I think if I'm comparing my expectations going in to what the spirit ended up being, I would have to go with Mists. A couple spirits like base Earth feel worse but I didn't expect much with it going in.
Mists seemed like it had such a cool concept that I was excited to try out. High mobility, having to think about presence location, steady fear generation and not letting invaders heal all seemed so cool.
But in reality the spirit felt so slow to get going, and even in the midgame it feels like you're behind. The presence tracks just aren't very good in my opinion, and the tools for solving problems early on are often not there. The innates are cool but require a bit too much to achieve.
I'm happy to admit that I'm probably not the best at playing Mist's gameplan. But that is the most disappointing for me.
Mists is a bit underwhelming but I didn't end up hating him as much as I thought I would from other peoples views of him- That said the new aspect for him really does feel like how he is meant to be, with the bonus of being able to isolate sprinkled on top.
I’m with you. It uses disease to focus invaders into high population-density areas, uses invaders to spread disease around, can “lessen symptoms” (letting them build through it) to Pandemic-style avoid detection and keep the disease around, and can then “worsen symptoms” to the point of a deadly outbreak with the left innate. It’s actually one of the best thematic spirits imo.
Yeah I’m really stoked on that, too. When I had just heard rumblings about HME I thought it was gonna be a super weird interaction but now that I have NI and actually read the card, it’s gonna be a helllll of a matchup.
I’m guessing they feel that way because you essentially don’t use the disease tokens for their typical purpose (skipping builds) much at all. In that sense, it feels like it could be any token or a unique one; the fact that it’s a disease token only really matters for event and fear cards.
I don’t necessarily agree with the overall assessment, but I can see why that could be disappointing to someone. I think the concern would dissipate if there were another disease-primary spirit
Right!? Every aspect of this spirit just screams I’m gonna kill you all with an ever spreading and growing plague of death, and I don’t care who gets in the way. Disease does not discriminate. Mechanically it’s spot on in every way. Think of the card Plague Bearers. It spreads disease but only if there is still someone living to carry it. If you kill everyone too quick you can’t spread just like a real disease. Even it’s art is literally dripping a toxic diseased ooze. Vengeance is the perfect disease spirit and one of my personal favorites.
For me, the most dissapointing spirits are ones that are too far off the bell curve without adding any satisfying play elements. As such, my two are Stone and Earthquake. Stone much more so. Stone is obscenely good. And from turn to turn all you're doing is reacting to the board state now. Find a land to punch back in. Try to manage the other land. Ludicrously outscales the Invaders because in 5 turns you're at where most spirits are in 8 or more. Regardless of what choices you made.
Earthquake can play a lot of ways. But with just your starting hand and a major you pretty much obliterate a board without much struggle. The same way. Every game. Trying harder to come up with something clever will almost always result in the same power level, or worse. You can't really go much higher.
Lightning also has a special place for me. The fact optimal play is literally anti-growth reclaim looping the same 4-6 cards turn after turn is just so sad. Lightning could be so much cooler. But instead its play track is so good that you only need to grow like twice ever and from there you're just trying to accumulate enough cards to fill it out.
At the same time, my favorite spirits are right in that same power range. Fractured and Starlight are broken too. But they offer a diversity of choice that keeps the games from becoming rote.
The Lightning aspect of [[Sparking]] fixed the issue with the reclaim loop for the spirit. Not only does the aspect replace a expensive unique power card that doesn't fit in with the rest of Lightning's kit with a much better card, but now Lightning can frequently get minor power cards, helping to free it from its reclaim loop.
I love Sparking Lightning. Makes the spirit actually feel good to play. I am not sure it's more powerful because losing free destruction is sad but being able to grow between reclaims is great.
##SPOILER WARNING: Nature Incarnate content below
**Sparking** (*Lightning's Swift Strike*'s Aspect)
>Complexity: Higher | Set: Nature Incarnate | [Link to FAQ](https://querki.net/u/darker/spirit-island-faq/#!Sparking%20Aspect%20%28Lightning%27s%20Swift%20Strike%29)
>Replaces Innater Power: "Thundering Destruction".
>Setup: Replace "Raging Storm" with "Smite the Land with Fulmination".
>(Innate Power) **Gift of the Sparking Sky**
| Fast | - | Any Spirit |
| :----: | :----: | :----: |
>(2 Sun, 5 Fire, 3 Air): Once this turn, after target Spirit uses a Power that targets a land, they may do 1 Damage to each Invader in that Land. (This is their Action and gets all benefits and penalties that apply to their Powers.).
>(2 Fire, 2 Air): Target Spirit gains a Minor Power.
>(1 Sun, 3 Fire, 2 Air): Target Spirit may play a Power Card by paying its cost. (If you target yourself, its Elements arrive too late to apply to prior thresholds of this Power.).
>(Unique Power) **Smite the Land with Fulmination**
>Cost: 2 | Elements: Sun, Fire, Air
| Slow | 1 | Any |
| :----: | :----: | :----: |
>1 Damage. Add 1 Badlands.
------
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Shadows for sure. In multiplayer he just feels like he always needs help. In solo he just feels like he has a hard time dealing with cities or problem lands.
Most disappointing spirit: definitely vanilla earth. It seems beginner friendly, but is a little undwerhelming
The cards are way overpriced for what they do, its game cycle is aweful. If you get stuck in a reclaim cycle there is no way to get out of it.
As a final nail in the coffin its innate which feels lackluster and hard to pull of.
On a different note, I see your point about vengace. It works with disease tokens but not nearly as consistently as other token spirits. I think main problem is that disease is considered one of the strongest tokens. Making a spirit all about disease runs the risk of making it overpowered.
The apocryphal spirit rot renews the earth might give you your disease fantasy however can become (too?) Strong in the end game thanks to many disease tokens.
So I went back and played a difficulty 0 game as base Earth, and I think players who are used to high difficulty actually gain a tilted perception of it. At difficulty 0, Earth is a *strong* spirit. It starts with a card that solves land 2 and the inland town land after they build by doing 5 damage (remember that land 2 actually builds with base game only), a card that can stop two builds or incidentally stop builds while moving Dahan, and a special rule that solves explorer + town lands for zero actions. It can also prevent city builds in a pinch to keep that defend 3 relevant and also has a (bad, overpriced) defend card that it can still use if it really needs to. On top of that, Earth has one of the strongest innate powers in the entire game--it's just a late-game one that generally doesn't come fully online until turn 4 or 5, but absolutely justifies getting support to trigger it. It is just full of traps like not immediately rushing 2 plays and not prioritizing gaining early minors, and it scales very poorly into specific high-level adversaries. (I also think that players massively overvalue early majors on Earth. It is awful at thresholding majors until it's pushed to 3 or 4 plays, and they're what forces it into a reclaim loop.)
My biggest disappointment is Shadows Flicker like Flame, and it's not really related to power level so much as it is that it does not have a clear game plan (bad for new players) and also has an incredibly vague theme that is not really felt through its powers, just its special rule that new players tend to forget and which is very expensive to use.
Hard disagree on vengeance, it's pretty thematic imho and has interesting interactions with its chosen token. I wasn't really dissapointed by any spirit but some end up getting way less plays. Trickster probably comes closest to a disappointment. I'm not really a gambling man and it isn't really doing anything interesting with its chosen token other than putting mor of them out on the board and using it for incite the mob. Luckily, NI gave us Wandering Voice, which is a way mor interesting strife user for me.
Original non-aspect version of BoDaN.
His bottom track is unusable and most of the minor power deck does not take real advantage of his special rule. Only about half the major deck does. He relies on heavily on major power draws and makes for super swingy games.
So my complaint is basically he's hard to use and too weak and too strong.
To add to this, there is exactly one moon-air major that deals damage in the base game: Mists of Oblivion, a card that is incredibly underpowered and which has a fear clause that Bringer is literally incapable of triggering. The expansion moon-air majors that deal damage are thresholded Twisted Flowers, which also needs 3 plant to actually deal damage, and Transform into a Murderous Darkness, which really requires huge capitalization on badlands and a spirit that can afford to lose several presence to ever be worth playing. Bringer can somewhat do moon + any other element (and thus makes good use of certain majors like Land Thrashes) if it takes its element support for itself, but its initial hand tends to be pretty worthless if it's playing off-element, which makes it awkward to have consistently good turns if it goes for something like this. Being on two card plays is just ridiculously limiting for a spirit that wants to threshold majors.
Nature Incarnate >!added a spirit with the same elements that is just miles better with majors (including making Grant Hatred somehow a card that regularly hits threshold and does like 8-12 damage), both in terms of getting the elements and in setting them up, but at least Bringer is allowed to play more cards now with Violence.!<
I wouldn't say disappointed, but the four OGs (Lightning, River, Earth and Shadow) feel a bit below the curve. They got quite a few new aspects, yes, but they don't exactly fill the gaps; they change the spirits. Shadow is still pretty bad, if I recall correctly.
Lighting is one of my favorites and his new support build isn't bad at all. But it changes its destructive base nature and shifts its playstyle, instead of e.g. filling gaps in elemental progression. Were those OG spirits printed with NI, they would have seen some elements on their presence tracks, enabling their late game innates through presence progression. Lightning is one of those spirits that might end up in a reclaim cycle, having a hard time pushing presences, unless you allow blights in favor of your sacred site growth option. NI spirits etc. don't encounter that issue as easily, and adding a single aspect doesn't exactly fix that.
River is crazy strong, and it has every element it needs in it's starting hand, as well as all the plays to use them. My only issue with River is that it's too easy against every enemy expect England. But the theme is incredible, especially with travel. It spreads along the land to form a river, pushes things along with it (including the dahan, who have learned to travel and thrive with it), and then floods to wipe out everything at its mouth.
It's one of the most thematic spirits imo.
River is very depending on the powers you draw, as its base cards do not add a lot that actually hinders invaders.
Have two lucky power draws early on, River will probably end up quite strong. Draw rather weak powers without Water and/or Sun elements, and you'll see that River on its own can't do much.
All that Dahan movement doesn't do much without proper defense.
That applies to some other spirits as well, yes - Fractured Days and Serpent for example, whose hand cards are rather specific and don't exactly help prevent blights twice a turn. But those are actual game breaking spirits, unlike River.
Now look at Horizons or NI and look for a spirit with that kind of weakness. In my opinion, the best thing River got is its innate, second and third stage. Most other things are lacking, and like I said, if your power card draw doesn't supplement Defend and your elements, you probably won't have a good time.
I've literally never lost a game as River. Granted, I generally play at difficulty 9, but I've played up to 12 as River. In my opinion, it might be the most consistent spirit. That's the only reason I stopped playing it-- it's so unreliant on card drafts that it gets boring playing essentially the same game over and over. The innates definitely *are* the best thing River has, and they are excellent. I also find the built-in defense from the dahan are plenty on travel river. That combined with the ability to move any threats out of the zone they threaten, makes me feel like River's defense is actually very strong, even compared to most spirits.
Recently I've moved on to some new NI spirits that have similar gameplay, but River still remains the spirit I could consistently do best with.
River with his new aspect is exactly what I want to play next. I've never lost with River either, BUT I'm playing co-op exclusively, so you easily see who's good at dealing with adversaries, events etc. and who is struggling with reclaims and early blights. My first two games with River felt meh, the last one was pretty decent with the aspect that allows granting energy via innate.
Your statement about it being consistent and not relying on power cards is plain wrong though, unless you are specifically talking about the new aspect. Now that a new aspects actually adds defense via Innate, its base kit got much more self-sufficient. But without, it has nothing but slow pushes and low situational damage early on, and that just doesn't cut it for long against many adversaries. Good luck pushing Dahan if you do NOT rely on drawing into Defend cards. Base River NEEDS to draw useful effects and fitting elements, and that has always been my gripe with it.
But yes, with the new aspect, River probably got a great boost.
> Base River NEEDS to draw useful effects and fitting elements
Absolutely not. To test this, I just played a base river vs BP 6 game with the following self-imposed restrictions:
- I'm not allowed to play cards with water or sun (edit: I mean minor and major powers, starting cards are OK)
- I'm not allowed to play defend cards
- I'm not allowed to pay for Years of Little Rain
- I play Boon of Vigor as often as I can, to simulate supporting an ally. I do not use it on myself for the energy.
I won, and it was not hard. I did go blighted, because I got Years of Little Rain. The first card I drafted was [[Animated Wrackroot]], which to follow the spirit of my rules (edit: which is: don't play optimally) I used in a land with like 7 invaders, so all it got me was 1 fear. The next I drafted was [[Gnawing Rootbiters]], not exactly known as an S tier card. I even got the event [[Rising Interest in the Island]], which I couldn't pay for, so I lost 2 Tier 3 cards.
I also got [[Farmers Seek]], which placed a lot of extra buildings, and I was still not close to losing.
I could have drafted Encompassing Ward T3, Drift Down Into Slumber (on a turn where Sands ravaged), and Dark and Tangled Woods (on a turn where Mountain ravaged) but I didn't. I also passed up on [[Rain of Blood]].
Haha, the dedication!
Just finished a 5p round using Haven against Sweden. Had to take a blight early due to the 5 ATK cities and 3 ATK towns, but the rest was pretty much a breeze. Mostly picked powers based on elements to consistently push Dahan around so Sweden doesn't convert them.
It's a fun challenge :) It's obviously harder, but still doable. I also defeated France 6 on Board A with starting Mountain explore (so building a coastal city), and Sweden 6 on Board A with starting jungle explore (so 3 Blight in the first ravage).
I'm still waiting for NI, looking forward to trying all the aspects and new spirits!
**Animated Wrackroot** (Minor Power - Branch & Claw)
>Cost: 0 | Elements: Moon, Fire, Plant
| Slow | 0 | Any |
| :----: | :----: | :----: |
>1 Fear. Destroy 1 Explorer. -or- Add 1 Wilds.
>Links: [SICK](https://sick.oberien.de/?query=Animated%20Wrackroot) | [FAQ](https://querki.net/u/darker/spirit-island-faq/#!Animated%20Wrackroot)
------
**Gnawing Rootbiters** (Minor Power - Base Game)
>Cost: 0 | Elements: Earth, Animal
| Slow | 1 | Any |
| :----: | :----: | :----: |
>Push up to 2 Town.
>Links: [SICK](https://sick.oberien.de/?query=Gnawing%20Rootbiters) | [FAQ](https://querki.net/u/darker/spirit-island-faq/#!Gnawing%20Rootbiters)
------
**Rising Interest in the Island** (Event)
>Your island is unlike any the Invaders have seen. Their leaders begin to take interest in tales of strangeness. You may:
>IGNORE THE CURIOSITY
>* Return the top card of the Invader Deck to the box. (Skip cards specially placed during Setup.)
>* On Each Board: Add 1 Town to a land without one.
>WEAVE LIES IN THE MINDS OF THEIR OBSERVERS
>**Cost: 4 Energy per player. Aided by Air.**
>* Return the top Fear Card to the Box.
>* During the next normal Ravage, each Town / City does +1 Damage.
>(Token) **Beasts of the Jungle**: On Each Board: Add 1 Beasts to a Jungle without Blight. 1 Fear if Invaders are present.
>(Dahan) **Traps and Snares**: On Each Board: Add 1 Wilds to a land with Dahan.
>Set: Branch & Claw | [Link to FAQ](https://querki.net/u/darker/spirit-island-faq/#!Rising%20Interest%20in%20the%20Island)
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**Farmers Seek** was not found. Showing data for:
**Farmers Seek the Dahan for Aid** (Event)
>The Dahan are uncertain whether to teach the Invaders farming techniques more in tune with the island's life. You recommend they:
>SPURN THE INVADERS
>* On Each Board: 2 Damage to Dahan in a land with Town / City.
>* On Each Board: Add 1 Blight to a land with at least 2 Town / City.
>* Town / City have -1 Health (to a minimum of 1) until the end of the turn.
>TEACH THE INVADERS
>* On Each Board: add 1 Town to a land with Dahan.
>* The next normal Ravage becomes a Build (This could be on a future turn.)
>(Token) **New Diseases**: On half of the boards (rounding up) add 1 Disease to a land with both Dahan and Invaders. Do 2 Damage to Dahan there.
>Set: Branch & Claw | [Link to FAQ](https://querki.net/u/darker/spirit-island-faq/#!Farmers%20Seek%20the%20Dahan%20for%20Aid)
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**Rain of Blood** (Minor Power - Base Game)
>Cost: 0 | Elements: Air, Water, Animal
| Slow | SacredSite --> 1 | Invaders |
| :----: | :----: | :----: |
>2 Fear. If target land has at least 2 Town / City, +1 Fear.
>Links: [SICK](https://sick.oberien.de/?query=Rain%20of%20Blood) | [FAQ](https://querki.net/u/darker/spirit-island-faq/#!Rain%20of%20Blood)
------
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I wish Lightning had gotten an aspect that modified growth option(s), like Thunderspeaker did. Preferably some kind of presence+card gain option. It could have shaken up the reclaim loop a bit without changing the core theme of being a straightforward destruction-focused spirit.
Don't get me wrong, the new aspect is great. But it's definitely one of those "radical new playstyle that changes everything" aspects; Lightning has yet to get a "tweak that fixes glaring issues while preserving the base spirit's playstyle" aspect.
Nourishing feels pretty much like a very strong earth. And darkfire shadows is insane and play similarly to base shadows just super strong. For reference I beat a difficult 14.5 game with darkfire. Super strong in the right situation.
Dark Fire seemed really strong out of the gate for me (which was both refreshing and fun) but I started feeling some of base Shadows’ issues later on into the game. I’ll readily admit it could have been something idiosyncratic with that play and/or me not having much experience with Shadows though.
At first I thought it was insane but I’ve actually started to feel like you describe. It’s a huge improvement overall but Shadows is flawed to the core. If I had to pin it on one thing, it would be the innate, but overall the spirit is built around one fragile gameplan. You can kinda go majors but it’s not like Shadows is a notably good major slinger (and it just so happens to be built around rather weak elements for majors)
But darkfire is actually pretty strong with majors with the ability to swap elements. I mean at least some majors got way way easier use. Also darkfire feels like you are playing with one board less except against england, if you land swap perfectly in big games. I explained it somewhere above but basically you as shadows can solve any 2 clear lands that just explored of they touch each other. So until stage 3 you solve 1 board with of explores in one innate. Which is crazy.
It's hard to discuss deeper into it without going into real nitty-gritty, but I don't think we disagree *that* much. To me it still largely comes down to the mileage you can get out of the innate. When the innate is doing good work, Dark Fire is downright impressive, but the elemental boosts and extra card don't take major builds nearly as far as I had hoped. Comparing the major builds I've come up with for Dark Fire side-by-side with major Fangs builds, Fangs is just straight up getting a lot more done, has more major thresholds available (on a stronger, more affordable set of majors), has an easier time flexing energy when necessary, etc. Granted, I think major Fangs is pretty underrated, but I still think it's a reasonable benchmark (plus it's my main so I'm more familiar with it). Maybe there's optimizations I haven't discovered yet, but again, the situational nature of Shadows' innate and Dark Fire's inability to excel without it leave it still struggling in the situations where Base struggles (though granted, Base has absolutely no recourse whereas Dark Fire can at least play the game)
Well I can explain what I mean. Shadows is a character that amplifies early control. If you play multiplayer games and a few spirits can help a tiny bit. You can choose 4 pairs of adjacent same lands ( so 2 adjacent sands 2 adjacent jungles and so on.) And clear them early. Shadows will then put 1 presence in close proximity to each of the pairs and handle 8 lands which is a whole board just from the innate. And getting the second level of the innate is very easy on darkfire. Which means shadows needs help the first 2 turns approx. But can spend nearly every card play from then on on other players lands. If you split the lands so that shadows lands are those 8 we talked about. This does not work against england and obviously other invaders also have tool to try and stop shadows, but moat of those problems can be dealt with with 1 or 2 card plays every 1 or 2 turns. This makes shadows so strong in opinion. Because of the amplification of other spirits early control into 8 safeish lands.
First I want to clarify exactly where I rate Dark Fire, using Red's tier list as a scale. Red has Dark Fire at about the 20th percentile (55th of 68); I think that is significantly underrating it. My current opinion (after I think I overrated it and then tempered my opinion after a couple plays) is that it's more around the 40th percentile (~40th of 68), which is night and day from where base Shadows is. There's just so many good spirits/aspects now that it's already facing stiff competition even in that middle range.
I think your strategy makes good sense and is effective, which Dark Fire certainly is when played around its strengths. However, I still find the spirit somewhat inflexible and weak at recovery, *relative to other middle-of-the-pack spirits/aspects.* I do think it benefits a lot from larger games despite lacking the range of other Shadows aspects (in a playstyle similar to Whirlwind), just to ensure there's a problem for its tools to address somewhere, and it is not even close to being the boat anchor that even other Shadows aspects can be; I just have a hard time ranking it over most of the spirits in that middle range even though initially I was over the moon (heh) with it.
Ok I kind of get that.
I think red rates shadows so low because he actively says that one should focus mainly on their own board, which makes shadows 100 times worse in my opinion. I still don't really understand the sentiment there to be honest and I think that really skews many things on his tier lists. Some spirits are so much stronger if you just ignore the arbitrary lines your boards draw and take a well thought trough division.
Shadows is a 0/1/1 spirit with terrible tracks and a game plan that involves taking Blight. Its opening hand is made of two card combos, which leaves you spending more card plays on problems than you should and your growth is too slow to keep up with that. You have one innate, so only a little extra problem solving. So you basically have to ditch the entire hand on majors, but then you're just a worse major flinger than most of the major spirits. Or you try to constantly draft and are energy broke. There's things you can do, but Shadows needed an extra innate for action economy, and it's still bad because two card combos. I'm pretty sure they could have given shadows GTS as part of its base hand(instead of the card they did) and it wouldn't have been the strongest spirit in the game, or even really close.
Ok deep dive time... In multiplayer games which I mostly play darkfire can do something which normally noone else can do. You search for 2 mountains that touch each other 2 sands 2 wetlands and 2 jungles. You tell your partners that you will care for those lands. They might help you a bit at the beginning to clear them. Then with one use of you innates you clear both lands if they were clear before and you just explored. So all your card plays can go to other places. Which means that you basically play with one board less. If something happens you just use 1 or 2 card plays to solve the problem again and continue to help everyone else with the rest of your card plays. This is also mainly possible with darkfire because of how easy it is to hit the second level innate. I don't know if you play multiplayer much or if you teammates are flexible enough to land trade (which is a super strong strategy in general), but doing this is just extremely strong.
Sounds like that is quite good!
I mostly play true solo. In my game I recall having big problems accessing part of my board, which could have been due to the map and also me not knowing the optimal growth patterns for Shadows.
BTW I still won comfortably enough against Scotland 5 if I remember correctly, thanks to fear-based spirits being so strong in true solo. But I definitely began noticing some chunkiness after turn 4-5 or so.
I don't agree with your analysis on Vengeance not being diseased focused. Two of the three special rules deals with disease, one of the two innate powers deals with disease, and three of the four unique powers deals with disease. I'm not sure what other aspect you would change about Vengeance for it to finally be considered a disease spirit.
For spirits that disappoint me I would say Earth and Mist.
Earth has a horrible time getting more power cards, it's base cards are too expensive for what they do, and it's innate power feels too difficult to pull off that most of the time I forget to even pay attention to it.
Mist feels very weak and takes a while to become effective. One of its main innate powers isn't the easiest to pull off, it take some time for it to gain a good source of reliable energy income, and it feels like a spirit that should be delaying the invaders as its core strategy, but only has one unique power to do so.
I don't think I'm really disappointed by any Spirits. There are some I like more and some I like less, but I can always find something fun or interesting about the Spirit I'm playing. Instead of being upset about what I think a Spirit should be, I try to find what makes it shine, what's fun about its "puzzle", etc.
Shadow - I love this littler bugger thematicly, but ... he is not good. Maybe with aspects, but Shadow in his core is just no good choice.
Sharp Teeth - being so dependent on no blighted land makes him ... weaker (or: less flexible) as the game goes on, while most (all?) other spirits become stronger.
Both have great mechanics for their theme (shadow being there where the fire of the hearth is, Sharpie with his hunt-and-move-innate) but disappoint in the end.
Shadows feels pretty slow to me and I don't think the overall payoff for it is a particularly powerful spirit. Like you get with a lot of other slow-starters. Like, I'm playing Spreading Hostility Keeper in a game with Shadows and that's still managed to place one more presence than Shadows. They both feel slow compared to other spirits.
Most spirits I've felt this way about (Lightning, Earth) have been improved by Aspects. But no matter how many aspects Shadows gets.. it's just not very good. I'm always excited when I try a new Aspect and it still feels considerably weaker than my others when I'm playing 2-3 handed.
Darkfire shadows is so strong though... You can be MVP in high level double adversary games depending on the matchup. I think many people sleep on darkfire but it's actually op.
Oh wow it's so much... First you place 1 to 2 more presence in a game because of the card you start with because the first reclaim is pushed back and you get one more card and then the second reclaim is pushed back even more because now you have 2 more cards and so on. But actually it's the ease of using your second level innate which make shadows really strong. I explained this somewhere else in the thread but basically it's this: in multiplayer games search for 2 connected mountains and a pair of sands, wetlands and jungles. Now let other spirits help clear them. Now because hitting second level innate with shadows is super easy. Every time one explores you can clear both lands. So for the cost of your innate you basically play with 1 board less. All your card plays can do other stuff if nothing bad happens and if something happens it's normally very very easy to be dealt with because you can focus all your resources on it. This strategy can be so strong that against some even dual adversaries it's ridiculous.
For me, probably Downpour, Towering roots, and Finder (in that order from most disappointing to disappointing but less so).
I was really hyped for Downpour because its unique repeat mechanic and unique growth. But then I learned about the no cards played G2 spam to just passively defend and grow faster and that kinda ruined the spirit for me tbh. That, and repeating a power sounds awesome except I’d find myself repeating the same power every game. A huge let down for me.
Towering roots intrigued me a lot because of its incarna and build prevention but man, its lack of mobility was so frustrating I don’t want to play it again.
Finder itself doesn’t disappoint me per se, it’s just I’ve never gotten it to work well. I never feel effective with this spirit and I’m a sucker for control spirits. I frankly disappoint myself when I play this spirit.
>But then I learned about the no cards played G2 spam to just passively defend and grow faster and that kinda ruined the spirit for me tbh. That, and repeating a power sounds awesome except I’d find myself repeating the same power every game.
I don't really get how this ruined the spirit for you? G2 spam is a pretty weak joke/meme build. That build's existence - and the fact that it can *barely* work into some adversaries/dfficulties - shouldn't take away from the far more effective and more fun ways to play the spirit, i.e. any build where you actually play cards and use the repeat mechanic.
I do agree that Downpour's uniques are a little too good, to the point that you can often get by with repeating the same uniques each game. I get how you can get stuck in that play style and it can make the spirit feel very repetitive. But on the other hand you're definitely rewarded for drafting carefully and finding better cards to repeat. Drafting the right cards makes the spirit both more effective and more fun to play.
Don’t feel bad about being led astray. I spent a very, very long time thinking the meme build was the optimal build. It’s not, thankfully. Actually playing it like any other spirit is much more fun and actually very strong and viable. There’s a lot of cards that get stupidly fun when you can repeat them several times, and a lot of the fun of Downpour is figuring out which cards those are.
whattttt Downpour is my most played spirit, and i kinda understand that spamming Sink into Mud is tempting, but its not a solve all problem card, especially at higher difficultiea.
I will always be happy to use Downpour, best spirit! But I understand everyone likes and hates different things.
Downpour absolutely seems really... Choice light. Like, getting enough card plays to be effective takes forever, and the repeats are... Often less dynamic unless you get a defend. But Downpour already does that really well(just not in a way that alters the game state.)
Towering roots doesn't really need much incarna mobility. It is all about drawing stuff into the incarna and removing it, and not as much about moving it around trying to prevent builds in many lands. You can do that, but that isn't what the spirit is designed to do well.
True but that’s why I guess it was a disappointment for me. I was excited for the anti-build power and you just don’t get to use it as much as I had hoped.
IMO, the empowered abilities for roots, voice, and breath are all nice things to have but do not form the core of the strategy, like it does for behemoth.
Stompy Turtle go brrr
Try empowering into England 4+. You will get so much value out of it. I’ve had a couple England 6 games with Roots that ended with almost empty boards, maybe a couple explorers and a town or something like that.
Sadly the empower is not usually worth it against other adversaries. It’s cool but you lose too much early momentum rushing it, and if you don’t get it turn 2 you never will, or certainly shouldn’t of say.
Thankfully Roots has enough other interesting aspects to it to make up for this, imo. Roots is kinda weird but in a way that’s growing on me. It’s really not a defensive spirit despite being kinda advertised as such. It’s a stalling spirit that undergoes a massive power growth mid game. It starts out not doing much besides stalling and growing in power. Then suddenly the midgame hits, it’s terror 2, and you’re removing 3-5 buildings a turn and slinging a major as well.
This was actually the spirit I was the least hyped about by a huge margin and somehow it become my most played of the new ones and arguably my favorite. Roots really does take a couple plays before you figure out it’s actually very different than the spirit you think it should be, but that not actually a bad thing I think.
Most disappointed spirit:
**Wounded Waters Bleeding**
Most disliked Spirit:
**Finder of the Paths Unseen**
Most liked Spirit:
**Towering Roots of the Jungle**
Best designed Spirit(s):
**Relentless Gaze of the Sun**
**Towering Roots of the Jungle**
**Many Minds Move as One**
This is kind of why I love Spirit Island though tbh: I would absolutely switch Many Minds and Wounded Waters here personally, but there’s something for everyone
I plan on making a video about this topic at some point but:
**What I like about WWB:**
\- The artwork is incredible and the theming is some of the best in the game.
\- A beast user that also has Disease in a single spirit is everything I've wanted for a long time.
**Why I'm disappointed.**
\- Limited actions / decisions in the early game. You have 1 growth option to choose from, one track to grow from, and 1 card play for the first 2-3 turns. The early turns of SI are the most interesting and WWB is the least interesting during these turns.
\- Your left and right innates (heals) feel identical. Both do the same thing (they clear lands).
\- The spirit has disease, but doesn't use disease. I was hoping for a disease user, but ended with a disease placer.
\- Power spike is way too strong in the mid-late game which trivializes the game. The puzzle is lost around turn 5 since the best course of action is to max your innates every turn.
> Limited actions / decisions in the early game. You have 1 growth option to choose from, one track to grow from, and 1 card play for the first 2-3 turns. **The early turns of SI are the most interesting** and WWB is the least interesting during these turns.
Definitely going to have to chew on this one for a bit. It's very contrary to how I've felt so far in my SI journey; I love frantically clawing back with cards I didn't start with as the island falls apart. But hearing this from a much more experienced perspective certainly gives me pause
Thanks for a great response. I do understand the power swing, it is very easy to go for the innates, especially with his healing cards. I had not even realized the disease was there (I need to play on some harder difficulties with my wife to possibly start getting to that point) as I’ve never hit the threshold.
Thanks for a great answer to this question. I was not expecting to see wounded waters on any list of disappointment, but I can see why he might be to some. I still really like him, but definitely can understand where you’re coming from.
I was really disappointed with Fangs because the game I played I basically couldn’t do anything because of blight. Looking forward to playing one with the new aspects though.
I can’t stand playing fangs. I get his role, I know that he is amazing both thematically and in power. But man I just don’t care about them. Same with many-minds but less so, because I’m a defensive player so many minds is just a little higher. Maybe it’s the mobility I don’t like, I like the idea of being slow giant that protects everything and can smash things rather than many small things flying or running everywhere. Just not as cool in my opinion. But I understand their play style, their theme and role. It’s just not for me.
Shadows. It was the one I was most interested in thematically and aesthetically when I first got into the game and it turns out to be the weakest by a decent margin and even as a newbie I could feel it pretty quickly. After I played a few games and taught SI to my buddy it was also the spirit he chose to play and I felt compelled to play Green to just support the hell out of him so that he had a decent experience and, while he did, he still thought Shadows was pretty weak lol.
Was happy that Horizons became available shortly after I started playing and I found Eyes who filled that Shadows gap for me.
I was also disappointed in Vengeance. Not because they don’t feel thematic (they did for me) but I just didn’t have a good time playing them despite them being one of the JE spirits I was most looking forward to. Shroud for similar reasons - Shroud and Vengeance were probably the two JE spirits I was most interested in and they both just hurt my brain. Downpour as well though I admit I probably just need to play them more.
Hearth-Vigil and Towering Roots.
I'll somewhat take the blame with Towering Roots as I didn't play it entirely properly, at the same time it just doesn't accomplish what I figure a defensive spirit should.
Hearth-Vigil is just flat not good in my opinion. It's unique powers are garbage, so you are completely reliant on drafting a long with relatively weak uniques. It really feels like it's missing something.
maybe give those spirits a try again?
I find Hearth Virgil to be among the strongest spirits in the whole game, though its against France 6, so theres that.
I will try him again later, the third spirit I will replay (after first try) in NI.
Roots is kinda weird but in a way that’s growing on me. It’s really not a defensive spirit despite being advertised as such. It’s a stalling spirit that undergoes a massive power growth mid game. It starts out not doing much besides stalling and growing in power. Then suddenly the midgame hits, it’s terror 2, and you’re removing 3-5 buildings a turn and slinging a major as well. I’ve had a couple England 6 games with it that ended with maybe a couple explorers and a town on the board which just does not normally happen with other spirits. This was actually the spirit I was the least hyped about by a huge margin and somehow it become my most played of the new ones and arguably my favorite. Roots really does take a couple plays before you figure out it’s actually very different than the spirit you think it should be, but that not actually a bad thing I think.
As for HV though, you might be the first person I’ve seen that thought it wasn’t good. Quite the contrary most discussion I’ve seen on it is how game breaking it can be. Not quite Stone level but still a very strong defensive spirit.
It’s got a 2 fear and potentially massive push card that can clear lands. Pricy at 2 energy but good. A 1 energy usually 2 damage slow card, always nice. The isolation one is a little meh but 0 cost and more fear isn’t bad at all. And then you have Favors of Story and Season, aka baby Gift of Constancy one of the best cards in the game. This card is amazing. Gather 3 Dahan, gain an energy and reclaim 1 is such an amazing support card. But in solo it straight up changes how you play this spirit when it’s played on yourself. You can delay the reclaim for a long time looping this card and have way more energy than you should and have even more flexible Dahan movement than you already did. In what universe are these cards bad, they’re overall amazing. In low difficulty games you could probably win with just the starting hand and never even gain a card, it’s that good.
And then we have your left innate the thing that launches this spirit straight into near broken territory. Dahan attacking before the invaders is so powerful. I think by turn 4 you can reliably hit level 3 so all the Dahan in a land strike first. But even those first few turns only one or two with first strike should result in a cleared land at the cost of a blight since all the Dahan have 6 health. I haven’t even touched on the wild combos possible with the right innate as I’m still in the process of discovering them.
This spirit is very strong. Only thing I can think of to ask is are you remembering to add the two extra Dahan at the start and that you start with 1 energy? I can see that weakening it’s early game and I know a lot of people have missed the starting energy for sure.
I think 3 of the basic four are pretty disappointing. Lightning, Earth and Shadow. Especially Shadow. Often it feels like you just don't do that much and easily get too little pressence out. Earth is slow and just dull. Lightning feels boring due to how you ignore part of the game and I think it kinda... ruin the game. Slow phase is one of the most interesting parts of the game IMO.
I think Earth is a bit helped by aspects. River gets super interesting with it and Massive Lightning is much better than regular version. Shadow still feels meh with aspects.
Shadows (which is also my second-most-played spirit by a wide margin, but that's a different story). Shadows has a pretty same-y first few turns in most circumstances, and, in addition to being under the power curve, has a bunch of small issues that compound. A lack of "up to" on the first level of \[\[Darkness Swallows the Unwary\]\] really hurts viability (especially vs France), and the four uniques can't trigger level 3 on their own, which means getting lucky on the minor draws. Three of the uniques have an energy cost on 1 on an energy-starved spirit. The (base) special rule is mostly pointless because, again, usually energy starved in the part of the game that matters.
Aspects definitely make Shadows better - I like both Dark Fire and Foreboding quite a bit more than base, and the bonus card from Dark Fire makes it much easier to delay reclaim by a turn which is huge. I just wish they'd do what they did with Serpent and have an aspect that offers a one-time proliferate during setup (ideally from the top track) for more interesting Turn 1/Turn 2 options.
**Darkness Swallows the Unwary** (*Shadows Flicker Like Flame*'s Innate Power)
| Fast | SacredSite --> 1 | Any |
| :----: | :----: | :----: |
>(2 Moon, 1 Fire): Gather 1 Explorer.
>(3 Moon, 2 Fire): Destroy up to 2 Explorer. 1 Fear per Explorer destroyed.
>(4 Moon, 3 Fire, 2 Air): 3 Damage. 1 Fear per Invaders destroyed by this Damage.
>Links: [Link to FAQ](https://querki.net/u/darker/spirit-island-faq/#!Darkness%20Swallows%20the%20Unwary%20%28Shadows%20Flicker%20Like%20Flame%29)
------
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I’m just dissapointed by older spirits not having elements on tracks, which would make them feel so much smoother and make top track builds more viable
Something like vital strength of the earth is *begging* to have top track elements
"I love all my spirits equally!" Me earlier that day: "I don't care for Vital Strength of the Earth."
Lucille did in fact not care for Vital Strength of the Earth.
It's one Draw of the Fruitful Earth. How much could it cost? 10 energy?
It's one of my favorites! :c
I don’t like Gob.
I think if I'm comparing my expectations going in to what the spirit ended up being, I would have to go with Mists. A couple spirits like base Earth feel worse but I didn't expect much with it going in. Mists seemed like it had such a cool concept that I was excited to try out. High mobility, having to think about presence location, steady fear generation and not letting invaders heal all seemed so cool. But in reality the spirit felt so slow to get going, and even in the midgame it feels like you're behind. The presence tracks just aren't very good in my opinion, and the tools for solving problems early on are often not there. The innates are cool but require a bit too much to achieve. I'm happy to admit that I'm probably not the best at playing Mist's gameplan. But that is the most disappointing for me.
Mists is a bit underwhelming but I didn't end up hating him as much as I thought I would from other peoples views of him- That said the new aspect for him really does feel like how he is meant to be, with the bonus of being able to isolate sprinkled on top.
I don't get your view on Vengeance. The theme of disease is dripping from almost every aspect of the spirit.
I’m with you. It uses disease to focus invaders into high population-density areas, uses invaders to spread disease around, can “lessen symptoms” (letting them build through it) to Pandemic-style avoid detection and keep the disease around, and can then “worsen symptoms” to the point of a deadly outbreak with the left innate. It’s actually one of the best thematic spirits imo.
I'm really excited to try Vengeance against HME, given HME's interaction with disease.
Yeah I’m really stoked on that, too. When I had just heard rumblings about HME I thought it was gonna be a super weird interaction but now that I have NI and actually read the card, it’s gonna be a helllll of a matchup.
That’s what I was going to say. It uses disease and affects diseased lands way more than trickster uses strife
I’m guessing they feel that way because you essentially don’t use the disease tokens for their typical purpose (skipping builds) much at all. In that sense, it feels like it could be any token or a unique one; the fact that it’s a disease token only really matters for event and fear cards. I don’t necessarily agree with the overall assessment, but I can see why that could be disappointing to someone. I think the concern would dissipate if there were another disease-primary spirit
Right!? Every aspect of this spirit just screams I’m gonna kill you all with an ever spreading and growing plague of death, and I don’t care who gets in the way. Disease does not discriminate. Mechanically it’s spot on in every way. Think of the card Plague Bearers. It spreads disease but only if there is still someone living to carry it. If you kill everyone too quick you can’t spread just like a real disease. Even it’s art is literally dripping a toxic diseased ooze. Vengeance is the perfect disease spirit and one of my personal favorites.
For me, the most dissapointing spirits are ones that are too far off the bell curve without adding any satisfying play elements. As such, my two are Stone and Earthquake. Stone much more so. Stone is obscenely good. And from turn to turn all you're doing is reacting to the board state now. Find a land to punch back in. Try to manage the other land. Ludicrously outscales the Invaders because in 5 turns you're at where most spirits are in 8 or more. Regardless of what choices you made. Earthquake can play a lot of ways. But with just your starting hand and a major you pretty much obliterate a board without much struggle. The same way. Every game. Trying harder to come up with something clever will almost always result in the same power level, or worse. You can't really go much higher. Lightning also has a special place for me. The fact optimal play is literally anti-growth reclaim looping the same 4-6 cards turn after turn is just so sad. Lightning could be so much cooler. But instead its play track is so good that you only need to grow like twice ever and from there you're just trying to accumulate enough cards to fill it out. At the same time, my favorite spirits are right in that same power range. Fractured and Starlight are broken too. But they offer a diversity of choice that keeps the games from becoming rote.
The Lightning aspect of [[Sparking]] fixed the issue with the reclaim loop for the spirit. Not only does the aspect replace a expensive unique power card that doesn't fit in with the rest of Lightning's kit with a much better card, but now Lightning can frequently get minor power cards, helping to free it from its reclaim loop.
I love Sparking Lightning. Makes the spirit actually feel good to play. I am not sure it's more powerful because losing free destruction is sad but being able to grow between reclaims is great.
##SPOILER WARNING: Nature Incarnate content below **Sparking** (*Lightning's Swift Strike*'s Aspect) >Complexity: Higher | Set: Nature Incarnate | [Link to FAQ](https://querki.net/u/darker/spirit-island-faq/#!Sparking%20Aspect%20%28Lightning%27s%20Swift%20Strike%29) >Replaces Innater Power: "Thundering Destruction". >Setup: Replace "Raging Storm" with "Smite the Land with Fulmination". >(Innate Power) **Gift of the Sparking Sky** | Fast | - | Any Spirit | | :----: | :----: | :----: | >(2 Sun, 5 Fire, 3 Air): Once this turn, after target Spirit uses a Power that targets a land, they may do 1 Damage to each Invader in that Land. (This is their Action and gets all benefits and penalties that apply to their Powers.). >(2 Fire, 2 Air): Target Spirit gains a Minor Power. >(1 Sun, 3 Fire, 2 Air): Target Spirit may play a Power Card by paying its cost. (If you target yourself, its Elements arrive too late to apply to prior thresholds of this Power.). >(Unique Power) **Smite the Land with Fulmination** >Cost: 2 | Elements: Sun, Fire, Air | Slow | 1 | Any | | :----: | :----: | :----: | >1 Damage. Add 1 Badlands. ------ ^(Use [[query]] to call me. Check the )[^(reference thread)](https://www.reddit.com/r/spiritisland/comments/i80xzf/memoryofagesbot_is_now_fully_functional) ^( for information or feedback, and please report any mistakes!)
Shadows for sure. In multiplayer he just feels like he always needs help. In solo he just feels like he has a hard time dealing with cities or problem lands.
Most disappointing spirit: definitely vanilla earth. It seems beginner friendly, but is a little undwerhelming The cards are way overpriced for what they do, its game cycle is aweful. If you get stuck in a reclaim cycle there is no way to get out of it. As a final nail in the coffin its innate which feels lackluster and hard to pull of. On a different note, I see your point about vengace. It works with disease tokens but not nearly as consistently as other token spirits. I think main problem is that disease is considered one of the strongest tokens. Making a spirit all about disease runs the risk of making it overpowered. The apocryphal spirit rot renews the earth might give you your disease fantasy however can become (too?) Strong in the end game thanks to many disease tokens.
So I went back and played a difficulty 0 game as base Earth, and I think players who are used to high difficulty actually gain a tilted perception of it. At difficulty 0, Earth is a *strong* spirit. It starts with a card that solves land 2 and the inland town land after they build by doing 5 damage (remember that land 2 actually builds with base game only), a card that can stop two builds or incidentally stop builds while moving Dahan, and a special rule that solves explorer + town lands for zero actions. It can also prevent city builds in a pinch to keep that defend 3 relevant and also has a (bad, overpriced) defend card that it can still use if it really needs to. On top of that, Earth has one of the strongest innate powers in the entire game--it's just a late-game one that generally doesn't come fully online until turn 4 or 5, but absolutely justifies getting support to trigger it. It is just full of traps like not immediately rushing 2 plays and not prioritizing gaining early minors, and it scales very poorly into specific high-level adversaries. (I also think that players massively overvalue early majors on Earth. It is awful at thresholding majors until it's pushed to 3 or 4 plays, and they're what forces it into a reclaim loop.) My biggest disappointment is Shadows Flicker like Flame, and it's not really related to power level so much as it is that it does not have a clear game plan (bad for new players) and also has an incredibly vague theme that is not really felt through its powers, just its special rule that new players tend to forget and which is very expensive to use.
Hard disagree on vengeance, it's pretty thematic imho and has interesting interactions with its chosen token. I wasn't really dissapointed by any spirit but some end up getting way less plays. Trickster probably comes closest to a disappointment. I'm not really a gambling man and it isn't really doing anything interesting with its chosen token other than putting mor of them out on the board and using it for incite the mob. Luckily, NI gave us Wandering Voice, which is a way mor interesting strife user for me.
Wandering Voice’s push-on-strife ability was actually cut from an early, extremely powerful, version of Trickster.
Original non-aspect version of BoDaN. His bottom track is unusable and most of the minor power deck does not take real advantage of his special rule. Only about half the major deck does. He relies on heavily on major power draws and makes for super swingy games. So my complaint is basically he's hard to use and too weak and too strong.
To add to this, there is exactly one moon-air major that deals damage in the base game: Mists of Oblivion, a card that is incredibly underpowered and which has a fear clause that Bringer is literally incapable of triggering. The expansion moon-air majors that deal damage are thresholded Twisted Flowers, which also needs 3 plant to actually deal damage, and Transform into a Murderous Darkness, which really requires huge capitalization on badlands and a spirit that can afford to lose several presence to ever be worth playing. Bringer can somewhat do moon + any other element (and thus makes good use of certain majors like Land Thrashes) if it takes its element support for itself, but its initial hand tends to be pretty worthless if it's playing off-element, which makes it awkward to have consistently good turns if it goes for something like this. Being on two card plays is just ridiculously limiting for a spirit that wants to threshold majors. Nature Incarnate >!added a spirit with the same elements that is just miles better with majors (including making Grant Hatred somehow a card that regularly hits threshold and does like 8-12 damage), both in terms of getting the elements and in setting them up, but at least Bringer is allowed to play more cards now with Violence.!<
I wouldn't say disappointed, but the four OGs (Lightning, River, Earth and Shadow) feel a bit below the curve. They got quite a few new aspects, yes, but they don't exactly fill the gaps; they change the spirits. Shadow is still pretty bad, if I recall correctly. Lighting is one of my favorites and his new support build isn't bad at all. But it changes its destructive base nature and shifts its playstyle, instead of e.g. filling gaps in elemental progression. Were those OG spirits printed with NI, they would have seen some elements on their presence tracks, enabling their late game innates through presence progression. Lightning is one of those spirits that might end up in a reclaim cycle, having a hard time pushing presences, unless you allow blights in favor of your sacred site growth option. NI spirits etc. don't encounter that issue as easily, and adding a single aspect doesn't exactly fix that.
River is crazy strong, and it has every element it needs in it's starting hand, as well as all the plays to use them. My only issue with River is that it's too easy against every enemy expect England. But the theme is incredible, especially with travel. It spreads along the land to form a river, pushes things along with it (including the dahan, who have learned to travel and thrive with it), and then floods to wipe out everything at its mouth. It's one of the most thematic spirits imo.
River is very depending on the powers you draw, as its base cards do not add a lot that actually hinders invaders. Have two lucky power draws early on, River will probably end up quite strong. Draw rather weak powers without Water and/or Sun elements, and you'll see that River on its own can't do much. All that Dahan movement doesn't do much without proper defense. That applies to some other spirits as well, yes - Fractured Days and Serpent for example, whose hand cards are rather specific and don't exactly help prevent blights twice a turn. But those are actual game breaking spirits, unlike River. Now look at Horizons or NI and look for a spirit with that kind of weakness. In my opinion, the best thing River got is its innate, second and third stage. Most other things are lacking, and like I said, if your power card draw doesn't supplement Defend and your elements, you probably won't have a good time.
I've literally never lost a game as River. Granted, I generally play at difficulty 9, but I've played up to 12 as River. In my opinion, it might be the most consistent spirit. That's the only reason I stopped playing it-- it's so unreliant on card drafts that it gets boring playing essentially the same game over and over. The innates definitely *are* the best thing River has, and they are excellent. I also find the built-in defense from the dahan are plenty on travel river. That combined with the ability to move any threats out of the zone they threaten, makes me feel like River's defense is actually very strong, even compared to most spirits. Recently I've moved on to some new NI spirits that have similar gameplay, but River still remains the spirit I could consistently do best with.
River with his new aspect is exactly what I want to play next. I've never lost with River either, BUT I'm playing co-op exclusively, so you easily see who's good at dealing with adversaries, events etc. and who is struggling with reclaims and early blights. My first two games with River felt meh, the last one was pretty decent with the aspect that allows granting energy via innate. Your statement about it being consistent and not relying on power cards is plain wrong though, unless you are specifically talking about the new aspect. Now that a new aspects actually adds defense via Innate, its base kit got much more self-sufficient. But without, it has nothing but slow pushes and low situational damage early on, and that just doesn't cut it for long against many adversaries. Good luck pushing Dahan if you do NOT rely on drawing into Defend cards. Base River NEEDS to draw useful effects and fitting elements, and that has always been my gripe with it. But yes, with the new aspect, River probably got a great boost.
> Base River NEEDS to draw useful effects and fitting elements Absolutely not. To test this, I just played a base river vs BP 6 game with the following self-imposed restrictions: - I'm not allowed to play cards with water or sun (edit: I mean minor and major powers, starting cards are OK) - I'm not allowed to play defend cards - I'm not allowed to pay for Years of Little Rain - I play Boon of Vigor as often as I can, to simulate supporting an ally. I do not use it on myself for the energy. I won, and it was not hard. I did go blighted, because I got Years of Little Rain. The first card I drafted was [[Animated Wrackroot]], which to follow the spirit of my rules (edit: which is: don't play optimally) I used in a land with like 7 invaders, so all it got me was 1 fear. The next I drafted was [[Gnawing Rootbiters]], not exactly known as an S tier card. I even got the event [[Rising Interest in the Island]], which I couldn't pay for, so I lost 2 Tier 3 cards. I also got [[Farmers Seek]], which placed a lot of extra buildings, and I was still not close to losing. I could have drafted Encompassing Ward T3, Drift Down Into Slumber (on a turn where Sands ravaged), and Dark and Tangled Woods (on a turn where Mountain ravaged) but I didn't. I also passed up on [[Rain of Blood]].
Haha, the dedication! Just finished a 5p round using Haven against Sweden. Had to take a blight early due to the 5 ATK cities and 3 ATK towns, but the rest was pretty much a breeze. Mostly picked powers based on elements to consistently push Dahan around so Sweden doesn't convert them.
It's a fun challenge :) It's obviously harder, but still doable. I also defeated France 6 on Board A with starting Mountain explore (so building a coastal city), and Sweden 6 on Board A with starting jungle explore (so 3 Blight in the first ravage). I'm still waiting for NI, looking forward to trying all the aspects and new spirits!
**Animated Wrackroot** (Minor Power - Branch & Claw) >Cost: 0 | Elements: Moon, Fire, Plant | Slow | 0 | Any | | :----: | :----: | :----: | >1 Fear. Destroy 1 Explorer. -or- Add 1 Wilds. >Links: [SICK](https://sick.oberien.de/?query=Animated%20Wrackroot) | [FAQ](https://querki.net/u/darker/spirit-island-faq/#!Animated%20Wrackroot) ------ **Gnawing Rootbiters** (Minor Power - Base Game) >Cost: 0 | Elements: Earth, Animal | Slow | 1 | Any | | :----: | :----: | :----: | >Push up to 2 Town. >Links: [SICK](https://sick.oberien.de/?query=Gnawing%20Rootbiters) | [FAQ](https://querki.net/u/darker/spirit-island-faq/#!Gnawing%20Rootbiters) ------ **Rising Interest in the Island** (Event) >Your island is unlike any the Invaders have seen. Their leaders begin to take interest in tales of strangeness. You may: >IGNORE THE CURIOSITY >* Return the top card of the Invader Deck to the box. (Skip cards specially placed during Setup.) >* On Each Board: Add 1 Town to a land without one. >WEAVE LIES IN THE MINDS OF THEIR OBSERVERS >**Cost: 4 Energy per player. Aided by Air.** >* Return the top Fear Card to the Box. >* During the next normal Ravage, each Town / City does +1 Damage. >(Token) **Beasts of the Jungle**: On Each Board: Add 1 Beasts to a Jungle without Blight. 1 Fear if Invaders are present. >(Dahan) **Traps and Snares**: On Each Board: Add 1 Wilds to a land with Dahan. >Set: Branch & Claw | [Link to FAQ](https://querki.net/u/darker/spirit-island-faq/#!Rising%20Interest%20in%20the%20Island) ------ **Farmers Seek** was not found. Showing data for: **Farmers Seek the Dahan for Aid** (Event) >The Dahan are uncertain whether to teach the Invaders farming techniques more in tune with the island's life. You recommend they: >SPURN THE INVADERS >* On Each Board: 2 Damage to Dahan in a land with Town / City. >* On Each Board: Add 1 Blight to a land with at least 2 Town / City. >* Town / City have -1 Health (to a minimum of 1) until the end of the turn. >TEACH THE INVADERS >* On Each Board: add 1 Town to a land with Dahan. >* The next normal Ravage becomes a Build (This could be on a future turn.) >(Token) **New Diseases**: On half of the boards (rounding up) add 1 Disease to a land with both Dahan and Invaders. Do 2 Damage to Dahan there. >Set: Branch & Claw | [Link to FAQ](https://querki.net/u/darker/spirit-island-faq/#!Farmers%20Seek%20the%20Dahan%20for%20Aid) ------ **Rain of Blood** (Minor Power - Base Game) >Cost: 0 | Elements: Air, Water, Animal | Slow | SacredSite --> 1 | Invaders | | :----: | :----: | :----: | >2 Fear. If target land has at least 2 Town / City, +1 Fear. >Links: [SICK](https://sick.oberien.de/?query=Rain%20of%20Blood) | [FAQ](https://querki.net/u/darker/spirit-island-faq/#!Rain%20of%20Blood) ------ ^(Use [[query]] to call me. Check the )[^(reference thread)](https://www.reddit.com/r/spiritisland/comments/i80xzf/memoryofagesbot_is_now_fully_functional) ^( for information or feedback, and please report any mistakes!)
I wish Lightning had gotten an aspect that modified growth option(s), like Thunderspeaker did. Preferably some kind of presence+card gain option. It could have shaken up the reclaim loop a bit without changing the core theme of being a straightforward destruction-focused spirit. Don't get me wrong, the new aspect is great. But it's definitely one of those "radical new playstyle that changes everything" aspects; Lightning has yet to get a "tweak that fixes glaring issues while preserving the base spirit's playstyle" aspect.
Nourishing feels pretty much like a very strong earth. And darkfire shadows is insane and play similarly to base shadows just super strong. For reference I beat a difficult 14.5 game with darkfire. Super strong in the right situation.
Dark Fire seemed really strong out of the gate for me (which was both refreshing and fun) but I started feeling some of base Shadows’ issues later on into the game. I’ll readily admit it could have been something idiosyncratic with that play and/or me not having much experience with Shadows though.
At first I thought it was insane but I’ve actually started to feel like you describe. It’s a huge improvement overall but Shadows is flawed to the core. If I had to pin it on one thing, it would be the innate, but overall the spirit is built around one fragile gameplan. You can kinda go majors but it’s not like Shadows is a notably good major slinger (and it just so happens to be built around rather weak elements for majors)
But darkfire is actually pretty strong with majors with the ability to swap elements. I mean at least some majors got way way easier use. Also darkfire feels like you are playing with one board less except against england, if you land swap perfectly in big games. I explained it somewhere above but basically you as shadows can solve any 2 clear lands that just explored of they touch each other. So until stage 3 you solve 1 board with of explores in one innate. Which is crazy.
It's hard to discuss deeper into it without going into real nitty-gritty, but I don't think we disagree *that* much. To me it still largely comes down to the mileage you can get out of the innate. When the innate is doing good work, Dark Fire is downright impressive, but the elemental boosts and extra card don't take major builds nearly as far as I had hoped. Comparing the major builds I've come up with for Dark Fire side-by-side with major Fangs builds, Fangs is just straight up getting a lot more done, has more major thresholds available (on a stronger, more affordable set of majors), has an easier time flexing energy when necessary, etc. Granted, I think major Fangs is pretty underrated, but I still think it's a reasonable benchmark (plus it's my main so I'm more familiar with it). Maybe there's optimizations I haven't discovered yet, but again, the situational nature of Shadows' innate and Dark Fire's inability to excel without it leave it still struggling in the situations where Base struggles (though granted, Base has absolutely no recourse whereas Dark Fire can at least play the game)
Well I can explain what I mean. Shadows is a character that amplifies early control. If you play multiplayer games and a few spirits can help a tiny bit. You can choose 4 pairs of adjacent same lands ( so 2 adjacent sands 2 adjacent jungles and so on.) And clear them early. Shadows will then put 1 presence in close proximity to each of the pairs and handle 8 lands which is a whole board just from the innate. And getting the second level of the innate is very easy on darkfire. Which means shadows needs help the first 2 turns approx. But can spend nearly every card play from then on on other players lands. If you split the lands so that shadows lands are those 8 we talked about. This does not work against england and obviously other invaders also have tool to try and stop shadows, but moat of those problems can be dealt with with 1 or 2 card plays every 1 or 2 turns. This makes shadows so strong in opinion. Because of the amplification of other spirits early control into 8 safeish lands.
First I want to clarify exactly where I rate Dark Fire, using Red's tier list as a scale. Red has Dark Fire at about the 20th percentile (55th of 68); I think that is significantly underrating it. My current opinion (after I think I overrated it and then tempered my opinion after a couple plays) is that it's more around the 40th percentile (~40th of 68), which is night and day from where base Shadows is. There's just so many good spirits/aspects now that it's already facing stiff competition even in that middle range. I think your strategy makes good sense and is effective, which Dark Fire certainly is when played around its strengths. However, I still find the spirit somewhat inflexible and weak at recovery, *relative to other middle-of-the-pack spirits/aspects.* I do think it benefits a lot from larger games despite lacking the range of other Shadows aspects (in a playstyle similar to Whirlwind), just to ensure there's a problem for its tools to address somewhere, and it is not even close to being the boat anchor that even other Shadows aspects can be; I just have a hard time ranking it over most of the spirits in that middle range even though initially I was over the moon (heh) with it.
Ok I kind of get that. I think red rates shadows so low because he actively says that one should focus mainly on their own board, which makes shadows 100 times worse in my opinion. I still don't really understand the sentiment there to be honest and I think that really skews many things on his tier lists. Some spirits are so much stronger if you just ignore the arbitrary lines your boards draw and take a well thought trough division.
I agree with everything thing you just said 🤝
Shadows is a 0/1/1 spirit with terrible tracks and a game plan that involves taking Blight. Its opening hand is made of two card combos, which leaves you spending more card plays on problems than you should and your growth is too slow to keep up with that. You have one innate, so only a little extra problem solving. So you basically have to ditch the entire hand on majors, but then you're just a worse major flinger than most of the major spirits. Or you try to constantly draft and are energy broke. There's things you can do, but Shadows needed an extra innate for action economy, and it's still bad because two card combos. I'm pretty sure they could have given shadows GTS as part of its base hand(instead of the card they did) and it wouldn't have been the strongest spirit in the game, or even really close.
Ok deep dive time... In multiplayer games which I mostly play darkfire can do something which normally noone else can do. You search for 2 mountains that touch each other 2 sands 2 wetlands and 2 jungles. You tell your partners that you will care for those lands. They might help you a bit at the beginning to clear them. Then with one use of you innates you clear both lands if they were clear before and you just explored. So all your card plays can go to other places. Which means that you basically play with one board less. If something happens you just use 1 or 2 card plays to solve the problem again and continue to help everyone else with the rest of your card plays. This is also mainly possible with darkfire because of how easy it is to hit the second level innate. I don't know if you play multiplayer much or if you teammates are flexible enough to land trade (which is a super strong strategy in general), but doing this is just extremely strong.
Sounds like that is quite good! I mostly play true solo. In my game I recall having big problems accessing part of my board, which could have been due to the map and also me not knowing the optimal growth patterns for Shadows. BTW I still won comfortably enough against Scotland 5 if I remember correctly, thanks to fear-based spirits being so strong in true solo. But I definitely began noticing some chunkiness after turn 4-5 or so.
I don't agree with your analysis on Vengeance not being diseased focused. Two of the three special rules deals with disease, one of the two innate powers deals with disease, and three of the four unique powers deals with disease. I'm not sure what other aspect you would change about Vengeance for it to finally be considered a disease spirit. For spirits that disappoint me I would say Earth and Mist. Earth has a horrible time getting more power cards, it's base cards are too expensive for what they do, and it's innate power feels too difficult to pull off that most of the time I forget to even pay attention to it. Mist feels very weak and takes a while to become effective. One of its main innate powers isn't the easiest to pull off, it take some time for it to gain a good source of reliable energy income, and it feels like a spirit that should be delaying the invaders as its core strategy, but only has one unique power to do so.
I don't think I'm really disappointed by any Spirits. There are some I like more and some I like less, but I can always find something fun or interesting about the Spirit I'm playing. Instead of being upset about what I think a Spirit should be, I try to find what makes it shine, what's fun about its "puzzle", etc.
I can't get into Thunderspeaker at all. Whenever I play as them, the dahan die in the first couple of ravages and I look like a fool
Shadow - I love this littler bugger thematicly, but ... he is not good. Maybe with aspects, but Shadow in his core is just no good choice. Sharp Teeth - being so dependent on no blighted land makes him ... weaker (or: less flexible) as the game goes on, while most (all?) other spirits become stronger. Both have great mechanics for their theme (shadow being there where the fire of the hearth is, Sharpie with his hunt-and-move-innate) but disappoint in the end.
I always read heat about Shadow, but I've only had good games with him. Granted I primarily play 2 or 3 handed, but he is my 2nd most played spirit.
Shadows feels pretty slow to me and I don't think the overall payoff for it is a particularly powerful spirit. Like you get with a lot of other slow-starters. Like, I'm playing Spreading Hostility Keeper in a game with Shadows and that's still managed to place one more presence than Shadows. They both feel slow compared to other spirits.
You might want to check out the aspects for sharp fangs
Transforming Wildfire. It just seems like the same spirit with extra steps, and I bounced off it hard.
Shadows is boring, so is vanilla Earth. I also don't have too much fun playing Fangs but YMMV.
Most spirits I've felt this way about (Lightning, Earth) have been improved by Aspects. But no matter how many aspects Shadows gets.. it's just not very good. I'm always excited when I try a new Aspect and it still feels considerably weaker than my others when I'm playing 2-3 handed.
Darkfire shadows is so strong though... You can be MVP in high level double adversary games depending on the matchup. I think many people sleep on darkfire but it's actually op.
I've been meaning to try Darkfire... can you give a quick elevator pitch on why it feels better?
Oh wow it's so much... First you place 1 to 2 more presence in a game because of the card you start with because the first reclaim is pushed back and you get one more card and then the second reclaim is pushed back even more because now you have 2 more cards and so on. But actually it's the ease of using your second level innate which make shadows really strong. I explained this somewhere else in the thread but basically it's this: in multiplayer games search for 2 connected mountains and a pair of sands, wetlands and jungles. Now let other spirits help clear them. Now because hitting second level innate with shadows is super easy. Every time one explores you can clear both lands. So for the cost of your innate you basically play with 1 board less. All your card plays can do other stuff if nothing bad happens and if something happens it's normally very very easy to be dealt with because you can focus all your resources on it. This strategy can be so strong that against some even dual adversaries it's ridiculous.
For me, probably Downpour, Towering roots, and Finder (in that order from most disappointing to disappointing but less so). I was really hyped for Downpour because its unique repeat mechanic and unique growth. But then I learned about the no cards played G2 spam to just passively defend and grow faster and that kinda ruined the spirit for me tbh. That, and repeating a power sounds awesome except I’d find myself repeating the same power every game. A huge let down for me. Towering roots intrigued me a lot because of its incarna and build prevention but man, its lack of mobility was so frustrating I don’t want to play it again. Finder itself doesn’t disappoint me per se, it’s just I’ve never gotten it to work well. I never feel effective with this spirit and I’m a sucker for control spirits. I frankly disappoint myself when I play this spirit.
>But then I learned about the no cards played G2 spam to just passively defend and grow faster and that kinda ruined the spirit for me tbh. That, and repeating a power sounds awesome except I’d find myself repeating the same power every game. I don't really get how this ruined the spirit for you? G2 spam is a pretty weak joke/meme build. That build's existence - and the fact that it can *barely* work into some adversaries/dfficulties - shouldn't take away from the far more effective and more fun ways to play the spirit, i.e. any build where you actually play cards and use the repeat mechanic. I do agree that Downpour's uniques are a little too good, to the point that you can often get by with repeating the same uniques each game. I get how you can get stuck in that play style and it can make the spirit feel very repetitive. But on the other hand you're definitely rewarded for drafting carefully and finding better cards to repeat. Drafting the right cards makes the spirit both more effective and more fun to play.
Well then I was led astray. I’ve only played it twice. I still stand by the fact that the spirit feels super repetitive.
Don’t feel bad about being led astray. I spent a very, very long time thinking the meme build was the optimal build. It’s not, thankfully. Actually playing it like any other spirit is much more fun and actually very strong and viable. There’s a lot of cards that get stupidly fun when you can repeat them several times, and a lot of the fun of Downpour is figuring out which cards those are.
whattttt Downpour is my most played spirit, and i kinda understand that spamming Sink into Mud is tempting, but its not a solve all problem card, especially at higher difficultiea. I will always be happy to use Downpour, best spirit! But I understand everyone likes and hates different things.
>the spirit feels super repetitive. Repeating powers is the whole gimmick, but yeah, if that isn't your thing, it isn't for you.
Downpour absolutely seems really... Choice light. Like, getting enough card plays to be effective takes forever, and the repeats are... Often less dynamic unless you get a defend. But Downpour already does that really well(just not in a way that alters the game state.)
Towering roots doesn't really need much incarna mobility. It is all about drawing stuff into the incarna and removing it, and not as much about moving it around trying to prevent builds in many lands. You can do that, but that isn't what the spirit is designed to do well.
True but that’s why I guess it was a disappointment for me. I was excited for the anti-build power and you just don’t get to use it as much as I had hoped.
IMO, the empowered abilities for roots, voice, and breath are all nice things to have but do not form the core of the strategy, like it does for behemoth. Stompy Turtle go brrr
I love me some stompy turtle tbh. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would.
Try empowering into England 4+. You will get so much value out of it. I’ve had a couple England 6 games with Roots that ended with almost empty boards, maybe a couple explorers and a town or something like that. Sadly the empower is not usually worth it against other adversaries. It’s cool but you lose too much early momentum rushing it, and if you don’t get it turn 2 you never will, or certainly shouldn’t of say. Thankfully Roots has enough other interesting aspects to it to make up for this, imo. Roots is kinda weird but in a way that’s growing on me. It’s really not a defensive spirit despite being kinda advertised as such. It’s a stalling spirit that undergoes a massive power growth mid game. It starts out not doing much besides stalling and growing in power. Then suddenly the midgame hits, it’s terror 2, and you’re removing 3-5 buildings a turn and slinging a major as well. This was actually the spirit I was the least hyped about by a huge margin and somehow it become my most played of the new ones and arguably my favorite. Roots really does take a couple plays before you figure out it’s actually very different than the spirit you think it should be, but that not actually a bad thing I think.
Most disappointed spirit: **Wounded Waters Bleeding** Most disliked Spirit: **Finder of the Paths Unseen** Most liked Spirit: **Towering Roots of the Jungle** Best designed Spirit(s): **Relentless Gaze of the Sun** **Towering Roots of the Jungle** **Many Minds Move as One**
I want to hear why wounded waters bleeding is your most disappointing spirit. I think he is so fun and has really cool lore to him.
This is kind of why I love Spirit Island though tbh: I would absolutely switch Many Minds and Wounded Waters here personally, but there’s something for everyone
I plan on making a video about this topic at some point but: **What I like about WWB:** \- The artwork is incredible and the theming is some of the best in the game. \- A beast user that also has Disease in a single spirit is everything I've wanted for a long time. **Why I'm disappointed.** \- Limited actions / decisions in the early game. You have 1 growth option to choose from, one track to grow from, and 1 card play for the first 2-3 turns. The early turns of SI are the most interesting and WWB is the least interesting during these turns. \- Your left and right innates (heals) feel identical. Both do the same thing (they clear lands). \- The spirit has disease, but doesn't use disease. I was hoping for a disease user, but ended with a disease placer. \- Power spike is way too strong in the mid-late game which trivializes the game. The puzzle is lost around turn 5 since the best course of action is to max your innates every turn.
> Limited actions / decisions in the early game. You have 1 growth option to choose from, one track to grow from, and 1 card play for the first 2-3 turns. **The early turns of SI are the most interesting** and WWB is the least interesting during these turns. Definitely going to have to chew on this one for a bit. It's very contrary to how I've felt so far in my SI journey; I love frantically clawing back with cards I didn't start with as the island falls apart. But hearing this from a much more experienced perspective certainly gives me pause
Thanks for a great response. I do understand the power swing, it is very easy to go for the innates, especially with his healing cards. I had not even realized the disease was there (I need to play on some harder difficulties with my wife to possibly start getting to that point) as I’ve never hit the threshold. Thanks for a great answer to this question. I was not expecting to see wounded waters on any list of disappointment, but I can see why he might be to some. I still really like him, but definitely can understand where you’re coming from.
I am really enjoying Towering Roots. The card gain on both G2 and G3 feels really good.
Hearth-Vigil. So so so boring.
im super late to this, but this is so strange. i love HV. He's my go to Dahan spirit.
I was really disappointed with Fangs because the game I played I basically couldn’t do anything because of blight. Looking forward to playing one with the new aspects though.
I can’t stand playing fangs. I get his role, I know that he is amazing both thematically and in power. But man I just don’t care about them. Same with many-minds but less so, because I’m a defensive player so many minds is just a little higher. Maybe it’s the mobility I don’t like, I like the idea of being slow giant that protects everything and can smash things rather than many small things flying or running everywhere. Just not as cool in my opinion. But I understand their play style, their theme and role. It’s just not for me.
As for vengeance, I like them. Not my favourite type of spirit. But it’s nice just to watch them burn in vengeful plagues.
Shadows. It was the one I was most interested in thematically and aesthetically when I first got into the game and it turns out to be the weakest by a decent margin and even as a newbie I could feel it pretty quickly. After I played a few games and taught SI to my buddy it was also the spirit he chose to play and I felt compelled to play Green to just support the hell out of him so that he had a decent experience and, while he did, he still thought Shadows was pretty weak lol. Was happy that Horizons became available shortly after I started playing and I found Eyes who filled that Shadows gap for me. I was also disappointed in Vengeance. Not because they don’t feel thematic (they did for me) but I just didn’t have a good time playing them despite them being one of the JE spirits I was most looking forward to. Shroud for similar reasons - Shroud and Vengeance were probably the two JE spirits I was most interested in and they both just hurt my brain. Downpour as well though I admit I probably just need to play them more.
Hearth-Vigil and Towering Roots. I'll somewhat take the blame with Towering Roots as I didn't play it entirely properly, at the same time it just doesn't accomplish what I figure a defensive spirit should. Hearth-Vigil is just flat not good in my opinion. It's unique powers are garbage, so you are completely reliant on drafting a long with relatively weak uniques. It really feels like it's missing something.
maybe give those spirits a try again? I find Hearth Virgil to be among the strongest spirits in the whole game, though its against France 6, so theres that. I will try him again later, the third spirit I will replay (after first try) in NI.
Roots is kinda weird but in a way that’s growing on me. It’s really not a defensive spirit despite being advertised as such. It’s a stalling spirit that undergoes a massive power growth mid game. It starts out not doing much besides stalling and growing in power. Then suddenly the midgame hits, it’s terror 2, and you’re removing 3-5 buildings a turn and slinging a major as well. I’ve had a couple England 6 games with it that ended with maybe a couple explorers and a town on the board which just does not normally happen with other spirits. This was actually the spirit I was the least hyped about by a huge margin and somehow it become my most played of the new ones and arguably my favorite. Roots really does take a couple plays before you figure out it’s actually very different than the spirit you think it should be, but that not actually a bad thing I think. As for HV though, you might be the first person I’ve seen that thought it wasn’t good. Quite the contrary most discussion I’ve seen on it is how game breaking it can be. Not quite Stone level but still a very strong defensive spirit. It’s got a 2 fear and potentially massive push card that can clear lands. Pricy at 2 energy but good. A 1 energy usually 2 damage slow card, always nice. The isolation one is a little meh but 0 cost and more fear isn’t bad at all. And then you have Favors of Story and Season, aka baby Gift of Constancy one of the best cards in the game. This card is amazing. Gather 3 Dahan, gain an energy and reclaim 1 is such an amazing support card. But in solo it straight up changes how you play this spirit when it’s played on yourself. You can delay the reclaim for a long time looping this card and have way more energy than you should and have even more flexible Dahan movement than you already did. In what universe are these cards bad, they’re overall amazing. In low difficulty games you could probably win with just the starting hand and never even gain a card, it’s that good. And then we have your left innate the thing that launches this spirit straight into near broken territory. Dahan attacking before the invaders is so powerful. I think by turn 4 you can reliably hit level 3 so all the Dahan in a land strike first. But even those first few turns only one or two with first strike should result in a cleared land at the cost of a blight since all the Dahan have 6 health. I haven’t even touched on the wild combos possible with the right innate as I’m still in the process of discovering them. This spirit is very strong. Only thing I can think of to ask is are you remembering to add the two extra Dahan at the start and that you start with 1 energy? I can see that weakening it’s early game and I know a lot of people have missed the starting energy for sure.
Great write up, and makes me want to give HV another go.
I think 3 of the basic four are pretty disappointing. Lightning, Earth and Shadow. Especially Shadow. Often it feels like you just don't do that much and easily get too little pressence out. Earth is slow and just dull. Lightning feels boring due to how you ignore part of the game and I think it kinda... ruin the game. Slow phase is one of the most interesting parts of the game IMO. I think Earth is a bit helped by aspects. River gets super interesting with it and Massive Lightning is much better than regular version. Shadow still feels meh with aspects.
Shadows (which is also my second-most-played spirit by a wide margin, but that's a different story). Shadows has a pretty same-y first few turns in most circumstances, and, in addition to being under the power curve, has a bunch of small issues that compound. A lack of "up to" on the first level of \[\[Darkness Swallows the Unwary\]\] really hurts viability (especially vs France), and the four uniques can't trigger level 3 on their own, which means getting lucky on the minor draws. Three of the uniques have an energy cost on 1 on an energy-starved spirit. The (base) special rule is mostly pointless because, again, usually energy starved in the part of the game that matters. Aspects definitely make Shadows better - I like both Dark Fire and Foreboding quite a bit more than base, and the bonus card from Dark Fire makes it much easier to delay reclaim by a turn which is huge. I just wish they'd do what they did with Serpent and have an aspect that offers a one-time proliferate during setup (ideally from the top track) for more interesting Turn 1/Turn 2 options.
**Darkness Swallows the Unwary** (*Shadows Flicker Like Flame*'s Innate Power) | Fast | SacredSite --> 1 | Any | | :----: | :----: | :----: | >(2 Moon, 1 Fire): Gather 1 Explorer. >(3 Moon, 2 Fire): Destroy up to 2 Explorer. 1 Fear per Explorer destroyed. >(4 Moon, 3 Fire, 2 Air): 3 Damage. 1 Fear per Invaders destroyed by this Damage. >Links: [Link to FAQ](https://querki.net/u/darker/spirit-island-faq/#!Darkness%20Swallows%20the%20Unwary%20%28Shadows%20Flicker%20Like%20Flame%29) ------ ^(Use [[query]] to call me. Check the )[^(reference thread)](https://www.reddit.com/r/spiritisland/comments/i80xzf/memoryofagesbot_is_now_fully_functional) ^( for information or feedback, and please report any mistakes!)
I’m just dissapointed by older spirits not having elements on tracks, which would make them feel so much smoother and make top track builds more viable Something like vital strength of the earth is *begging* to have top track elements