What Spirit Islands are you comboing?

I am right there with you. I lucked out and got the pick 3 elements minor. I am pretty meh on Vital, I just got stupid lucky.

I find Vital’s strength is in his minor defence buff and his raw energy numbers. His innates seem impossible to pull off consistantly, especially if just rushing for the strongest Majors available

It’s only really achievable if you focus on drawing minor powers and taking card plays as growth, most of the time you will need a little help either with additional presence placement or additional card plays. I don’t think I’ve ever activated my own high cost Major with it, but it does play very well with other spirits in this regard.

SaMoKo wrote: I find Vital’s strength is in his minor defence buff and his raw energy numbers. His innates seem impossible to pull off consistantly, especially if just rushing for the strongest Majors available

Yes, this. I love playing vital earth but I tend to play him as a chance to do some subtle defense tactics with Dahan and, especially, to finally draw and play some of those majors ASAP. I don't always go deep on major powers with many other spirits. Some of them feel real good.

I should like Vital for the reasons you list, I just like Keeper of the Forbidden Wilds better as a major power force. It could be I like the control of Keeper more than the passive defense. Not sure. Could also be that Keeper is just super strong. I think Keeper os the strongest Spirit in total isolation and therefore is a great teammate for anyone.

I'd agree with that. Vital's growth is so limited and so monochromatic on both tracks that it sometimes seems like he really doesn't have much to do without the proper cards in hand. You consistently protect your lands, leaving opportunity for your your allies to do more active things, but I find both Keeper and Spread of Rampant Green to be the better "baseline" spirits that others can build off of; not to mention more interesting to play because of their growth and inherent power versatility.

Yeah, Keeper is a much better spirit... and in general destroying enemies is vastly better than defend 3. Keeper's drawback vis a vis blight, wilds, and dahan requires a little finesse but isn't overly difficult to overcome.

I tend to think keeper is the best spirit in the base and expansion as well.

If any spirit is better I would lean towards Thunderspeaker. But yeah, Keeper is real good. Sometimes having that starting defense card is a lifesaver. Thunderspeaker has some awkward growth phases that Keeper tends to power through better. Once you hit a certain point with thunderspeaker what you can do in the fast phase is amazing. Thw two play so different.

Thunderspeaker does really well unless against Sweden. I find Rampant and Keeper have no real weakness in adversaries, but the strength of each spirit varies by player count.

In 3+ player, Ocean, River and Shadows really shine. All three have tremendous impact over a wide area, where Rampant’s fast tracking has dulled impact.

I can see that. Greens biggest deal unless paired with Heart of the wildfire is getting spirits with awkward growth hurdles over them. Things like Shadows flicker from 1 to 3 energy likely 2 turns sooner, or the same thing with lightning while being solid at buying time and holding ground till their partner /s take over. Keeper is really only ever going to do 1 board, but that board gets hammered so hard that it gets silly, He is likely the perfect counterpoint to Ocean in a 3 or 4 player just locking down the middle.

Played a game of Heart and Green, they are just such a sick pair. I don't know if there is a better duo, Thunderspeaker and River would be my next contender.

Played a rematch vs Sweden from two weeks ago, had a blast. We went completely anti-Dahan, partner was wilds and I was rampant green. Pushed them out and killed them when necessary. Never had that wrinkle in a game before.

Played a couple of great games of Spirit Island for the 4th. First was a nailbiting final turn win vs. Prussia lvl 4, me with Flickering Flame, her with the beast spirit. Second was a pretty comprehensive and demoralizing loss to England level 3 with me as river and her as Flickering Flame. She *hated* flickering flame. England is just really tough but you can rack up so much fear because they are building so many towns.

I audibled in the first game into just giving up on much of my innates and instead pushing energy and major powers. It was an interesting direction I'm going to try to pursue more with the better energy curve powers; I think the game encourages you to stay on rails early in your spirit island career with card plays and minor powers to trigger innates.

The lightning/wilds combo is truly magnificent. We absolutely torched England lvl 3 w/Wild feeding Lightning orange/purple minor powers and energy while Lightning provides slow to fast plays.

I know this is nit picking, but I was disappointed that they included marginal colonial powers like Sweden and Brandenburg but left out the Spanish, Portuguese, and French.

It was weird to me as well. French are in the first expansion, Branch and Claw, as a plantation/slave themed threat.

FYI if you've played the game at least once or twice and like it immediately get the expansion. Enriches the game considerably.