Age 1
early echoes card don't tend to have great effect with some exception,but they make up for it by having very usefull echo effect,2 of these card (bell and flute) not only make for a pretty nice combo when put together but can also instantly win you the game if you draw a specific age 7 card,noodles it's also an amazing scorer given the right situation,if you use card like sailing and domestication they can help with pulling card from the echoes deck, just remember that each echoes card you draw is a card from the base deck that isn't getting draw which can delay an eventual jump to age 2
Scoring
Umbrella - Echo:Left/Up - Umbrella is sort of like a weaker Perspective... if you have a big hand full of age 4-5 card then it can be worth to give up some of them to score the remaining one,unfortunately by the time that happens Umbrella has probably been overmelded already making the card main effect useless most of the time,the echo effect is more helpfull and combine nicely with the wheel/paper giving you an effect similiar to mysticism but more controlled,it's also easy to get with just a use of code of laws,flute,philosophy or paper
Noodles - Noodles is one of the power bomb of the age 1 echoes card,drawing and scoring is huuuuuuuuuuge and many Noodles game often end up with both players drawing the whole age 1 deck just so that the other one doesn't get to use it... Noodles has a lot of weakness though,not only you have to be carefull of card that destroy castle card like the usual engineering/gunpowder but card that attack your hand like machinery are going to screw you up too,if your opponent also starts with the wheel chance are he'll easily catch up in 1 before you can do much,still when it works it's an amazing card,it's also a decent card to share as you draw two 1 to your opponent single 1
Plumbing - Echo:Right - plumbing is eh... it's a worthless card early in the game,it comes with only 1 icon and the effect is basicaly impossible to use at the start of the game (although if you share it you can force your opponent to unsplay a pile like the aforementioned the wheel/umbrella combo). Later in the game,if you get to splay your red pile and tuck some high age cards (like say... with industrialization,since it does both) then it's echo effect can be a decent scorer
Bell - Echo:Left/Up - Bell ability to foreshadow an age 2 card is frankly quite useless and in all my game i've never seen it used (although of course foreshadowing 2 means a chance of getting fermentation/math first and it also helps a lot with abusing a certain age 4 card) the echo effect let you score a card from your hand,while not really worthwhile alone,it's an amazing effect when combined with purple card that draws,Novel + Bell for example is an amazing combo (coincidentaly novel can also splay your card left)
Drawing
Comb - Comb let you choose a color, draw 4 card and then keep all the card of chosen color... so what's the best color to call? well if the game just started,then it's just a matter of personal preference but as far as i'm concerned green is the best option since all the green base card are gold,if you use comb later in the game then the best thing to do is watch the board and try to predict which color are still in the deck,if your opponent has already played three age 1 blue card then there is no reason to call blue anymore for example... while comb can find a decent card by itself i'm not a big fan of it,very few things feels as demoralizing as using comb and finding no card of the chosen color
Board Building
Dice - Dice is okay but not great,if you are going to draw an echoes card then drawing a card with Dice is a better alternative than just using a draw action,then after drawing with dice you roughly have a chance of 35% at melding a 1,a 14% chance of melding a 2 and a 7% chance of drawing a 3... the chance of teching up is pretty low (in fact i've seen the jump to 3 only once) so most of the time it just end up being a more restricted version of mysticism as you are forced to get rid of the echoes card in your hand before being able to use it again
Bangle - Echoes: Up - Bangle is the Oars of echoes,in fact it might be even worse,foreshadowing a 3 isn't that great (although the echoes age 3 deck has a lot of really good cards so i guess if you aren't in a rush of doing other stuff it can be still worth a shot) and tucking a red card is pointless at the start of the game... of course later the effect can be helpfull but the echo effect only show up when the red pile is splayed up,that's it you won't see it before Age 8,Age 7 at best and by that time you probably don't need to tuck a red card anymore,the effect isn't even optional so you might even be forced to tuck something you didn't want to tuck in the first place (although that can come help once in a blue moon into screwing with an opponent plan)
Tech Up
Perfume - Echoes:Right - the demand of Perfume is pretty simple "if you tech up,i'm catching up with you" and it's utterly annoying! you can usualy stop perfume by giving your opponent a blue card but of course most blue card itself are tech up card so you might end up giving your opponent more tech advantage... one nice trick you can do is to make the demand when the only age you can steal has it's own deck empty,then your opponent will be forced to meld a card from the next age,which you can then steal again with perfume! the echo effect is the first of many "tuck a X" these are nice as they give you a chance at extra echo effect or just more symbols but not really that great,the fact that you won't see the effect before age 4 also diminuish it's value
Ruler - Echoes:Left - Ruler is basicaly Writing but with an echo effect instead of a crown symbol,the tradeoff is pretty good and the echo effect is easy to get since a lot of the early card can splay the blue pile left including paper,drawing card with echo effect can be a double-edged sword,while more card in your hand translate into more option and more scoring when it comes to stuff like lighting/currency and the like,drawing a card can also means drawing an echoes card and being forced to interact with base card for the rest of the effect... for example if your blue pile consist of ruler + atomic theory then you automaticaly give up melding age 7 echoes card (which include some really big powerbomb) as you are forced to draw an echoes card before the meld happen,one nice thing about these sort of effect is that if you share a "may" effect then your opponent is forced to give you a free card as he's forced to draw a card and therefore giving you the free draw action,in fact shared ruler + math is a quite annoying way to quickly tech up
Ice Skates - Ice Skates isn't as powerfull as Noodles but it's still interessing enough to be put into the "notable card" list,basicaly you give up two or three cards and then keep the best 2 you pulled off your hat getting a tech up,or you give up three cards and foreshadow three 3,thus being three times as better than that stupid Bangle,returning your highest top card is a penality (mostly there so you don't just return a single card) but it can be used to your favor,if your math get covered then ice skates can remove the obstruction,and if your opponent has more crown than you but no card in hand you can share the effect and he'll be forced to return a card from his board without any positive effect at all
Candles - Echoes:Right - teching up to age 3 is nice but it only happens when you are losing,the other effect is basicaly fedaulism and nobody ever use that (although i guess since candles is an age 1 card it can at least steal opponent tech),the echo effect is worse than other draw card echo effect in that it requires a condition and it can screws up industrialization for the same reason i explained above with ruler,overall i don't like this card at all
Splaying
Flute - Echoes:Left/Up - Flute is an all around good card,it splays one of your pile,gives you a chance at discarding a card from your opponent hand and draw you between 1 and 2 card,now the non echo effect are nice and all but the real kicker here is the echo effect,all you need to do is use flute effect on the purple pile itself and presto! you can now overmeld flute and get to splay your other pile without trouble,mysticism is especialy nice for this as it melds the card required to make a splayable pile
Special
Puppet - you score 1-2 point with metalworking and/or clothing and/or other bonus then you play puppet and achieve 1 before your opponent achieve it first OR you draw it with dice and tech up to age 3... occasionaly it's a nice card to feed at card that cares at bonus value (like watermill for example) but otherwise it's mostly useless
Chopstick - Echoes: Left/Up - Chopstick is the first of the many new cards that let you make an achievement avaiable again,this one makes 1 avaiable,1 are special in that being the age with the lowest score requirement they are also the easier one to achieve multiple time... that's it,if you can achieve 4,then you can also achieve 1 four times,unfortunately while the card has a lot of potential by the time you have the score to abuse it,the age 1 pile is probably empty (although it can always be replenished by returning 1 in your opponent score pile or in your hand with pottery for example) the echo effect also force you to draw a 1 which means the deck requires at least 2 card in it before you can make use out of it... still when it works it gives you free achievement and those are great,chopsticks echo draw you a 1 and yadda,yadda,everything that had to be said about drawing card with echoes effect has already been said... oh yeah it combo's nicely with domestication as it gives you more control over it
Soap - like Chopsticks,Soap handles you free achievement,Soap is easier to use as it's not dependant on your opponent action and can be used to achieve any age as opposed to just 1 but it's still tricky to use,soap like both having a big hand and a big score,so for example something like the paper/perspective combo (though of course you'd need to hold soap in your hand as both perspective and soap are yellow) is a nice supplement to soap,occasionaly you don't care about the second effect and just want the first one as being able to tuck 3-4 card from your hand is a pretty big effect anyway,just ask reformation