Spirit Island Basic Strategy - Fangs

A basic introduction to playing Spirit Island as Sharp Fangs Behind the Leaves.
Fangs is one of my favorite spirits (and is currently the icon for the channel!), and has a lot of flexibility in how they are played. In this video, we focus on an offensive bottom-track build for the spirit. This is generally what I use when playing the spirit, and I think it's the most consistent at high difficulties. However, the build does have a fairly high skill ceiling because it is extremely reliant on how you draft powers. If you want to play it well, I would encourage you to experiment with many different powers in order to get a feel for which ones tend to work best. In short, play a bunch of games (because Fangs is awesome).
If you're interested in the speedrun Fangs build I mentioned (which is QUITE different), the tutorial is here: • Spirit Island Walkthro...
Thoughts, questions, or differing opinions? Let me know in the comments below, or join me on Discord at / discord

[@travisbicklejr]

Kalen-You have the BEST SI tutorials. Thank you so much!

[@kalennoreth]

Thank you! Glad to hear they're helping folk out!

[@nitrorev]

Yes! Been waiting on this one! It always feels like I'm on the very edge of destruction with this spirit. Makes it very fun and risky. So glad they are retiring Tipping Point as that just ruins Fangs for no good reason.

[@kalennoreth]

Yeah, I really like to play Fangs lower-to-the-ground than is really safe with Tipping Point, so that change is probably going to improve(?) my play :P

[@MegaMuffinManX]

Another great video! Fangs is probably my favorite Spirit. When I play on low difficulty, I like to alternate between the bottom track-only games and top-track-only games.

[@kalennoreth]

I really like doing a top track build on board A, because you can kill the starting town with Ranging Hunt t1 :P Other boards I mostly stick to bottom track, but I'm trying to branch out and experiment a bit more!

[@sarahsloot2290]

Excellent video, I like how you broke down the drafting decisions.

[@kalennoreth]

Thanks! I think a huge part of Fangs is drafting correctly, and it's one of the hardest things to talk about without either going through a bunch of hypothetical drafts or just listing every power in the game and talking about them.

[@peterxu5043]

Great video again! Crystal clear thought and explanation. It is great to add expansion rulings in 0 difficulty games. Thanks!

[@kalennoreth]

Glad you liked it!

[@skytte111]

Love playing Fangs, so many cool interactions and moving pieces.

[@skytte111]

Also, im quite interrested in a top track build, i haven't really tried that to much.

[@kalennoreth]

Fangs is definitely a blast, I love their kit and their playstyle. I plan to do a video on top track and/or major focused builds sometime in the near future, after basic strats for Keeper!

[@RatchetSly]

Thank you for making these! I've found Fangs solo either rolls the Invaders or gets rolled in turn, almost entirely dependently on that "Strange Madness Among the Beasts" event card, but also, I've not played Fangs a great deal. The pure bottom track approach is new to me, though as a River Surges fan, it probably should've come to my mind sooner as an option.

[@kalennoreth]

Fangs definitely can slow down in the late game (especially if a lot of blight hits the board), but I find this build often holds up. You can also transition to Majors late game and spam 1-2 majors thanks to your reclaim one spots and +3 energy growth option. Sadly (or gladly?), Strange Madness is not in the digital version, so if you're playing there it won't make/break games quite as often.

[@RatchetSly]

@@kalennoreth Oh, it's not in the digital game? In that case, I think it can join the France-only event card as a rare inclusion in the deck.

[@sarahsloot2290]

Strange Madness is an erratta from the game. It’s too game defining apparently and the creator said to remove it in the rule book for Jagged Earth. :) I’m sure it’s also on the Querki

[@kyllebylle]

Big thanks to all of your effort and content. It is by far the best SI content out there, cannot praise you enough for the interesting and educational videos you have offered. I cannot help but notice that you rarely post anything SI related lately. Any chance you're coming back into this game or did something happen?

[@kalennoreth]

Thank you for the kind words! Short answer is yes, I am planning to come back to Spirit Island! Most likely will happen when the first batch of Jagged Earth content comes out on digital, so within the next 3 months.

[@kyllebylle]

@@kalennoreth Alright, I'm interested to find out what happened but I won't pry. I will be eagerly waiting. Thanks again for the vids available! The're so good that I will probably watch em twice before I move on ;)

[@clash7067]

Super handy

[@spraylansquivvens7338]

Fangs is my favorite and by far my most played spirit, and I've found I have much greater success going top track (until +3) with her in the app. You just need 1 good low cost Major most of the time, and your starting line up plus ranging hunt give you plenty of time to dig through the deck to find Tigers Hunting, Pent Up Calamity, Wrap in Wings of Sunlight, Vigor of the Breaking Dawn, Trees and Stones Speak of War, or even Savage Transformation.

[@kalennoreth]

Thank you for the feedback! I personally prefer the bottom track build, but I totally hear you on going top track as well. I intend to try and make another video talking about Fangs and Major builds, but I was imagining something slightly different from your description, so it's good to read about it! I love the flexibility Fangs brings to the table. Do you find this strat scales well with adversaries?

[@spraylansquivvens7338]

@@kalennoreth I tend to play with Adversaries around level 3 (events on), and find top track more reliable against them.

[@eagelwizard290]

I don't like having to play a card I draft the very same turn. Especially if I planned for an innate power. (And I want to trigger the dmg ranging hunt pretty much every turn.) So I mostly reclaim turn 3. And I also feel very energy restricted so I often take the +3 option turn 2. Do you always play this "greedy" build or does it depend on the gamestate? Here you were so much ahead that you for example didn't need dmg ranging hunt t3. So the ~15% chance to whiff on the animal wouldn't punish you.

[@kalennoreth]

I usually stick to the greedy build when I'm going bottom track, because I'd rather have more effects each turn even at the cost of a Ranging Hunt or two. Some of that is about scaling (getting to 4 card plays with reclaim one is amazing for triggering innates as well as doing lots of things to the board) and some of it is about the limited value of that turn 3 ranging hunt. A lot of this build is dependent on what, if any, adversary is in use. England 6? You definitely want to be greedy, that early ranging hunt is not worth enough sometimes even when you get lucky pulls. Sweden 6? Maybe I can stop a blight if I hit the innate this turn, and that's probably worth changing my strategy around.

[@eagelwizard290]

@@kalennoreth As Fangs can place a presence even on reclaim the only thing my build misses is one card in hand. The extra Energy probably evens out as I have to reclaim a turn sooner going forward, but the number of cards played is the same. So I don't see how you have "more effects each turn". That being said I just tried you build into Sweden 6 and won pretty easily. I guess the tradeoff is slightly more scaling for a little less consistent turn 3.

[@kalennoreth]

@@eagelwizard290 Hm, that's a good point! I would have to sit down and math it out, but if the only difference is really the extra card in hand, then it might be better to go the other way. I had it in my head that I got to play an extra card for some reason, but you still play 2-3-3-4 I think.