What Spirit Islands are you comboing?

mezike wrote: I feel that the primary goal is getting up to that juncture point in the track where you wake up and turn into an absolute monster.

Have only played a couple times with Serpent but this has absolutely been our approach. There just has to be another Spirit around, like Rampant Green as you suggested, who can keep things in relative control until you finally wake up and pretty much end the game in the next couple turns. It's basically "Dont panic. Bring a (green) towel."

Serpent can do real work with Dahan movers.
Also, don't discount how good Serpents starting cards are with some spirits. I know from more than one game Serpent and River pair well. The extra water symbol can really juice early river play.

I find myself rarely getting of Serpents big Innate, but that likely means i need to ramp up the difficulty.

I really enjoy Serpent, but its not an every game spirit.

The defend all adjacent card is fucking insane. There's no inherent card that can handle that many spaces in stage 3 with one card.

I think you hit on it. We play Spirit Island as a coop but one where we don't extensively discuss each turn in the planning phase except for the 4-5 tricky turns where someone needs the other's help. Great Serpent wants you having that conversation every turn.

That’s interesting to hear about your meta - my games with my son lean far more heavy on the co-op; we discuss the situation every round, the different things we could do, and settle on a plan together. I believe we’ve likely developed that approach as we started playing SI when he was about 11 I think, so it was as much about that learning and sharing experience together as he discovered the game.

We even do this in competitive games as well, where I’ve always challenged him to think about the implications of his actions and how it fits into his strategic plan, or moderating value perceptions at an encroaching endgame position, often explaining my own process to him.

It’s been a while, but played spirit island again. Sorta.

Loved a play of Horizons of Spirit Island. We are traveling and just took it. Otherwise not sure I would have ever punched it out. It’s a really great product. Dead simple in comparison to even Branch and claw. But still fantastic.

It was the new eyes in the wood spirit and the oppressive heat spirit. I’ll get better with their names. Against the most dead simple difficulty there could be. Both played awesome. I was the oppressive heat and boy is it fun ti play. Has some slick tricks right out of the gate. And it’s Special power of sacred sites reduce enemy HP by 1 to a min of 1 is so strong.

We steamrolled the game. But that’s to be expected at east mode. Still a really neat spirit.

Eyes is a monster defender. Like just beast mode out of the gate.

Hope to get another play in tonight.

That's great to hear! I did the most wasteful thing I think I've ever done and bought horizons, took out the unique stuff, and recycled the rest. Felt bad.

I get that. Thought I was going to put it in the basement Unpunched. Then we grabbed it and took it on this trip. It’s pretty great for travel. I can see keeping it for this reason.

About to get out next game on. Going to be Eyes watch from Trees and Devouring Teeth Lurk Underneath. Excited to see how Teeth plays. Looks like some solidly slick tricks.

I decided to go in for tokens and the new expansion. It's expensive but I don't really have any choice with spirit island tbh.

Yeah. I think I am in for Tokens. I don’t have the first set. But I think I’ll be getting both. They will see lots of use. I keep looking on Etsy and Thingverse for some upgrades I like. And really missing. I may make a stab at unique presence tokens. But I keep butting my head against the designers intent that they be wood and like that narrative. Maybe laser cut wood presence. But not sure it really adds what I’m looking to add.

So. Finished my game with Teeth. Wow does Teeth land some hurt. My card draw was not amazing. And I feel I likely pushed my reclaim off one turn too far bro g greedy and that hurt my overall play. But what a Great mix of powers. I really dig the defend 9 that drives away Dahan. Great touch there.

Tonight’s game will feature Sunbright wirlwind and mud otter. I’m going to pilot Sun. Excited for growth phase explorer push.

Growth phase damage was always so irresistible with Stars.

Yeah. It also made wildfire bonkers good as well.

Got game one of the night done. Sun right and Mud.

Mud seams neat. But I only kinda understand what was going on. Sunbright on the other hand is neat. Not sure I love having 2 starter buff powers. This is mitigated by the push when playing presence. Sunbright’s innate is really good. It’s odd having the other two starter cards do sorta opposing things. One is one damage to up to 5 invaders in a land as fast. Which is super useful. The other is a slow that pushes up to 5 explorer or villages but scatters them to as many lands as possible. It took a little for me to kinda get my head around them. Not sure I ever used the latter to the best of its effect. But it’s still solid just moving one or 2 things.

Second game shortly with Mud and I am going to give Eyes a spin.

Game with Eyes and Mud finished. Ended on a total board wipe in stage 2.

Eyes is really strong. We kinda knew that though. Defense with attached Dahan movement built in. Pretty awesome. Eyes teamwork card is the Chefs kiss of the package. Really feels good to play.

I have a little better understanding of what Mud is doing now. I think the combo of Mud and Lure is gonna be really sick. Just try and let Mud gunk up the coasts and Lure does their thing on the interior. Seems good in my brain .

that's good to hear that the spirits are fun. I picked up Horizons from Target for $20, so even just as an expansion with spirits it'll be ok. I really like the event deck from branch and claw, so even if we use the board for simpler setup, it should still be simple to have an event deck and blight cards.

So the new expansion backerkit campaign has been pretty boring, but they have finally released a bunch of the spirits... I actually think they're going into a pretty interesting design space with most of them. So even though it's a pretty whatever campaign, I'm actually pretty exciting to get all the spirits from it now.