Spirit Island Basic Strategy - Earth

A basic introduction to playing Spirit Island as Vital Strength of the Earth.
Earth is a defensive/stalling spirit that has good energy growth and mediocre card plays. Because of this, it's well suited to gaining majors and having high impact turns while playing only 1 or 2 cards. While this video focuses on solo play, the basic principles apply to multiplayer games as well.
Thoughts, questions, or differing opinions? Let me know in the comments below!

[@meatball6119]

Kalen you legitimately have the best spirit island videos on KZbin. Keep them coming!

[@kalennoreth]

Thank you so much! More should be coming soon ;)

[@giovannibiffle5462]

Not only a great channel for Spirit Island, it's one of the most pleasant ones I've ever come across!

[@kalennoreth]

Thank you for the kind comment! I certainly try for pleasant :)

[@omyyer]

I own this board game and I bring it out sometimes when friends come round. But we always lose because we have no basic strategy! Thank you for pointing out (let's be honest, "obvious") strategies, such as getting major cards on Earth! Of course he wants them, he gets so much energy and struggles with card draw and card plays.

[@kalennoreth]

If you're ever interested in more "general" strategies, I highly recommend Fyandor's framework. I interview him and there's a link to his original Reddit post in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nGWqpWuimKyef9E

[@mcmiscellaneous4706]

Just picked this up last night and keep getting my butt kicked. After watching this, I feel so much more comfortable with some of the basic strategies to improve my gameplay. Easy sub!

[@kalennoreth]

Welcome to the island, and thank you! Hope you enjoy crushing the invaders! :D

[@MegaMuffinManX]

Thanks for posting this. I had been a bit frustrated with Earth because I kept trying to play him like I do other spirits where I focus on bottom track so as to trigger the innate power more often. But Earth's innate power is surprisingly difficult to trigger, especially with his unique powers. I tried a couple games with the top track and major power focus and it worked out much better.

[@kalennoreth]

Glad to hear the major strategy worked for you! I really like bottom track strategies, but sometimes a spirit just doesn't work with one, sadly.

[@zenithpriest1642]

Have you tried a reclaim loop with Draw of the Fruitful Earth and Rituals of Destruction? Bottom track to 2 plays (top track the rest); you'll get to replay Draw to feed Rituals.

[@spazticdrummer7]

Great video! You really showcased how Draw of the Fruitful Earth gives you the freedom to stay at 1 play for a while. Year of Perfect Stillness and Guard the Healing Land can also help in this regard depending on the circumstances. I feel like I kind of already knew this, but seeing how you did it here somehow made it click way more than it did before. I feel like I can take on England 6 now, haha!

[@kalennoreth]

Just gotta watch out for those adjacency builds! And yeah, Draw is really powerful when it hits like it did in this game.

[@Tuatara1989]

Earth vs. England 6 must be one of the most difficult solo challenges out there.

[@ZuluagaSD]

Love your videos!

[@kalennoreth]

Thank you!

[@draheim90]

Appreciate the video! Just got into Spirit Island and have been trying all the base and Horizons spirits. Vital was the 10th one I tried and also the one I did by far the worst on - had just revealed the last invader card when I finally won by fear/no cities (vs. Prussia 0). I think getting a blight card early that destroyed 3 presence was part of it and I also misread the Rituals of Destruction starting card (thought the bonus effect was 3 total damage and not +3). Nonetheless I was interested to see how to be more efficient as I struggled quite a bit in that game to get into a rhythm and was defending/stalling too much without actually progressing. Thanks again!

[@kalennoreth]

Glad to be of help! Stalling out the game and running out of time is definitely a trap you can fall into with a spirit like Earth. Early blight cards can really hurt too.

[@maestroan3338]

those basic strategies very helpful

[@kalennoreth]

Glad to hear it, thank you!

[@buzzbuzzthebee]

Great video! Thank you!

[@kalennoreth]

You're welcome, glad you enjoyed it!

[@buzzbuzzthebee]

By the way, in the basic playlist, this video is not available anymore.

[@kalennoreth]

Odd, thanks for letting me know! I think it should be fixed now?

[@Rhenor]

I'm surprised you went to remove Draw of the Fruitful Earth given that it would have been really useful to prevent builds. I'm guessing the only reason you did so was because it was in the discard. Is there an argument for discarding Guard the Healing Land instead?

[@kalennoreth]

The main reason I forgot Draw was because it was in the discard, yes. I think an argument could be made for forgetting a different power, but given that we had drafted a damage power I would probably lean toward forgetting Rituals of Destruction before Guard the Healing Land. I would want Guard if the next explore had been into the Wetlands instead of the Mountains, so I think keeping Guard is actually helpful there. The other reason I can think of to keep Draw is that it only costs one energy, which is useful if we ever get up to 3-4 card plays. In the end, I've just found that I don't usually play Draw more than once a game when playing Earth, although multiplayer/adversaries would certainly change that.

[@gavinmyre7654]

Isn’t the gather card played at 1:57 only range of one from a presense therefore you cannot reach 2? Or is father different. Because at the closest presence being at 6 you can only target lands 1 5 4

[@gavinmyre7654]

Scratch that I JUST saw you had presence in 4 lol. Also how do you start with 3 blight when I thought it was 2 per person

[@kalennoreth]

There was a change to how blight works that's in the digital version: Instead of 2 blight per player, it's now 2 per play plus 1. You can find more here: querki.net/u/darker/spirit-island-faq/#!Important-Errata

[@BlitkriegsAndCoffee]

I feel like this just rolls over and dies if you get a bad first round of majors. Especially as the difficulty scales. The innate defense of your Sacred Sites just stops being good enough to only make a single play a turn. Kind of surprised at the order you sac things in as well. Draw of the Fruitful Earth is usually the last starter card I sac, while you held onto Rituals of Destruction forever even after dumping Draw. I'll give this a try anyways, but I'd still feel way more comfortable with the 3 energy -> 2 plays -> 6 energy -> 3 plays build. (usually grabbing 2 minors and 2 majors along the way in whatever layout is most practical)

[@kalennoreth]

I hear you. This strategy is somewhat based on my experiences trying to beat England 6 with base Earth, where you have a ton of time to build up your majors and there are countless other things that can just wreck you (so I'm used to relying on at least some luck). Against another adversary, say, BP6, I would probably switch to plays sooner. Regarding forgetting Draw, that's mostly a result of my bias towards forgetting cards in the discard pile, which isn't always a good guideline.

[@AnonYmous-spyonmepls]

This works but suboptimal, you are banking too much energy meaning underutilization of resources and you could use special rule defense more in early game. I wouldn't grow a sacred unless it was necessary it just gives up range for no immediate danger.

[@Desocupad0]

You lost points when you said terrifying nightmares is a nice control power.

[@kalennoreth]

XD that's fair. I probably look at it with rose-colored lenses from the times when I've pulled it in games involving Ocean.