What about ICONS for keywords???

So what do they do with Magic: the Gathering? Do they use icons for that sort of thing? What about Pokemon? I know there are other dueling games out there, but those are the first two that come to mind when thinking of this genre.

How much of the given dueling game is similar to M:tG, and does the use of an icon work well in that context?

...I suppose I am of two minds when I come to this issue. On the one hand games like those I've mentioned above have been around a long, long time and have pretty much set up the conventions for duel card games. On the other hand, I understand the urge to innovate, be different, and to "stand out in a good way" from the competition or whatever.

I would suggest - my own opinion being rather anecdotal as opposed to professional - if your game is like M:tG, consider the same conventions it uses in terms of keywords and icons. However if you deliberately want to go against the grain of this, make sure the rest of the game is, too. To do otherwise is to risk player impressions to be something like, "Well, it's just like Magic, but the icons and keywords are all messed-up."

There seems to also be a big push to use icons as much as possible, due to the relative ease of localizing language-neutral versions of the game. You may butt up against some cultural symbolism and mores from time to time, but in the world of hobby games this doesn't seem to be a significant issue.

I personally used a lot of icons in my early prototypes, then I stripped down at least 70% of that as I noticed it makes the game much harder to learn for new players. But I must say I am doing that also for Keywords.
e.g. Instead of [Attack] 3 [RANGE] 3, I now write: Attack up to 3 spaces away: [damage]x3
It's way longer. Still, since I started doing it no players have doubts anymore. Less time spent learning the game, more time spent enjoying it.

Overall I think that Keywords and Icons should be used for terms that repeat so often that the barrier of learning them for new player is more than balanced by how many times they are going to see them in the cards.

Icons in text like in AH, EH, etc, are interesting, but you need to design your own font which can be complicated. Icons elsewhere than text is recommended. Keywords are also recommended as it allow you to know in a glance what the card does, but I think the best way to do it is like in magic the gathering. Put in parenthesis the meaning of the ability.

Now I can give you bad example of keywords and icons:

Epic card game: they almost only use keywords, but the words are not intuitive so you constantly need to check the instruction booklet.

Kaijudo: This is a remake of duel masters. They decided to convert all text abilities into keywords. Which made it a bit heavy to read. But I think they put the description anyway, so it did not matter much. I think keywords should be used on common abilities.

Race for the galaxy: They strictly use icons, and it is very confusing to know what a card can do, it feel like reading hieroglyph.

51st state: This is the same thing, all abilities are as icons. You constantly need to look at the reference sheet to know what the abilities can do.

Good to know that it can be done with inkscape.

In Arkham/Eldritch Horror, the icons are generally on your character sheet, so it's relatively easy to match.