mechanic called the Recuperate state. This offers a window of opportunity to stack ailments while knowing when relief is coming for your creatures.
Let’s take a look at the specific ailments for each element and how they can be strategically used in your gameplay.
Fire: Burn
- Ailment: Burn
- Effect: At the beginning of the affected alien's turn, it takes 1 damage from the burn.
- Strategic Use: Burn is a classic damage-over-time effect. Use it to wear down your opponent’s stronger aliens or to chip away at a creature that’s hiding behind defenses. Fire’s offensive playstyle ensures that once the burn starts, your opponent will struggle to keep their creatures alive.
Earth: Sleep
- Ailment: Sleep
- Effect: The affected alien is knocked out for 4 turns, essentially removing it from play. However, if the alien is hit, it wakes up immediately.
- Strategic Use: Earth is all about defense and control. Sleep can be used to neutralize key threats for a few rounds, but beware—your opponent can wake up the sleeping alien with a targeted attack. Use Sleep to buy time for building up your defenses or waiting for reinforcements.
Air: Dizzy
- Ailment: Dizzy
- Effect: When a dizzy alien performs an action, it rolls a die. On the first roll if an odd number, then roll again. If you roll a odd number the alien takes 1 damage, if even numbers actions cant be performed.
- Strategic Use: Air’s agility and mobility are reflected in this ailment. Dizzy keeps your opponent guessing, adding a layer of unpredictability. Dizzy works best against aliens that rely on high action frequencies—forcing them to risk damage every time they act.
Water: Soak
- Ailment: Soak
- Effect: Soak removes Burn and Wilt and can't be burned or wilted for 4 turns. Additionally, the affected alien must roll a die to migrate. On odd rolls, the alien can’t migrate.
- Strategic Use: Water’s versatility comes into play here. Soak helps cleanse detrimental ailments like Burn, making it a great counter-element. It can also be used to slow down an opponent’s migration-heavy deck, keeping them trapped and vulnerable.
Nature: Sickness
- Ailment: Sick/Sickness
- Effect: Increases the hunger of the affected alien by 1. If an alien’s hunger exceeds the available resources needed to sustain it, it will begin to lose health each turn equal to the difference between its hunger and the resources required to keep it in play. Additionally, if an alien dies while afflicted by Sickness, the player controlling it loses extra energy from the alien’s death.
- Strategic Use: Nature’s playstyle thrives on overwhelming your opponent by making their aliens sick and depleting their energy. Sickness turns an alien’s increased hunger into a dangerous liability. If your opponent's resource pile is low, their aliens will start losing health every turn, similar to Burn, making them easier targets for your swarm. This ailment also forces your opponent to spend extra energy keeping their creatures alive, giving you the opportunity to wear them down.
Plasma: Paralysis
- Ailment: Paralysis
- Effect: The affected alien rolls a die before any action. On odd numbers, the alien can’t attack. On even numbers, the alien can’t migrate.
- Strategic Use: Plasma’s role as a support element is seen in its ability to paralyze opponents, restricting their actions. Paralysis is one of the most debilitating ailments, as it can stop key aliens from either attacking or migrating—slowing down your opponent’s momentum.
Sand: Blindness
- Ailment: Blind/Blindness
- Effect: The affected alien rolls a die when attacking. On odd numbers, the attack misses and deals no damage.
- Strategic Use: Sand specializes in wearing down opponents and forcing errors. Blindness cripples an alien’s offensive potential, making it unreliable in combat. Use this to disrupt your opponent’s strongest attackers and render them ineffective.
Haze: Poison
- Ailment: Poison
- Effect: At the end of your turn, the affected alien takes 1 damage.
- Strategic Use: Poison is similar to Burn but activates at the end of your turn, allowing you to stack damage over time. Haze is all about hindering your opponent with status effects, and Poison is perfect for slowly weakening your opponent’s creatures while you focus on other strategies.
Ice: Freeze
- Ailment: Frozen/Freeze
- Effect: The affected alien can’t migrate for 4 turns.
- Strategic Use: Ice’s stalling power is embodied in Freeze. By stopping aliens from migrating, Ice decks can slow down the game and gain control over the battlefield. This works especially well against mobility-based decks that rely on quick migrations to reposition.
Lava: Wilt
- Ailment: Wilt
- Effect: The affected alien’s damage is reduced by 1.
- Strategic Use: Lava’s mix of offense and creative defense shines through with Wilt. By weakening an alien’s damage output, you can prevent it from being a threat, giving your deck time to build up powerful plays. Lava excels at shifting between offensive and defensive modes, and Wilt lets you reduce your opponent’s pressure while preparing your own counterattacks.