With serpent slumbering beneath the island, he can work very well in a two player game. You just have to pick a spirit he synergies with and doesn't mind giving up some of their presence. I've played a load of games as the ocean with someone playing snake, and they are a brutally powerful combination.
Again, with bringer of dreams and nightmares, it depends on what that other person is playing. Of they're playing ocean, just cause all the fear and push everything towards and then into the sea. Ocean is great to play with as a spirit that focuses on control, as you can actually kill invaders by pushing them into the ocean
Aaaahh my face on screen, sorry for scaring all the children watching!! :P Ha ha, thanks for the mention and nice vid!! "you don't have to play every spirit a ton of times to be a true fan of the game" - PREACH IT!!! This drives me nuts when I get that kind of feedback. I haven't played every single Sentinels hero in Sentinels of the Multiverse I don't think. There's a few I think I've not had time to try out, but come on, the giant box on my shelf and the fact it's been frequently my #1 game I think makes me a fan! Sharp Fangs - noooooo, he's a cute kitty kat! What's not to like? :P Nah seriously, he has his moments where his power level may drop a bit, but I find with the events it goes up actually, not down. The events frequently have the beast tokens do things on top of what you're doing so when you have a bunch of them on the board, it can escalate rather quickly. My love for him does come down a bit to the theme as well though - having the animal population of an island become aggressive and hunt the invaders down. It's why Many Minds Move As One also worked with me. Bringer of Darkness is also a fun one that I enjoy, but I think for me, my favourite spirits are the ones who focus on fear generation and do it well. Sharp Fangs works here also. You're on my island. . . . . GET OUUUUUTTTT! Send them running with their tails between their legs, love it! But interesting to watch, clearly you're not a fan of the high complexity spirits and certainly they look crazy, I haven't even tried Finder/Starlight/Fractured yet, but they're soon to be next as I think I've tried all the others now. . . . . oh wait Downpour as well. But I still think as some have asked for, a collab to discuss Spirit Island in general and our 5 favourite spirits would work well as we would have different lists for different reasons.
I really am loving all this feedback about these spirits. I can't wait to play SI again! Thanks so much Luke! And yes! Lets get something one calendar soon!
With volcano looming high You don't have to invest your presence in one big moment. He's one of my favourites and I've played him a lot. I've never used his fast inate at full power, usually I'm just destroying one or two presence in the land when I use it. I also spred out a reasonable amount, so I can affect most of the island, something like one land per board
I've given myself a project to play as every single spirit and try to understand how each of them works. I sorted them from lowest to highest complexity, and I'm trying them in that order. I play with the expansions (Beast, Strife, etc.), solo, with the blighted island card and events, but no scenarios and no adversaries. Here are some things I'm trying to get into the habit of thinking about: - Try to activate innate powers every turn. - Try to place presence early and often to spur on my growth track. - Try to cater my growth option to what I need THIS TURN. - Try not to Reclaim cards unless my hand is empty or almost empty. - Try to gain powers that match the elements I'll need to activate my innate powers. - Try to prevent future builds by pushing/destroying explorers. - Try to prevent future explorations by pushing/destroying inland towns and cities. - Try to come up with a plan for this turn during the Growth phase, but DON'T plan for any specifics beyond this turn. - A combination of slow powers and fast powers lets you act TWICE between Invader phases. This is usually more helpful than using all fast or all slow powers, in my limited experience. - Fast powers are better for emergencies. - Slow powers go BEFORE fast powers. They're the first thing that happens after invaders do their thing. I only think, "Will this be helpful after the board changes a bit?" and if so, I play it - without committing to just how I'll use it until after the invader phase. - Remember that there's no difference between invaders doing 2 damage and invaders doing 20 damage. A blight is a blight. - In the early game, I'll be okay with eating the blight from a ravage if the resources that frees up will let me prevent several builds/explores. All of those builds/explores would have become ravages in the future. All this is subject to change, depending on whether I still suck at the game later on or not. :b
Thanks for this video! I just played Lure again, as that was the most surprising one to me on your list. Here is the thing: Lure works best for slow powers, and the key is triggering the innates early and often. Instead of traditional damage, you will convert towns (and eventually cities) to explorers and move them into your lands. This works best by claiming the center land on the board (typically land 5) early, and making that your hub for gathering a bunch of explorers, either with your innate Forsaken or with Softly Beckon (which should be your Turn 1 card). Your innate Never Heard From Again can then remove them, particularly if you play an early Perils plus Gift of the Untamed Wilds on it (in Turn 2). I hope that helps!
I will be honest with you , because of you reviews l have been meaning to buy Spirit Island. My kids are 14, 17, and 19. I DM two campaigns ,one for my younger daughter and her friends. And one with my older two and thier friends. I have been playing DnD for 20+ years , l have never played any PC other than a Cleric . So not using , what would classify as an NPC , is quite fine really. I would urge anyone playing DnD to watch your posts for ideas. The idea well runs dry and your posts have given me many ideas for NPC s. Ok , after work taking the kids to the hobby shop to pick up spirit island , we are watching my niece and nephew this weekend ,so my sister and brother-in-law can have a short ,post lock down get a way. Thank you , don't worry play what you are comfortable with, it is all about escape and relaxation.
Those high complexity spirits frightened me for a while too. I found that the “openings” series on BGG and Reddit really helped me out. I just needed someone to tell me what growth / powers to play for the first few turns to get me settled in. Once I’m comfortable with how it’s supposed to work I can experiment, but I needed to be guided through them first. Starlight is one of my favorites now, I really like gaining 3 cards a turn for the first few rounds trying to assemble the pairs of elements I need to participate in the game.
There is so much content in Spirit Island that there is nothing wrong with only playing half of the spirits. If you prefer lower complexity spirits, have you tried the aspect cards for the 4 low complexity spirits? They effectively give you an additional 11 spirits to try out. For more Spirit Island strategies and tips, I suggest the Kindred Spirit Podcast. Enjoy the game!
Definitely a few things to consider I would say: Thunder speaker and jaguar are basically played (strategically) the same, using different tokens. You lead war parties around to kill stuff. Thunderspeaker does a lot of her damage in the slow phase, so all you need to think about is look at what will build/ravage this turn. Use sudden ambush to keep builds down, and use her starter slow 3-cost card to obliterate new builds. During ravage, use defence for counter-attacks like anyone else would. you have some cards to keep the Dahan alive even if they ravage without defence. Jaguar is only different in that you can't move into blight generally, so rushing early blight removal; will be important. otherwise, is lower damage than thunderspeaker but tends to act in the fast instead which offsets that problem a lot. Nightmare is pretty nuts broken with ocean. Nightmare damages and moves whatever he wants into the ocean, ocean gets powered up. start there if you are intimidated by them. Otherwise, you are just moving explorers into areas they aren't building until your ally can come and trivially destroy them. Phoenix can seem hard, and it will sometimes tip you into cascades and blighted island. basically, as you gain cards, hunt for one or two decent major powers in the mid game (blazing renewal is pretty nuts with him) and try you best to use your precence to zap explorers before builds and minor powers that remove blight until you are naturally removing it. Phoenix getting it's elements is pretty critical to this so that's your primary goal. Finder of paths unseen is pretty tough, but the way to think about it, who are your other spirits? You can't directly destroy stuff you move, but you can set it up. basically, you distribute your island load to your allies, while also helping them avoid builds, and the way you navigate the growth path (in an easier to approach way) is focus on elements or things that help you do that with the minor powers you are picking up. Focus on that one goal and it's far more approachable, but definitely the toughest spirit IMO. "Time Guy" (for us) or Fractured days split the sky. he's super interesting, but requires a planner. Pretty darn powerful, but what you are doing is, in concept, temporarily removing your presence off your track to do things. your power actually comes from your presence being on your track, not from getting it onto the board (best way to conceptualise it). If you want to boil it down, your track presence is your "resource" to use to exploit his abilities to stop builds and destroy invaders. Starlight seeks it's form is definitely "build your own spirit". My advice is, use your gain power cards to do something (One of our regular players of this spirit finds a good major power and builds early game around that idea) like build into defence or damage or whatever the theme of the cards you are picking up are, and focus on that. The major power is the easiest one, because you can focus on one card. Then just look at whatever growth helps you do that strat best and do that. Definitely requires thought but not terribly difficult. Just go in open-minded and adjust as you get that early hand replacement. Volcano is super easy. you wanna get big piles of explorers within range of your explosion then time the kill. Everything you do needs to revolve around that. A blight removal card is recommended, but if you organise the explorers early, you will probably have a breezy-ish game. Don't try and do anything else. However, don't be afraid to sub-optimal mini-explode to stop critical builds. long-term that's probably more effective than risking cascades of blight. Lure of the deep wilderness is basically the opposite of ocean. Ocen pulls them into the ocean to deal with the invaders, lure pulls them into the inner island to deal with them. you want to keep villages being turned into explorers then just use small damage to remove them when necessary. One strat I use is "follow the ravage" If you can move individual explorers into lands that will ravage you don't have to worry about them. Doubly useful useful if a dahan or two are present. But basically, you are ocean for the land. Finally, Serpent is a build-up spirit. basically, it pairs up well with another spirit that doesn't need all of it's tokens on the board. As you progress, serpent just keeps getting better and better. remember, for every token you take, you can give that player energy and the like based on how many you have taken, so it isn't a one-sided deal. Can also be good paired with low-energy spirits where you can power them up as well as you go. Definitely focusses on major powers in the mid-late game so very similar to the "branch character" you like from the claw and branch expansion. Just goes about it via other peoples token.
This is actually my favorite of your videos that I’ve seen. I mostly don’t think you’re missing much with the spirits you haven’t played there is so much variety regardless and it’s all about your fun! The very highs from JE and promo 2 that you haven’t played I took forever to try and the only one I really enjoy is Starlight. But I had to have a first few turn and pan to be comfortable in not slowing down the game when playing with others. Now I do love them but they aren’t necessary for you to play! Fractured changes the game too much for my taste, feels like breaking the rules when they’re highly effective and when they struggle it feels like a bad pay off for breaking the rules :P Finder… is awesome. Yeah, the analysis paralysis is horrible if you haven’t played them a lot and it’s not worth slowing down your game if that’s gonna hurt your fun. Truly cool spirit! I love Thunderspeaker and Fangs l, Fangs is the one that I think you could probably enjoy and maybe wildfire and Lure, they’re all very effective when you get a hang of them…. But you do you, limitless options with this game and more to come! Keep having fun!
Nice Video! I love that you are talking about what hinders you to play these spirits 😊 I understand your resistance for the very complex spirits. But you should definitely try sharp fangs. It is not too easy to understand this spirit at the beginning. Most important ist to learn how to move your presence (essential to use it’s “avoid build” ability card). But do not always move because you need presence in jungles for two of its features. I love sharp fangs and once you understood it, it can be a power house. Can’t believe you did not try Nightmares and Thunderspeaker 😁 Nightmares can inflict a lot of indirect damage by positioning the Dahan. So don’t be afraid of him this is reserved for the invaders. And Thunderspeaker is one of the most powerful spirits in the game. Her lore is fantastic and she can dominate the invaders early on 😁 I played Lure only once yet. He can be very powerful but is not too easy to play. I am motivated to master this spirit but especially the start can be tough.
Try wildfire! He is one of the strongest and most fun spirits. And he is really unique. Most spirits starts kinda weak compared to the invaders, but wildfire is different he wrecks them right from the get go, with the expense of blight. 🤣 But hey plague and mist do blight a lot also. And at least wildfire can clean his own mess. Tip: focus on getting plant element to gain the regenerating effect asap. So u wont fear over blighting the island. 😊 He also has only 2 element needs. Fire and plant. You usually have abundance of fire, and abudance of damage, so you dig your deck for a bunch of plant and defense.
Don't be afraid of blighting the island I and a group of 3 other friends played 1 of the most blighting games ever. We played vengeance of the burning plague, wildfire, volcano and ramping Green against England 3 but we blighted so much that for everyone it became eacier the more blight there was. (still won.)
1. Finder of Paths Unseen: This spirit is a great support for a team - you can move Cities. You can make a portal between every power card or innate. Is it complex? YES. Is it completely overpower in the right hands? Yes. You have to be crafty to let the Dahan do the killing for you - as any actions you do directly that kill destroy your presence. Only played it once personally. Its super hard. 2. Shattered Days Split the Sky: In my opinion this is the most difficult spirit in the game. The possibility space in enormous - but you can see 4 minors and 4 majors in advance to grow to. Building a plan from turn 1. The best use I have found is to help out a struggling player and give a bit more for a dominating player to deal with on 2 different boards. By comboing "Infinite Stasis" with "Pour Time Sideways" - you can mitigate the downsides of PTS slightly and hit the pause button on an entire board that's in ruins and add minimal pieces to a board that's nearly clean. It is a really brain burner spirit - I don't blame you for not playing it - the first few games I tried I got overwhelmed and gave up (they were solo games) The absolutely wacky things you can pull off though..... 3. Starlight Seeks its Form: Its actually easier to play than it looks on the surface - It is the largest possibilty space analysis paralysis spirit if you want it to be - but honestly you can treat it like a swiss army knife. Based on either the elements you keep drawing - or the holes in your team that need filling - this is a great spirit to do basically whatever you need it to. The best thing about it is also the worst - it doesn't have a distinct identity - so feels less thematic. But much easier to play than it says on the tin. Unless you are trying to squeeze out every last drop of efficiency I feel this should be labelled on the High not very high complexity. 4. Volcano Looming High This spirit is very mechanical and rigid in its playstyle. Moreso than maybe any other spirit the "power by the Furnace of the Earth" is 100% essential to your game play. Now I strongly believe that maximizing your innate powers through elements will almost always provide more value - and more theme - out of any given spirit (unless the printed text on a minor or major is just too perfect at the time) But where you can sort of get away with being less obsessed on the elements you draw with started spirits - with Volcano you can't. Once you Prioritize Fire and Earth to purchase more minor powers (to stall reclaiming) and replenish destroyed presence then all you need to do is keep that feedback loop going. Another thing to note: 'Explosive Eruption' can just destroy 1 presence - and it does damage to the mountain it is in due to "Explode in a Blast of Lava and Steam". Leveraging Badlands will make this very powerful. If you use higher tiers of this innate - it does damage in both the target land and origin land because of this. Combo-ing this with your starting card "Pryoclastic Bombardment" can be a very aggressive and fast way to make problems go away. Don't combo this spirit with ones that can't do actions around blight.... 5. Lure of the Deep Wilderness I was terrible with this spirit on my first 4 attempts. The trick is to not put all your eggs in one basket - you want to have 2 hot spots per board so you can reach everywhere. Similar to Volcano - the innate "Forsake Society to Chase After Dreams" is super mandatory. Its slow - so you want to immediately downgrade towns the same turn that they are built - this way you prevent DMG3 ravage spaces in the following turn. Using the add a presence, and gain a power card are the 2 growth options you should hyper fixate on. Only use the gain elements if you can't get "Forsake Society to Chase After Dreams" that turn with your card plays. If you combo it with spirits that generate the tokens it uses in its 'lairs' that's a great help. I found most games it transforms into a major power spewing monstrosity devastating the board. 6. Serpent Slumbers Beneath the Island 1. Combo it with "Shifting Memory of Ages" 2. ??? 3. Profit! In all seriousness - "Elemental Aegis" is silly broken. If you set up in the lands adjacent to the most other lands you can add defence to 7 lands at once. This allows the rest of the spirits to build up their power rather than waste turns playing defence cards or burning fast card to kill troublesome towns. That - and you should be eating presence every turn - the benefits you get with your innate to assist really 1 but maybe 2 allies far outweighs the negative effect. It can be a bit boring because it plays very mechanically. But it can either be a support spirit - or the strategic nuke at the end of the game. 7. The Heart of the Wildfire The most aggressive offensive spirit in the game. The blight is a major issue - definitely have teammates that help with that by either shrugging it off or healing it. Geez does this spirit do damage. I've done true solo games where I killed 100% of the invaders before stage 2. Its a spirit that doesn't really allow for mistakes. Not one of my favourites either. 8. Sharp Fangs Behind the Leaves This Spirit is INCREDIBLE. 1. During setup you can add another beast wherever you want. Add it to your own board. Unless you have a teammate that uses beasts you simply wont have enough card plays early game to 'be 2 places at once' make your early game easier with a larger force. Your board should be squeaky clean by the time you're powerful enough to start rampaging on allied islands. 2. "Ranging Hunt" is the most important thing for this spirit - do anything in your power to get it. 3. "Ally of the Beasts" is the second most important thing for this spirit - you aren't really interested in spiritual sites or high cost cards - everything you want is likely cost 0 or 1. Transform your presence into more beasts. You can kill the City on your island with Ranging Hunt at the fast step by turn 2. Its crazy. 4. Move your presence with your beasts - and don't forget when you push out of a land you can push to multiple destinations. You can prep Ranging Hunt in futures turns. 9. Bringer of Dreams and Nightmares (BoDaN) One of my favourites - I'd say works better when your team covers your weaknesses or sets you up for bigger turns. Unless you're going for an "Fear Victory Speedrun" I wouldn't pair him with other fear spirits. He generates so much fear that frankly you don't need other fear spirits. I think he shines as a Major power spirit - spamming massive damage dealing powers to generate cartoonish amounts of fear. That - and he adds the impossible to overstate utility of seeing the fear cards in advance. The number of turns completely wasted on defending lands that the fear card took care of? Imagine all the value you could get if the table just took the greediest growth options and saved up for a more efficient turn next round? Combo him with Ocean's Hungry Grasp and cackle - as you give the invaders nightmares that send them running into the Ocean - only to drown - doubling the fear those invaders gave you and feeding the Ocean's player energy. Also do not forget the utility of the 'Any' element. He gets the thresholds of Major powers much easier. 10. Thunderspeaker I've had major success and major failure with this spirit. All and all her innates becoming fast with 4 wind is a massive power spike mid game. Since one of her key Starter cards is Dahan X Presence - and if Dahan die near you you lose presence - you are really encouraged to have maybe only 2 'armies' at a time. A great thing about this spirit is defending lands to prevent blight - and leveraging Dahan as a free counter attack - is such a core component of Spirit Island's gameplay that your teammates will protect you without even thinking about it and ensure you have the forces needed to become an absolute wrecking ball late game. One of the Spirits where you want to get those card plays high early - get the elements you need - and then just keep reclaiming hand. All and all - I can't get enough of this game - and its one of the first games I pull off my shelf when introducing new friends to board gaming.
Here’s my experience with really complex spirits: I was really put off by fractured days. Then I decided to try it, looked at some openings, asked for some help on discord, and played a couple of games. I loved it; I think if you can at least try one game you might decide you like it. If you don’t, that’s fine, you don’t have to play it again
I have to lift up The Bringer of Dreams and Nightmares a little bit 🙂 And his Teammates love him usually 😉 He knows what the Invaders are scared of and reveals fear cards before they trigger... almost every turn! So everyone knows what will come and can play toward it. Although he's able to draw and play early major powers. So he can boost the fear outcome to insane levels. The most games with bringer ends with the following words: Other spirits: 'We need 16 fear to win the game!' Bringer: 'Yeah, I can do that... fast.' Hang on and have fun 🙂
I can completely relate to how you feel about Thunderspeaker! I'm always obsessed with trying to protect the Dahan and I wanted to like her, but it just hasn't gone well for me. My husband did so well when he picked her though. 🤷🏼♀️ I need to try again. Also, Bringer is totally creepy. 😂
Did you learn from your husband's playthrough of Thunderspeaker how he made it work for him? Take some time to talk about how best to use Thunderspeaker from people who made it work for them, it helps one's own play capabilities.
Thunderspeaker is one of the very few overtuned Spirits. Not as overtuned as Keeper, but still too strong. She's usually the Spirit I choose when we finally want to beat a Lvl 6 Adversary that we feel like we can't handle with "regular" Spirits.
Thunderspeaker is definitely a fan favorite and one of the strongest and most reliable spirits in the game for all level of play. Which is why everyone loves it so. Especially since it allows you to be very proactive and take the fight to the invaders directly.
Thank you for your video! Fractured Days split the sky is an amazing spirit which shines best as a teammate in 4-6 spirits games, especially against high level adversaries. His Innate Power : "Slip the flow of Time" is so amazing as it allows to make other spirit play slow power card fast and also replay a power card. This is super powerful! I often play solo games wit 6 spirits and I use it in with conjunction with Shifting Memory of Ages, great to help with elements and have major power cards. Also Thunderpeaker is my favorite spirit, I rarely play a game without her. Very powerful! And I also love Volcano in a multiple spirit game. Often my "favorite" 6 spirit set is: 1) Thunderpseaker 2) River 3) Ocean 4) Fractured Days 5) Shifting Memory of Ages 6) Volcano.
If you ever want to “two birds one stone” a game, play a game with Finder and Volcano! It’s an awesome pairing. As you said Volcano prefers to build up presence in one to two lands and who better to pile up invaders next to the mountain other than Finder? Plus Finder can create fun adjacencies scenarios and open portals all over the place, releasing random lava from Volcano halfway across the island! And don’t get too freaked with Finders tracks. Honestly there are so many different options and routes to take you can’t make a mistake with where you pull presence. Each space reveals something useful and necessary to their kit. I like going top middle middle bottom but that’s just what has worked for me. Anyway I think once you get a playthrough or two under your belt you’ll be slinging magma and creating teleports in no time! Have fun and great work with the videos!
I absolutely love thunderspeaker! I already gravitate towards dahan centric powers because I think dahan are incredibly powerful to the point that i will go out of my way to save dahan. So thunderspeaker is perfect for the type of powers i already gravitate to.
I like to go down the bottom track with Wildfire. Picking up the second fire element on the bottom track once I have enough 0-1 energy card plays that have both fire and plant to be able to immediately remove the Blight I generate (using the innate powers) is the key to not going Blighted Island. I do not touch the upper energy track until I can get a handle on all the Blight.
I'm finally playing Pathfinder for the first time. So far so okay. My solution to the complexity of the growth chart is to ignore it. I'm running straight across both of them (so far), and I'll go back for the three in the middle later. It helps to be playing Green along side. Ultimately, the best way to play Spirit Island or any other game is the way *you* enjoy playing it. Play your favorites and your favorite adjacents. I understand every one of your points, and can see why some wouldn't care for the spirits. I don't love fear-based spirits so I don't play those as much as others. I know others love them. Great Video!
great advice! don't worry about the paths... just ignore them till you understand Paths' better. I'll try to remember that if or when I get to play them. thanks so much for commenting :)
I played Volcano for the 1st time with Ocean. I was exploding every turn and got 3 earth every turn to add back a destroyed presence. I mostly was adding 2 presence a turn with my growth, and made sure I upgraded my energy track. Energy track gave me 3 fire so my innate gives me power cards so that I don’t reclaim as much, and I choose mostly minors that have earth and/or fire. Remember range is increased +1 if you have 3 presence in the origin land. So most turns that game I exploded for 2, but it also hurts anyone in the mountains which is great. If you add badlands to a land and then deal 2 damage to it…that’s 3 damage and can kill a city, or a common situation-explorer and town. Next I’m gonna play Starlight - I’ll unlock the +1 card play and move presence, and then unlock +3 energy. I’ll gain a major power 1st and then gain minors in order to reach the major powers threshold. Eh many ways to play it I’ll see
For Starlight Seeks Its Form, i strongly recommend the guide of RedReVenge. Knowing what to look for in the first two rounds when plowing through like 20 minor actions is really helpful, and I had a great time playing as it. That spirit is less what you tailor it to be, and more what hand you're dealt, in my opinion.
I've found that with all the spirits I just need to play them once or twice to try them out. Generally I've enjoyed and found it easier to get my head round every one a lot more that I thought beforehand. Bringer and Fangs are two that come to mind that I wasn't sure I'd like or work out until I sat down and played them.
I've played all the spirits and had 90+ plays. It is always fascinating and surprising to see the difference between players in which spirits are suited for them 👍. For me, Fangs, Many Minds, and Serpent are my favourite. While spirits that I will avoid playing would be Mists, Splitsky and Finder of Paths.
I love Spirit Island. Just recently got bumped out of my fav game spot to number 2. I have played everything EXCEPT Finder. He intimidates even me and I have played jacked up difficulty many times
Okay, if you are having trouble with Thunderspeaker, you would probably have trouble with Fangs (as he functions similarly, but with a harder to use token). The idea is to clump Dahan or Beasts together into little groups throughout the island and use them to strike at enemy settlements and explorers. There are many cards and powers that lets each token cause damage, or defend. It's all about timing the build and ravage cycles so that not all of them build, and those that do build would be damaged/destroyed before they ravage successfully (or defended strongly enough to not kill any tokens). You might consider watching other people's playthroughs of those spirits, taking time to pause and rewind as necessary to understand what people are doing.
I do have some questions for you in regards to Lure: * Have you played Ocean a bunch? * Are you someone who bulldozes down the card play track, plays a bunch of low-to-zero energy minor cards, to build up elements to use the innate powers of the spirit? Or would you rather play spirits with high energy tracks that let you play fewer, major powers? * During the Slow Powers step, would you rather Push invaders out of lands they might ravage in the next turn, or Gather them into lands they might ravage in the next turn IF you have the ability to either negate/defend the ravage or just up and destroy them before they reach the ravage step?
I have played Ocean twice, not a bunch, but didn't struggle with him as much. I am tend for the Minor powers but it depends on the Spirit. Not sure about the last questions, I think I do both depending upon where its most useful at the time.
@@onepipwonder915 So Lure works similarly to Ocean only in the fact that you want to drag people into your lands to destroy them (Ocean gets the advantage of being able to destroy most invaders just by placing them in the ocean lands, "Drowing" them, with the exception of Habsburg Monarchy 4 or higher) Habsburg Monarchy 4+ gives towns the horrible "Durable" keyword (giving them +2 health and causing any "Destroy Town" effects to only cause 2 damage instead). Which causes any attempt at "Drowning" towns in the ocean, only causes 2 damage (which cannot destroy a 4 health town, causing them to be Pushed to any coastal land that is not the ocean). Anyways, as I noticed in another comment, a good idea is to make lands that are filled with tokens to make "kill zones" where you innate power of causing a bunch of damage allows you to knock out a lot of invaders after you drag them into your lands. Like Ocean, you will probably need some +Range powers to allow you to reach out and pull enemies toward your "kill zones". Also take note that for every single presence you have in any land you ignore TWO explorers during ravage. This is somewhat similar to the ignore mechanic that Stone has against Blight. For example: you have three presence in a land, you ignore SIX explorers (3 presence x 2 explorers = 6 explorers) during ravage. So make sure that after that Build step, during the Slow Powers phase of that turn, you FORSAKE SOCIETY TO CHASE AFTER DREAMS to break them up into explorers (or get free Fear if you can't fully break them up and still have some towns/cities left), Gather those invaders into your lands with many presences, and then ignore a bunch of the explorers during ravage next turn. Meanwhile, you are designing those "kill zones" filled with tokens that you can gather all those explorers into to destroy them (generating a ton of Fear). Also you don't need more than 2-3 tokens in any one land, as you destroy two explorers per token and can do additional damage with the 4 plant/1 animal part of NEVER HEARD FROM AGAIN to pick off any additional units. Playing a lot of low-to-zero cost cards that have moon, air, animal, fire, and plant help a lot with meeting those thresholds.
@@onepipwonder915 If you use the Online Tabletop Simulator game to play (or the digital version from Handelabra Games, when it catches up), I would join you if we can work out the timing.
@@Iamwrongbut Strongly concur. I keep a solo player two spirit game on my work table for quick(ish) mental breaks. I rarely am able to finish the games before I hopelessly mess up something ("Shoot -- did I grow already this turn?") but it's still a good break.
Starlight: I find the trick to Starlight is focusing on one or two power pickups early, especially if you can find a way to lean into what the other spirit is doing in a 2 player or 2 handed game and complement them. Starlight looks way more intimidating than it really is imo. (I say this as someone with adhd) Lure: I think the trick with lure is 1. Focusing on his innates and 2. Setting up "kill zones" where it's easy to grab adjacent invaders and just stacking badlands and beasts there. I also think he really shines when played with any other spirit who uses tokens. My spirits I've only played once or am just not interested in playing... Sharp Fangs (I just don't think I get how they work and I prefer Many Minds), Shifting Memory (just doesn't interest me), Vital Strength (ditto), Thunderspeaker (in a world of lightning birds and living water I'm just not really interested in being a human looking spirit... and I don't find her playstyle particularly compelling) and Finder (I mostly play true solo, two handed, or with friends who haven't played the game as much, so not being able to destroy stuff freely is a big problem. On my to do list though) Out of those though, the only ones I haven't played are Finder, Memory and Vital Strength, and I've won a true solo game against a low level adversary with every other spirit I /have/ played with the exception of Shattered Days. I respect those who just want to play what they like but for me, completing an arbitrary checklist like this is pretty fun.
It’s an amazing game and it offers a lot. If you are having fun playing the low complexity spirits on base difficulty (I did this for quite a while) then the game is doing what it is supposed to be doing. I agree with quite a few of your picks. Finder’s and Starlight’s presence tracks and innates are very complex and a brain burner on true solo. Others of your 10 I am either not a fan of the theme or something else I can’t quite put my finger on. There are two that I really enjoy playing though. Fractured Days and Sharp Fangs. Sharp Fangs is a strong spirit if you can get a lot of beast tokens on the board. I regularly completely clear the board of invaders when I play it. I have not tried it with higher level adversaries though. Fractured Days is very hit or miss. If you can get a good defence card into your ‘Days that never were’ library then you are good. Otherwise it is a struggle. The gameplay design of Fractured Days is probably some of the most elegant in any board game that I have seen. Fractured Days is a tough one to master. Thanks for the video.
What's funny is, complexity can seem intimidating but doesn't necessarily translate into a difficult to play spirit. One of the first spirits I've played was Lightning together with River (from the get-go I played my solo games with 2 spirits and 2 island boards because the cooperative aspect is what drove me to this game in the first place). And I just couldn't get the hang of Lightning in that game even though it's usually called one of the beginnerfriendly spirits with its low complexity. 2-3 games later (my 5th overall I think) I finally wanted to try my hands at my first "real" game. Before I was playing without blight card and without adversary. I've chosen Prussia at level 2 as my first opponent and rolled the dice for which spirits I would use (I like to randomize what spirits and what island boards to use) and I got Shadows and Bringer. I had played Shadows once before (with questionable results) and it was my first for Bringer. I was pretty intimidated by that but I still went ahead with it and what an awesome game. It was a bit tough getting into it but once I realized that Bringer just wants to spam Majors from as early on as possible to push the invaders away from tiles of action it got pretty insane. One of my quickest wins yet. Spirit Island is such a fun and versatile game. While I can totally understand not wanting/going to play certain spirits (especially considering the mental difficulties with some) I also agree that you don't have to do that to be a real fan. ^^ I want to learn them all because they all feel enticing to me (and everyone I've played so far was fun to me), but that's just me. :) I've even started making unique presence tokens for ever spirit in the game. XD
hi. was waiting for this one. thanks for the insight. I totally get why you would be intimidated by some spirits. some comments for me who also usually prefers the lighter difficulty spirits. finder: its high difficulty because its only push and the difficulty of doing damage. someone like stone on your team helps because you can just unload on them. about growth options I totally get that. but there is no real wrong way. it depends on what you want. card plays vs energy.
fractured. totally get it. low card plays less presses on the actual board and his powers are mainly utility. but fractured has massive support capabilities and a few options to cheese the game. Even for me I will likely play this spirit last. (after I tried all the rest). Its also a bit difficult for me. But I might need to se others play this spirit. Starlight. The build your own spirit. This one will be right before fractured. It’s an interesting concept but like memory you become what you draw, and a bit what you spec into. Volcano. A bit slow on the card play spectrum. But fun in its style. You almost never have to worry about the place your volcano is actually in. but getting to all the other spots can be tricky. Lure. Likes to have a lot of tokens. Inland. Yea but even the stuff on the cost you can gather to yourself. Serpent. Also, not my favorite but I still play it from time to time. Loves to have rampant green on the team. Or ocean. Wildfire. Yea also not my favorite. It’s a delicate dance of placing blight and then removing it. Although I did have a game with 2 card plays but not 2 fire yet (so no blight yet). Getting my energy from growth. Killing an explorer with your growth is one of the keys. Killing the other with your innate or the town that built previous round is also recommended. Fangs I get it. I needed to play fangs a lot of times to get around it. Especially using his special rule, a lot really helps. 1/3the of the events has a beast event on it. With fangs my playstyle is usually hunting for lone explorers and preventing builds. Fangs has the capability to do fast damage. And if you can’t solve the problem fast you can slow push it. You can work around the blight restriction if your optimal with your beast movement. But I myself haven’t bene optimal yet. But still a fun one to play for me. Bringer of dreams (bodan). Yea the fear generator. Loves to have ocean on his team. Or mist to have cities on 1 life. You can win a fear victory if he is on the team. The downside of not being able to influence the board much is a mayor downside. Thunder speaker. The dahan mover. Similar to fangs. But then for dahan. You can get crazy amounts of damage. But movement of your dahan (and yourself) is key. The different with beast is that dahan tend to die more easy and are harder to replace. Well you can let a place blight. Just don’t have dahan there. Or defense is also a option. In most of my games with this spirit, thunder speaker went over the board land by land. Like a scanner/printer clearing out everything in her way. Once the dahan ball of death starts rolling there is noting stopping it. (usually). Even now I still play default difficulty a lot. Because sometimes I just want to have a fun time with a spirit I play way less. This all is my own opinion and my own view of the game. Experiences may vary I hope this helps a bit. Thanks for your amazing contribution to this wonderful game.
@One Pip Wonder hi, no problem at all. i play a lot of spirit island. and i try to get all the spirit island content i can get my hands on. from UA-cam to podcast to forums to discord. as far as spirits go i wonder how well you do with ocean. for myself i really like the spirit and the concept. but I’m just not good at playing ocean myself. i guess i have to see others play ocean. i have spirits that just click for me so i tend to play them more. but eventualy i at least want to try them all. well i can choose the order that i try them in so that helps.
Hi, I loved spirit island. But I recently bought jagged earth expansion and the event deck ruined the game for me. I would really like to use the new spirits but events just seems to make the game extremely easy or completely the opposite. And it seems that a lot of them benefit from the event deck. Any advise for a new player of jagged earth?
Okay! I am with you. Not a big fan of the Events and we almost never play with them. Jagged Earth comes with Play Options Card (small pink cards) that allow the Beast and Disease tokens to be added to the game set up, as well as trigger extra damage or fear around any beast tokens when an invader phase ends. These are meant to balance the Spirits that tend to coordinate with the Event Cards, without having to actually use the Event Cards if you don't like them.
Bringer of Dreams and Nightmares was the first spirit I ever played, my teammates said I was invaluable at the end of the game because we ended up winning via fear. I just played Fractured Days Split the Sky the first time earlier this week and I must say it's probably the strongest spirit I've ever played, the ability to manipulate the invader deck is incredible, specially when dealing with adversaries, the ability to turn a stage 2 card into a stage 1 and a stage 3 into a stage 2 is the strongest starting ability I've seen... if you don't mind burning your brain abit with all the min max possibilities, you can determine where they'll explore, which means you know where they will build, then ravage
BoDaN is a great spirit, you just have to shift your kills from "direct card kill/damage" to "Defend land with card and let Dahan do the kills" also his "anti ravage" tends towards "clear blight after the ravage". When you can make those adjustments, he is quite powerful with how he can speed up bad games.
I have played so much of thus game and I always get owned when I play Lure. Fractured Days is incredible, you are missing out on that one. Just having a much larger pool of cards to choose from makes it much easier to tailor this spirit to the task at hand.
i looooove fractured days. It is seriously one of the most mind blowing things in all of spirit island. we also love Starlight! I would say once you understand how starlight generally works, starlight would maybe not be as bad as you think? Just a thought. During a single game with Starlight you are only ever going to really use like 1/3 of the abilities. It might be more digestible than you’d think! 🤷🏻♂️😆
As a Fractured multiplayer main and starlight soloplay main, I filly agree with them both being a headache to get right. I think anyone can play them fine, I think the pitfall is that they are both very easy to make a misstep with and it is VERY hard to recover from missteps with both. My particular love for them started with theme and I genuinely enjoy the brain-pain of high complexity stuff. It isnt really an /iamverysmart thing, I just like the mental push needed to adapt them both to strange situations. I certainly enjoy the "easy" spirits also, I cant bash them at all, they just didnt end up being mainstays for me.
Volcano is one of my current favorites. It is fun to clear land with many invaders with eruptions. Fangs I’ve played some, but I don’t think it’s for me currently. The blight restrictions usually crush me. Lure is very fun. I recommend it. It’s a bit slow but very powerful. I totally get that there are spirits that are not for everyone. That’s not associated with complexity. I hate playing Vital Strength of the Earth. I just don’t get him. Fractured Days is intimidating for me also. Tried it a few times. It’s so complex that it feels like work for me. Perhaps with more practice...... I recommend trying each spirit at least twice. The first to understand the basics of the spirit, and the second to try to enjoy it. You might not like it, and that’s perfectly fine, but perhaps you will.
3:16 I admit is played a custom home version of this one (it has one more max power) but you should try it, as fellow player whos top 3 as I know are also Wood, Earth, and the lightning bird I can say Time is just as much fun, it is not as complex as it looks, like with wood, if enemy want to advance boom you stop time (Isolate or pore dime differently) and you can use both spells to do this, you can recelain one at some point each turn (2 sun 2 moon). Like with wood you can clean your character fast from presence, and like earth you can take more power with the 2+2+2 energy option to do big bangs. You also can speed up your or others spells for 3 moon 1 sky like with Lightning. time is my second favorite atm after wood and before Lightning and than Earth than river. Time also can summon Dahan If i remember correctly that was slepp you told not enough in the game, well time can do it and copy it in the same turn so +2 Dahan if the stars are right. Did I mention it also can clear blight :D? I think as alike game style (protect all, everyone lives) gamer you would love this spirit give it a shot :D
Keep in mind when you are learning a new spirit you are effectively learning a new game. It may frustrate you because there is a good chance you will get pummeled your first few plays until you learn the rhythm of each spirit. My suggestion would be to try them out in true solo until you can feel that rhythm. When you play with two separate spirits the dynamics will change and for someone like me it is harder to internalize how the new spirit works. When picking up a new spirit I play solo and on the easiest difficulty, and I still lose sometimes. Then I start dialing it up as I get the feel.
thats great advice and playing solo is something I haven't done yet .. but playing at an easier level makes it sound less scary to do so. I think I need to try this. thanks!
@@onepipwonder915 Trying them out solo is great because not only is it a smaller time investment but you aren't feeling the pressure of letting anyone down. Play at an easier difficulty because you are effectively learning how to walk each time.
Please please please play Sharp Fangs as soon as possible! It can be so much fun. I have made a couple of playthrough videos with Fangs if you want to check them out, but even if you don't, I would definitely recommend trying out Fangs...
Leave your comments about the Spirits in this video you have played, also share how many Spirits you have played so far, I'd like to hear from you!
My faw list Wood, Time, Lightning,Earth, River, Thunder, Dream. I also tried shadow but it just sucks :D
With serpent slumbering beneath the island, he can work very well in a two player game. You just have to pick a spirit he synergies with and doesn't mind giving up some of their presence.
I've played a load of games as the ocean with someone playing snake, and they are a brutally powerful combination.
Again, with bringer of dreams and nightmares, it depends on what that other person is playing.
Of they're playing ocean, just cause all the fear and push everything towards and then into the sea. Ocean is great to play with as a spirit that focuses on control, as you can actually kill invaders by pushing them into the ocean
Aaaahh my face on screen, sorry for scaring all the children watching!! :P Ha ha, thanks for the mention and nice vid!!
"you don't have to play every spirit a ton of times to be a true fan of the game" - PREACH IT!!! This drives me nuts when I get that kind of feedback. I haven't played every single Sentinels hero in Sentinels of the Multiverse I don't think. There's a few I think I've not had time to try out, but come on, the giant box on my shelf and the fact it's been frequently my #1 game I think makes me a fan!
Sharp Fangs - noooooo, he's a cute kitty kat! What's not to like? :P Nah seriously, he has his moments where his power level may drop a bit, but I find with the events it goes up actually, not down. The events frequently have the beast tokens do things on top of what you're doing so when you have a bunch of them on the board, it can escalate rather quickly. My love for him does come down a bit to the theme as well though - having the animal population of an island become aggressive and hunt the invaders down. It's why Many Minds Move As One also worked with me.
Bringer of Darkness is also a fun one that I enjoy, but I think for me, my favourite spirits are the ones who focus on fear generation and do it well. Sharp Fangs works here also. You're on my island. . . . . GET OUUUUUTTTT! Send them running with their tails between their legs, love it!
But interesting to watch, clearly you're not a fan of the high complexity spirits and certainly they look crazy, I haven't even tried Finder/Starlight/Fractured yet, but they're soon to be next as I think I've tried all the others now. . . . . oh wait Downpour as well.
But I still think as some have asked for, a collab to discuss Spirit Island in general and our 5 favourite spirits would work well as we would have different lists for different reasons.
I really am loving all this feedback about these spirits. I can't wait to play SI again! Thanks so much Luke! And yes! Lets get something one calendar soon!
What I'm hearing is that Luke isn't a true Sentinels fan. ;)
Luke I an shocked.
So behind the curtain you hate Sentinels ??? 😱
With volcano looming high
You don't have to invest your presence in one big moment. He's one of my favourites and I've played him a lot. I've never used his fast inate at full power, usually I'm just destroying one or two presence in the land when I use it.
I also spred out a reasonable amount, so I can affect most of the island, something like one land per board
I've given myself a project to play as every single spirit and try to understand how each of them works. I sorted them from lowest to highest complexity, and I'm trying them in that order. I play with the expansions (Beast, Strife, etc.), solo, with the blighted island card and events, but no scenarios and no adversaries.
Here are some things I'm trying to get into the habit of thinking about:
- Try to activate innate powers every turn.
- Try to place presence early and often to spur on my growth track.
- Try to cater my growth option to what I need THIS TURN.
- Try not to Reclaim cards unless my hand is empty or almost empty.
- Try to gain powers that match the elements I'll need to activate my innate powers.
- Try to prevent future builds by pushing/destroying explorers.
- Try to prevent future explorations by pushing/destroying inland towns and cities.
- Try to come up with a plan for this turn during the Growth phase, but DON'T plan for any specifics beyond this turn.
- A combination of slow powers and fast powers lets you act TWICE between Invader phases. This is usually more helpful than using all fast or all slow powers, in my limited experience.
- Fast powers are better for emergencies.
- Slow powers go BEFORE fast powers. They're the first thing that happens after invaders do their thing. I only think, "Will this be helpful after the board changes a bit?" and if so, I play it - without committing to just how I'll use it until after the invader phase.
- Remember that there's no difference between invaders doing 2 damage and invaders doing 20 damage. A blight is a blight.
- In the early game, I'll be okay with eating the blight from a ravage if the resources that frees up will let me prevent several builds/explores. All of those builds/explores would have become ravages in the future.
All this is subject to change, depending on whether I still suck at the game later on or not. :b
I also gave myself the target of playing every spirit. It's an interesting experience
Thanks for this video! I just played Lure again, as that was the most surprising one to me on your list. Here is the thing: Lure works best for slow powers, and the key is triggering the innates early and often. Instead of traditional damage, you will convert towns (and eventually cities) to explorers and move them into your lands.
This works best by claiming the center land on the board (typically land 5) early, and making that your hub for gathering a bunch of explorers, either with your innate Forsaken or with Softly Beckon (which should be your Turn 1 card). Your innate Never Heard From Again can then remove them, particularly if you play an early Perils plus Gift of the Untamed Wilds on it (in Turn 2).
I hope that helps!
I will be honest with you , because of you reviews l have been meaning to buy Spirit Island. My kids are 14, 17, and 19. I DM two campaigns ,one for my younger daughter and her friends. And one with my older two and thier friends. I have been playing DnD for 20+ years , l have never played any PC other than a Cleric . So not using , what would classify as an NPC , is quite fine really. I would urge anyone playing DnD to watch your posts for ideas.
The idea well runs dry and your posts have given me many ideas for NPC s. Ok , after work taking the kids to the hobby shop to pick up spirit island , we are watching my niece and nephew this weekend ,so my sister and brother-in-law can have a short ,post lock down get a way. Thank you , don't worry play what you are comfortable with, it is all about escape and relaxation.
That is wonderful! Thank you for letting me know because I love hearing that. I hope you love it!
You won’t regret it! Spirit Island is the greatest board game of all time in my opinion!
Those high complexity spirits frightened me for a while too. I found that the “openings” series on BGG and Reddit really helped me out. I just needed someone to tell me what growth / powers to play for the first few turns to get me settled in. Once I’m comfortable with how it’s supposed to work I can experiment, but I needed to be guided through them first.
Starlight is one of my favorites now, I really like gaining 3 cards a turn for the first few rounds trying to assemble the pairs of elements I need to participate in the game.
There is so much content in Spirit Island that there is nothing wrong with only playing half of the spirits. If you prefer lower complexity spirits, have you tried the aspect cards for the 4 low complexity spirits? They effectively give you an additional 11 spirits to try out. For more Spirit Island strategies and tips, I suggest the Kindred Spirit Podcast. Enjoy the game!
I recommend the youtuber RedRevenge for advanced tips and tricks; he has adversaries guides, spirit guides and tier lists!
Definitely a few things to consider I would say:
Thunder speaker and jaguar are basically played (strategically) the same, using different tokens. You lead war parties around to kill stuff. Thunderspeaker does a lot of her damage in the slow phase, so all you need to think about is look at what will build/ravage this turn. Use sudden ambush to keep builds down, and use her starter slow 3-cost card to obliterate new builds. During ravage, use defence for counter-attacks like anyone else would. you have some cards to keep the Dahan alive even if they ravage without defence. Jaguar is only different in that you can't move into blight generally, so rushing early blight removal; will be important. otherwise, is lower damage than thunderspeaker but tends to act in the fast instead which offsets that problem a lot.
Nightmare is pretty nuts broken with ocean. Nightmare damages and moves whatever he wants into the ocean, ocean gets powered up. start there if you are intimidated by them. Otherwise, you are just moving explorers into areas they aren't building until your ally can come and trivially destroy them.
Phoenix can seem hard, and it will sometimes tip you into cascades and blighted island. basically, as you gain cards, hunt for one or two decent major powers in the mid game (blazing renewal is pretty nuts with him) and try you best to use your precence to zap explorers before builds and minor powers that remove blight until you are naturally removing it. Phoenix getting it's elements is pretty critical to this so that's your primary goal.
Finder of paths unseen is pretty tough, but the way to think about it, who are your other spirits? You can't directly destroy stuff you move, but you can set it up. basically, you distribute your island load to your allies, while also helping them avoid builds, and the way you navigate the growth path (in an easier to approach way) is focus on elements or things that help you do that with the minor powers you are picking up. Focus on that one goal and it's far more approachable, but definitely the toughest spirit IMO.
"Time Guy" (for us) or Fractured days split the sky. he's super interesting, but requires a planner. Pretty darn powerful, but what you are doing is, in concept, temporarily removing your presence off your track to do things. your power actually comes from your presence being on your track, not from getting it onto the board (best way to conceptualise it). If you want to boil it down, your track presence is your "resource" to use to exploit his abilities to stop builds and destroy invaders.
Starlight seeks it's form is definitely "build your own spirit". My advice is, use your gain power cards to do something (One of our regular players of this spirit finds a good major power and builds early game around that idea) like build into defence or damage or whatever the theme of the cards you are picking up are, and focus on that. The major power is the easiest one, because you can focus on one card. Then just look at whatever growth helps you do that strat best and do that. Definitely requires thought but not terribly difficult. Just go in open-minded and adjust as you get that early hand replacement.
Volcano is super easy. you wanna get big piles of explorers within range of your explosion then time the kill. Everything you do needs to revolve around that. A blight removal card is recommended, but if you organise the explorers early, you will probably have a breezy-ish game. Don't try and do anything else. However, don't be afraid to sub-optimal mini-explode to stop critical builds. long-term that's probably more effective than risking cascades of blight.
Lure of the deep wilderness is basically the opposite of ocean. Ocen pulls them into the ocean to deal with the invaders, lure pulls them into the inner island to deal with them. you want to keep villages being turned into explorers then just use small damage to remove them when necessary. One strat I use is "follow the ravage" If you can move individual explorers into lands that will ravage you don't have to worry about them. Doubly useful useful if a dahan or two are present. But basically, you are ocean for the land.
Finally, Serpent is a build-up spirit. basically, it pairs up well with another spirit that doesn't need all of it's tokens on the board. As you progress, serpent just keeps getting better and better. remember, for every token you take, you can give that player energy and the like based on how many you have taken, so it isn't a one-sided deal. Can also be good paired with low-energy spirits where you can power them up as well as you go. Definitely focusses on major powers in the mid-late game so very similar to the "branch character" you like from the claw and branch expansion. Just goes about it via other peoples token.
This is actually my favorite of your videos that I’ve seen. I mostly don’t think you’re missing much with the spirits you haven’t played there is so much variety regardless and it’s all about your fun! The very highs from JE and promo 2 that you haven’t played I took forever to try and the only one I really enjoy is Starlight. But I had to have a first few turn and pan to be comfortable in not slowing down the game when playing with others. Now I do love them but they aren’t necessary for you to play! Fractured changes the game too much for my taste, feels like breaking the rules when they’re highly effective and when they struggle it feels like a bad pay off for breaking the rules :P
Finder… is awesome. Yeah, the analysis paralysis is horrible if you haven’t played them a lot and it’s not worth slowing down your game if that’s gonna hurt your fun. Truly cool spirit! I love Thunderspeaker and Fangs l, Fangs is the one that I think you could probably enjoy and maybe wildfire and Lure, they’re all very effective when you get a hang of them…. But you do you, limitless options with this game and more to come! Keep having fun!
Nice Video!
I love that you are talking about what hinders you to play these spirits 😊
I understand your resistance for the very complex spirits.
But you should definitely try sharp fangs.
It is not too easy to understand this spirit at the beginning. Most important ist to learn how to move your presence (essential to use it’s “avoid build” ability card). But do not always move because you need presence in jungles for two of its features. I love sharp fangs and once you understood it, it can be a power house.
Can’t believe you did not try Nightmares and Thunderspeaker 😁
Nightmares can inflict a lot of indirect damage by positioning the Dahan. So don’t be afraid of him this is reserved for the invaders.
And Thunderspeaker is one of the most powerful spirits in the game. Her lore is fantastic and she can dominate the invaders early on 😁
I played Lure only once yet. He can be very powerful but is not too easy to play. I am motivated to master this spirit but especially the start can be tough.
I agree, Nightmares and Thunderspeaker are good users of the Dahan if they position things right.
Try wildfire! He is one of the strongest and most fun spirits. And he is really unique.
Most spirits starts kinda weak compared to the invaders, but wildfire is different he wrecks them right from the get go, with the expense of blight. 🤣
But hey plague and mist do blight a lot also. And at least wildfire can clean his own mess.
Tip: focus on getting plant element to gain the regenerating effect asap. So u wont fear over blighting the island. 😊
He also has only 2 element needs. Fire and plant. You usually have abundance of fire, and abudance of damage, so you dig your deck for a bunch of plant and defense.
www thanks for the tips!
Don't be afraid of blighting the island I and a group of 3 other friends played 1 of the most blighting games ever. We played vengeance of the burning plague, wildfire, volcano and ramping Green against England 3 but we blighted so much that for everyone it became eacier the more blight there was. (still won.)
1. Finder of Paths Unseen:
This spirit is a great support for a team - you can move Cities. You can make a portal between every power card or innate. Is it complex? YES. Is it completely overpower in the right hands? Yes. You have to be crafty to let the Dahan do the killing for you - as any actions you do directly that kill destroy your presence. Only played it once personally. Its super hard.
2. Shattered Days Split the Sky:
In my opinion this is the most difficult spirit in the game. The possibility space in enormous - but you can see 4 minors and 4 majors in advance to grow to. Building a plan from turn 1. The best use I have found is to help out a struggling player and give a bit more for a dominating player to deal with on 2 different boards. By comboing "Infinite Stasis" with "Pour Time Sideways" - you can mitigate the downsides of PTS slightly and hit the pause button on an entire board that's in ruins and add minimal pieces to a board that's nearly clean.
It is a really brain burner spirit - I don't blame you for not playing it - the first few games I tried I got overwhelmed and gave up (they were solo games)
The absolutely wacky things you can pull off though.....
3. Starlight Seeks its Form:
Its actually easier to play than it looks on the surface - It is the largest possibilty space analysis paralysis spirit if you want it to be - but honestly you can treat it like a swiss army knife. Based on either the elements you keep drawing - or the holes in your team that need filling - this is a great spirit to do basically whatever you need it to. The best thing about it is also the worst - it doesn't have a distinct identity - so feels less thematic. But much easier to play than it says on the tin. Unless you are trying to squeeze out every last drop of efficiency I feel this should be labelled on the High not very high complexity.
4. Volcano Looming High
This spirit is very mechanical and rigid in its playstyle. Moreso than maybe any other spirit the "power by the Furnace of the Earth" is 100% essential to your game play.
Now I strongly believe that maximizing your innate powers through elements will almost always provide more value - and more theme - out of any given spirit (unless the printed text on a minor or major is just too perfect at the time) But where you can sort of get away with being less obsessed on the elements you draw with started spirits - with Volcano you can't.
Once you Prioritize Fire and Earth to purchase more minor powers (to stall reclaiming) and replenish destroyed presence then all you need to do is keep that feedback loop going.
Another thing to note: 'Explosive Eruption' can just destroy 1 presence - and it does damage to the mountain it is in due to "Explode in a Blast of Lava and Steam". Leveraging Badlands will make this very powerful. If you use higher tiers of this innate - it does damage in both the target land and origin land because of this. Combo-ing this with your starting card "Pryoclastic Bombardment" can be a very aggressive and fast way to make problems go away.
Don't combo this spirit with ones that can't do actions around blight....
5. Lure of the Deep Wilderness
I was terrible with this spirit on my first 4 attempts.
The trick is to not put all your eggs in one basket - you want to have 2 hot spots per board so you can reach everywhere. Similar to Volcano - the innate "Forsake Society to Chase After Dreams" is super mandatory. Its slow - so you want to immediately downgrade towns the same turn that they are built - this way you prevent DMG3 ravage spaces in the following turn.
Using the add a presence, and gain a power card are the 2 growth options you should hyper fixate on. Only use the gain elements if you can't get "Forsake Society to Chase After Dreams" that turn with your card plays.
If you combo it with spirits that generate the tokens it uses in its 'lairs' that's a great help.
I found most games it transforms into a major power spewing monstrosity devastating the board.
6. Serpent Slumbers Beneath the Island
1. Combo it with "Shifting Memory of Ages"
2. ???
3. Profit!
In all seriousness - "Elemental Aegis" is silly broken. If you set up in the lands adjacent to the most other lands you can add defence to 7 lands at once. This allows the rest of the spirits to build up their power rather than waste turns playing defence cards or burning fast card to kill troublesome towns. That - and you should be eating presence every turn - the benefits you get with your innate to assist really 1 but maybe 2 allies far outweighs the negative effect.
It can be a bit boring because it plays very mechanically. But it can either be a support spirit - or the strategic nuke at the end of the game.
7. The Heart of the Wildfire
The most aggressive offensive spirit in the game. The blight is a major issue - definitely have teammates that help with that by either shrugging it off or healing it. Geez does this spirit do damage. I've done true solo games where I killed 100% of the invaders before stage 2.
Its a spirit that doesn't really allow for mistakes. Not one of my favourites either.
8. Sharp Fangs Behind the Leaves
This Spirit is INCREDIBLE.
1. During setup you can add another beast wherever you want. Add it to your own board. Unless you have a teammate that uses beasts you simply wont have enough card plays early game to 'be 2 places at once' make your early game easier with a larger force. Your board should be squeaky clean by the time you're powerful enough to start rampaging on allied islands.
2. "Ranging Hunt" is the most important thing for this spirit - do anything in your power to get it.
3. "Ally of the Beasts" is the second most important thing for this spirit - you aren't really interested in spiritual sites or high cost cards - everything you want is likely cost 0 or 1. Transform your presence into more beasts. You can kill the City on your island with Ranging Hunt at the fast step by turn 2. Its crazy.
4. Move your presence with your beasts - and don't forget when you push out of a land you can push to multiple destinations. You can prep Ranging Hunt in futures turns.
9. Bringer of Dreams and Nightmares (BoDaN)
One of my favourites - I'd say works better when your team covers your weaknesses or sets you up for bigger turns. Unless you're going for an "Fear Victory Speedrun" I wouldn't pair him with other fear spirits.
He generates so much fear that frankly you don't need other fear spirits.
I think he shines as a Major power spirit - spamming massive damage dealing powers to generate cartoonish amounts of fear.
That - and he adds the impossible to overstate utility of seeing the fear cards in advance.
The number of turns completely wasted on defending lands that the fear card took care of? Imagine all the value you could get if the table just took the greediest growth options and saved up for a more efficient turn next round?
Combo him with Ocean's Hungry Grasp and cackle - as you give the invaders nightmares that send them running into the Ocean - only to drown - doubling the fear those invaders gave you and feeding the Ocean's player energy.
Also do not forget the utility of the 'Any' element. He gets the thresholds of Major powers much easier.
10. Thunderspeaker
I've had major success and major failure with this spirit. All and all her innates becoming fast with 4 wind is a massive power spike mid game. Since one of her key Starter cards is Dahan X Presence - and if Dahan die near you you lose presence - you are really encouraged to have maybe only 2 'armies' at a time.
A great thing about this spirit is defending lands to prevent blight - and leveraging Dahan as a free counter attack - is such a core component of Spirit Island's gameplay that your teammates will protect you without even thinking about it and ensure you have the forces needed to become an absolute wrecking ball late game.
One of the Spirits where you want to get those card plays high early - get the elements you need - and then just keep reclaiming hand.
All and all - I can't get enough of this game - and its one of the first games I pull off my shelf when introducing new friends to board gaming.
Here’s my experience with really complex spirits: I was really put off by fractured days. Then I decided to try it, looked at some openings, asked for some help on discord, and played a couple of games. I loved it; I think if you can at least try one game you might decide you like it. If you don’t, that’s fine, you don’t have to play it again
I have to lift up The Bringer of Dreams and Nightmares a little bit 🙂 And his Teammates love him usually 😉
He knows what the Invaders are scared of and reveals fear cards before they trigger... almost every turn! So everyone knows what will come and can play toward it.
Although he's able to draw and play early major powers. So he can boost the fear outcome to insane levels.
The most games with bringer ends with the following words:
Other spirits: 'We need 16 fear to win the game!'
Bringer: 'Yeah, I can do that... fast.'
Hang on and have fun 🙂
I think Thunder speaker was meant to be played with River Surges in Sunlight, you partner makes the army you use it :D
I can completely relate to how you feel about Thunderspeaker! I'm always obsessed with trying to protect the Dahan and I wanted to like her, but it just hasn't gone well for me. My husband did so well when he picked her though. 🤷🏼♀️ I need to try again. Also, Bringer is totally creepy. 😂
thanks, glad to hear I am not the only one!
Did you learn from your husband's playthrough of Thunderspeaker how he made it work for him?
Take some time to talk about how best to use Thunderspeaker from people who made it work for them, it helps one's own play capabilities.
Thunderspeaker is one of the very few overtuned Spirits. Not as overtuned as Keeper, but still too strong. She's usually the Spirit I choose when we finally want to beat a Lvl 6 Adversary that we feel like we can't handle with "regular" Spirits.
Thunderspeaker is definitely a fan favorite and one of the strongest and most reliable spirits in the game for all level of play. Which is why everyone loves it so. Especially since it allows you to be very proactive and take the fight to the invaders directly.
Thank you for your video! Fractured Days split the sky is an amazing spirit which shines best as a teammate in 4-6 spirits games, especially against high level adversaries. His Innate Power : "Slip the flow of Time" is so amazing as it allows to make other spirit play slow power card fast and also replay a power card. This is super powerful! I often play solo games wit 6 spirits and I use it in with conjunction with Shifting Memory of Ages, great to help with elements and have major power cards. Also Thunderpeaker is my favorite spirit, I rarely play a game without her. Very powerful! And I also love Volcano in a multiple spirit game. Often my "favorite" 6 spirit set is: 1) Thunderpseaker 2) River 3) Ocean 4) Fractured Days 5) Shifting Memory of Ages 6) Volcano.
If you ever want to “two birds one stone” a game, play a game with Finder and Volcano! It’s an awesome pairing.
As you said Volcano prefers to build up presence in one to two lands and who better to pile up invaders next to the mountain other than Finder? Plus Finder can create fun adjacencies scenarios and open portals all over the place, releasing random lava from Volcano halfway across the island!
And don’t get too freaked with Finders tracks. Honestly there are so many different options and routes to take you can’t make a mistake with where you pull presence. Each space reveals something useful and necessary to their kit. I like going top middle middle bottom but that’s just what has worked for me.
Anyway I think once you get a playthrough or two under your belt you’ll be slinging magma and creating teleports in no time! Have fun and great work with the videos!
thanks for sharing, really helpful!
I absolutely love thunderspeaker! I already gravitate towards dahan centric powers because I think dahan are incredibly powerful to the point that i will go out of my way to save dahan. So thunderspeaker is perfect for the type of powers i already gravitate to.
I like to go down the bottom track with Wildfire. Picking up the second fire element on the bottom track once I have enough 0-1 energy card plays that have both fire and plant to be able to immediately remove the Blight I generate (using the innate powers) is the key to not going Blighted Island. I do not touch the upper energy track until I can get a handle on all the Blight.
I'm finally playing Pathfinder for the first time. So far so okay. My solution to the complexity of the growth chart is to ignore it. I'm running straight across both of them (so far), and I'll go back for the three in the middle later. It helps to be playing Green along side.
Ultimately, the best way to play Spirit Island or any other game is the way *you* enjoy playing it. Play your favorites and your favorite adjacents.
I understand every one of your points, and can see why some wouldn't care for the spirits.
I don't love fear-based spirits so I don't play those as much as others. I know others love them.
Great Video!
great advice! don't worry about the paths... just ignore them till you understand Paths' better. I'll try to remember that if or when I get to play them. thanks so much for commenting :)
I played Volcano for the 1st time with Ocean. I was exploding every turn and got 3 earth every turn to add back a destroyed presence. I mostly was adding 2 presence a turn with my growth, and made sure I upgraded my energy track. Energy track gave me 3 fire so my innate gives me power cards so that I don’t reclaim as much, and I choose mostly minors that have earth and/or fire. Remember range is increased +1 if you have 3 presence in the origin land.
So most turns that game I exploded for 2, but it also hurts anyone in the mountains which is great. If you add badlands to a land and then deal 2 damage to it…that’s 3 damage and can kill a city, or a common situation-explorer and town.
Next I’m gonna play Starlight - I’ll unlock the +1 card play and move presence, and then unlock +3 energy. I’ll gain a major power 1st and then gain minors in order to reach the major powers threshold. Eh many ways to play it I’ll see
For Starlight Seeks Its Form, i strongly recommend the guide of RedReVenge. Knowing what to look for in the first two rounds when plowing through like 20 minor actions is really helpful, and I had a great time playing as it. That spirit is less what you tailor it to be, and more what hand you're dealt, in my opinion.
Thanks for the tips!
I've found that with all the spirits I just need to play them once or twice to try them out. Generally I've enjoyed and found it easier to get my head round every one a lot more that I thought beforehand. Bringer and Fangs are two that come to mind that I wasn't sure I'd like or work out until I sat down and played them.
I've played all the spirits and had 90+ plays. It is always fascinating and surprising to see the difference between players in which spirits are suited for them 👍. For me, Fangs, Many Minds, and Serpent are my favourite. While spirits that I will avoid playing would be Mists, Splitsky and Finder of Paths.
I love Spirit Island. Just recently got bumped out of my fav game spot to number 2. I have played everything EXCEPT Finder. He intimidates even me and I have played jacked up difficulty many times
Okay, if you are having trouble with Thunderspeaker, you would probably have trouble with Fangs (as he functions similarly, but with a harder to use token).
The idea is to clump Dahan or Beasts together into little groups throughout the island and use them to strike at enemy settlements and explorers. There are many cards and powers that lets each token cause damage, or defend. It's all about timing the build and ravage cycles so that not all of them build, and those that do build would be damaged/destroyed before they ravage successfully (or defended strongly enough to not kill any tokens). You might consider watching other people's playthroughs of those spirits, taking time to pause and rewind as necessary to understand what people are doing.
Interesting comparison, and helpful to think about. Thanks!
I do have some questions for you in regards to Lure:
* Have you played Ocean a bunch?
* Are you someone who bulldozes down the card play track, plays a bunch of low-to-zero energy minor cards, to build up elements to use the innate powers of the spirit? Or would you rather play spirits with high energy tracks that let you play fewer, major powers?
* During the Slow Powers step, would you rather Push invaders out of lands they might ravage in the next turn, or Gather them into lands they might ravage in the next turn IF you have the ability to either negate/defend the ravage or just up and destroy them before they reach the ravage step?
I have played Ocean twice, not a bunch, but didn't struggle with him as much. I am tend for the Minor powers but it depends on the Spirit. Not sure about the last questions, I think I do both depending upon where its most useful at the time.
@@onepipwonder915 So Lure works similarly to Ocean only in the fact that you want to drag people into your lands to destroy them (Ocean gets the advantage of being able to destroy most invaders just by placing them in the ocean lands, "Drowing" them, with the exception of Habsburg Monarchy 4 or higher)
Habsburg Monarchy 4+ gives towns the horrible "Durable" keyword (giving them +2 health and causing any "Destroy Town" effects to only cause 2 damage instead). Which causes any attempt at "Drowning" towns in the ocean, only causes 2 damage (which cannot destroy a 4 health town, causing them to be Pushed to any coastal land that is not the ocean).
Anyways, as I noticed in another comment, a good idea is to make lands that are filled with tokens to make "kill zones" where you innate power of causing a bunch of damage allows you to knock out a lot of invaders after you drag them into your lands. Like Ocean, you will probably need some +Range powers to allow you to reach out and pull enemies toward your "kill zones".
Also take note that for every single presence you have in any land you ignore TWO explorers during ravage. This is somewhat similar to the ignore mechanic that Stone has against Blight. For example: you have three presence in a land, you ignore SIX explorers (3 presence x 2 explorers = 6 explorers) during ravage.
So make sure that after that Build step, during the Slow Powers phase of that turn, you FORSAKE SOCIETY TO CHASE AFTER DREAMS to break them up into explorers (or get free Fear if you can't fully break them up and still have some towns/cities left), Gather those invaders into your lands with many presences, and then ignore a bunch of the explorers during ravage next turn.
Meanwhile, you are designing those "kill zones" filled with tokens that you can gather all those explorers into to destroy them (generating a ton of Fear). Also you don't need more than 2-3 tokens in any one land, as you destroy two explorers per token and can do additional damage with the 4 plant/1 animal part of NEVER HEARD FROM AGAIN to pick off any additional units.
Playing a lot of low-to-zero cost cards that have moon, air, animal, fire, and plant help a lot with meeting those thresholds.
@@AzureIVI think I need to print this comment out! thank you so much for sharing your strategy with me.
I have Spirit Island and have only played once :(. But all these spirits look so cool! I need to find a gaming group.
my husband and I have been wanting to start a group! seems like every time we play it people run away though🤷♀️
The solo playability of this game is off the charts. I used to play this while my wife watched rom-coms so that we could both do what we wanted haha
@@onepipwonder915 If you use the Online Tabletop Simulator game to play (or the digital version from Handelabra Games, when it catches up), I would join you if we can work out the timing.
@@Iamwrongbut Strongly concur. I keep a solo player two spirit game on my work table for quick(ish) mental breaks. I rarely am able to finish the games before I hopelessly mess up something ("Shoot -- did I grow already this turn?") but it's still a good break.
Starlight: I find the trick to Starlight is focusing on one or two power pickups early, especially if you can find a way to lean into what the other spirit is doing in a 2 player or 2 handed game and complement them. Starlight looks way more intimidating than it really is imo. (I say this as someone with adhd)
Lure: I think the trick with lure is 1. Focusing on his innates and 2. Setting up "kill zones" where it's easy to grab adjacent invaders and just stacking badlands and beasts there. I also think he really shines when played with any other spirit who uses tokens.
My spirits I've only played once or am just not interested in playing... Sharp Fangs (I just don't think I get how they work and I prefer Many Minds), Shifting Memory (just doesn't interest me), Vital Strength (ditto), Thunderspeaker (in a world of lightning birds and living water I'm just not really interested in being a human looking spirit... and I don't find her playstyle particularly compelling) and Finder (I mostly play true solo, two handed, or with friends who haven't played the game as much, so not being able to destroy stuff freely is a big problem. On my to do list though)
Out of those though, the only ones I haven't played are Finder, Memory and Vital Strength, and I've won a true solo game against a low level adversary with every other spirit I /have/ played with the exception of Shattered Days. I respect those who just want to play what they like but for me, completing an arbitrary checklist like this is pretty fun.
thanks for your thought Indigo, "kill zones" I like how you think lol
It’s an amazing game and it offers a lot. If you are having fun playing the low complexity spirits on base difficulty (I did this for quite a while) then the game is doing what it is supposed to be doing.
I agree with quite a few of your picks. Finder’s and Starlight’s presence tracks and innates are very complex and a brain burner on true solo. Others of your 10 I am either not a fan of the theme or something else I can’t quite put my finger on.
There are two that I really enjoy playing though. Fractured Days and Sharp Fangs. Sharp Fangs is a strong spirit if you can get a lot of beast tokens on the board. I regularly completely clear the board of invaders when I play it. I have not tried it with higher level adversaries though. Fractured Days is very hit or miss. If you can get a good defence card into your ‘Days that never were’ library then you are good. Otherwise it is a struggle. The gameplay design of Fractured Days is probably some of the most elegant in any board game that I have seen. Fractured Days is a tough one to master.
Thanks for the video.
What's funny is, complexity can seem intimidating but doesn't necessarily translate into a difficult to play spirit. One of the first spirits I've played was Lightning together with River (from the get-go I played my solo games with 2 spirits and 2 island boards because the cooperative aspect is what drove me to this game in the first place). And I just couldn't get the hang of Lightning in that game even though it's usually called one of the beginnerfriendly spirits with its low complexity.
2-3 games later (my 5th overall I think) I finally wanted to try my hands at my first "real" game. Before I was playing without blight card and without adversary. I've chosen Prussia at level 2 as my first opponent and rolled the dice for which spirits I would use (I like to randomize what spirits and what island boards to use) and I got Shadows and Bringer. I had played Shadows once before (with questionable results) and it was my first for Bringer. I was pretty intimidated by that but I still went ahead with it and what an awesome game. It was a bit tough getting into it but once I realized that Bringer just wants to spam Majors from as early on as possible to push the invaders away from tiles of action it got pretty insane. One of my quickest wins yet.
Spirit Island is such a fun and versatile game. While I can totally understand not wanting/going to play certain spirits (especially considering the mental difficulties with some) I also agree that you don't have to do that to be a real fan. ^^
I want to learn them all because they all feel enticing to me (and everyone I've played so far was fun to me), but that's just me. :)
I've even started making unique presence tokens for ever spirit in the game. XD
hi. was waiting for this one. thanks for the insight.
I totally get why you would be intimidated by some spirits.
some comments for me who also usually prefers the lighter difficulty spirits.
finder: its high difficulty because its only push and the difficulty of doing damage. someone like stone on your team helps because you can just unload on them. about growth options I totally get that. but there is no real wrong way. it depends on what you want. card plays vs energy.
fractured. totally get it. low card plays less presses on the actual board and his powers are mainly utility. but fractured has massive support capabilities and a few options to cheese the game. Even for me I will likely play this spirit last. (after I tried all the rest). Its also a bit difficult for me. But I might need to se others play this spirit.
Starlight. The build your own spirit. This one will be right before fractured.
It’s an interesting concept but like memory you become what you draw, and a bit what you spec into.
Volcano. A bit slow on the card play spectrum. But fun in its style. You almost never have to worry about the place your volcano is actually in. but getting to all the other spots can be tricky.
Lure. Likes to have a lot of tokens. Inland. Yea but even the stuff on the cost you can gather to yourself.
Serpent. Also, not my favorite but I still play it from time to time. Loves to have rampant green on the team. Or ocean.
Wildfire. Yea also not my favorite. It’s a delicate dance of placing blight and then removing it.
Although I did have a game with 2 card plays but not 2 fire yet (so no blight yet). Getting my energy from growth.
Killing an explorer with your growth is one of the keys. Killing the other with your innate or the town that built previous round is also recommended.
Fangs I get it. I needed to play fangs a lot of times to get around it. Especially using his special rule, a lot really helps. 1/3the of the events has a beast event on it.
With fangs my playstyle is usually hunting for lone explorers and preventing builds.
Fangs has the capability to do fast damage. And if you can’t solve the problem fast you can slow push it. You can work around the blight restriction if your optimal with your beast movement. But I myself haven’t bene optimal yet. But still a fun one to play for me.
Bringer of dreams (bodan). Yea the fear generator. Loves to have ocean on his team. Or mist to have cities on 1 life. You can win a fear victory if he is on the team. The downside of not being able to influence the board much is a mayor downside.
Thunder speaker. The dahan mover. Similar to fangs. But then for dahan.
You can get crazy amounts of damage. But movement of your dahan (and yourself) is key.
The different with beast is that dahan tend to die more easy and are harder to replace. Well you can let a place blight. Just don’t have dahan there. Or defense is also a option. In most of my games with this spirit, thunder speaker went over the board land by land. Like a scanner/printer clearing out everything in her way. Once the dahan ball of death starts rolling there is noting stopping it. (usually).
Even now I still play default difficulty a lot. Because sometimes I just want to have a fun time with a spirit I play way less.
This all is my own opinion and my own view of the game. Experiences may vary
I hope this helps a bit.
Thanks for your amazing contribution to this wonderful game.
I am printing out this comment and laminating it. Thanks Dawn!
@One Pip Wonder hi, no problem at all. i play a lot of spirit island. and i try to get all the spirit island content i can get my hands on. from UA-cam to podcast to forums to discord. as far as spirits go i wonder how well you do with ocean. for myself i really like the spirit and the concept. but I’m just not good at playing ocean myself. i guess i have to see others play ocean.
i have spirits that just click for me so i tend to play them more. but eventualy i at least want to try them all. well i can choose the order that i try them in so that helps.
Hi, I loved spirit island. But I recently bought jagged earth expansion and the event deck ruined the game for me. I would really like to use the new spirits but events just seems to make the game extremely easy or completely the opposite. And it seems that a lot of them benefit from the event deck. Any advise for a new player of jagged earth?
Okay! I am with you. Not a big fan of the Events and we almost never play with them. Jagged Earth comes with Play Options Card (small pink cards) that allow the Beast and Disease tokens to be added to the game set up, as well as trigger extra damage or fear around any beast tokens when an invader phase ends. These are meant to balance the Spirits that tend to coordinate with the Event Cards, without having to actually use the Event Cards if you don't like them.
Thankfully you don't need to play with the Event Deck.
Bringer of Dreams and Nightmares was the first spirit I ever played, my teammates said I was invaluable at the end of the game because we ended up winning via fear. I just played Fractured Days Split the Sky the first time earlier this week and I must say it's probably the strongest spirit I've ever played, the ability to manipulate the invader deck is incredible, specially when dealing with adversaries, the ability to turn a stage 2 card into a stage 1 and a stage 3 into a stage 2 is the strongest starting ability I've seen... if you don't mind burning your brain abit with all the min max possibilities, you can determine where they'll explore, which means you know where they will build, then ravage
BoDaN is a great spirit, you just have to shift your kills from "direct card kill/damage" to "Defend land with card and let Dahan do the kills" also his "anti ravage" tends towards "clear blight after the ravage". When you can make those adjustments, he is quite powerful with how he can speed up bad games.
I've played all but promo pack 2 spirits, and Starlight - the breadth of decisions is sooooo intimidating.
I have played so much of thus game and I always get owned when I play Lure. Fractured Days is incredible, you are missing out on that one. Just having a much larger pool of cards to choose from makes it much easier to tailor this spirit to the task at hand.
Enough said, I'll have to give him a try FDSS after all. Thanks for sharing about Lure, apparently he is harder than he seems for lot of players.
Maybe you could post a little here about why you like Fractured Days in order for others to learn.
i looooove fractured days. It is seriously one of the most mind blowing things in all of spirit island.
we also love Starlight! I would say once you understand how starlight generally works, starlight would maybe not be as bad as you think? Just a thought. During a single game with Starlight you are only ever going to really use like 1/3 of the abilities. It might be more digestible than you’d think! 🤷🏻♂️😆
also yess i love wildfire:)))
Try bringer and ocean together. Bringer pushes into ocean with his special ability, and both generate so much fear. Great combo
As a Fractured multiplayer main and starlight soloplay main, I filly agree with them both being a headache to get right. I think anyone can play them fine, I think the pitfall is that they are both very easy to make a misstep with and it is VERY hard to recover from missteps with both. My particular love for them started with theme and I genuinely enjoy the brain-pain of high complexity stuff. It isnt really an /iamverysmart thing, I just like the mental push needed to adapt them both to strange situations. I certainly enjoy the "easy" spirits also, I cant bash them at all, they just didnt end up being mainstays for me.
Volcano is one of my current favorites. It is fun to clear land with many invaders with eruptions.
Fangs I’ve played some, but I don’t think it’s for me currently. The blight restrictions usually crush me.
Lure is very fun. I recommend it. It’s a bit slow but very powerful.
I totally get that there are spirits that are not for everyone. That’s not associated with complexity. I hate playing Vital Strength of the Earth. I just don’t get him.
Fractured Days is intimidating for me also. Tried it a few times. It’s so complex that it feels like work for me. Perhaps with more practice......
I recommend trying each spirit at least twice. The first to understand the basics of the spirit, and the second to try to enjoy it. You might not like it, and that’s perfectly fine, but perhaps you will.
thanks for sharing, its so interesting to hear everyone's perspective :)
3:16 I admit is played a custom home version of this one (it has one more max power) but you should try it, as fellow player whos top 3 as I know are also Wood, Earth, and the lightning bird I can say Time is just as much fun, it is not as complex as it looks, like with wood, if enemy want to advance boom you stop time (Isolate or pore dime differently) and you can use both spells to do this, you can recelain one at some point each turn (2 sun 2 moon). Like with wood you can clean your character fast from presence, and like earth you can take more power with the 2+2+2 energy option to do big bangs. You also can speed up your or others spells for 3 moon 1 sky like with Lightning. time is my second favorite atm after wood and before Lightning and than Earth than river. Time also can summon Dahan If i remember correctly that was slepp you told not enough in the game, well time can do it and copy it in the same turn so +2 Dahan if the stars are right. Did I mention it also can clear blight :D? I think as alike game style (protect all, everyone lives) gamer you would love this spirit give it a shot :D
I'll have to give it a try, thanks!
@@onepipwonder915 hope you will love it :D it become fast my 2nd faw.....well imposible to top Green :D
Keep in mind when you are learning a new spirit you are effectively learning a new game. It may frustrate you because there is a good chance you will get pummeled your first few plays until you learn the rhythm of each spirit. My suggestion would be to try them out in true solo until you can feel that rhythm. When you play with two separate spirits the dynamics will change and for someone like me it is harder to internalize how the new spirit works. When picking up a new spirit I play solo and on the easiest difficulty, and I still lose sometimes. Then I start dialing it up as I get the feel.
thats great advice and playing solo is something I haven't done yet .. but playing at an easier level makes it sound less scary to do so. I think I need to try this. thanks!
@@onepipwonder915 Trying them out solo is great because not only is it a smaller time investment but you aren't feeling the pressure of letting anyone down. Play at an easier difficulty because you are effectively learning how to walk each time.
I agree, playing a spirit solo on the lowest difficulty is the best way to learn any spirit.
Please please please play Sharp Fangs as soon as possible! It can be so much fun. I have made a couple of playthrough videos with Fangs if you want to check them out, but even if you don't, I would definitely recommend trying out Fangs...
thanks, I think he will be the next Spirit I play!
@@onepipwonder915 Awesome, hope you enjoy it!