Spirit Island Basic Strategy - River

A basic introduction to playing Spirit Island as River Surges in Sunlight.
River is a very powerful control/offense spirit, denying builds and ravages until it can wipe out invaders en masse with its excellent innate power. In this video we go over several tips for playing River using the bottom track strategy. 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!

[@ericb5966]

Fantastic breakdown of how to use Rivers. I've played with that spirit at least 5 times and never occurred to me I could hit the level 3 innate that early. Love your strategy vids, you do a great job of explaining every aspect of the spirit in a clear and efficient way

[@kalennoreth]

Thank you, it's good to hear they're coming across well!

[@Trashloot]

@@kalennoreth I totally agree. I thought i was good with this spirit but you showed me a few new tricks. Amazing video.

[@ZacharyStrebeck]

I'm awful at this game so far, and this was EXTREMELY helpful in helping me understand the overall startegic thinking here.

[@kalennoreth]

Really glad it could be helpful! Have fun destroying the invaders!

[@hanicolasha]

I just got the physical game, and it was a struggle soloing this. I learned so much by watching this - thank you!!!!

[@kalennoreth]

Welcome to the game, and glad to be of help!

[@drumtap2792]

I started playing Spirit Island 2 days ago, and after doing some research I chose River as my first spirit so I could learn the flow of the game and not become too reliant on fast powers/being too reactive instead of thinking about the long game, which I heard is a pitfall new players can encounter when starting with some of the more fast-acting offensive spirits. I've played 3 games so far and was proud of my progress as I felt I was really starting to get the hang of the play style, but man - was this video a real eye opener. I hadn't thought of rushing the card play track, because I was too scared of running out of energy. Never thought of saving cards for later turns to hit the level 3 innate faster, and the way you set up future plays by moving dahan and invaders around was so instructive. I definitely have a lot to learn about threat assessment and making the most of slow powers by trading some damage now to set up for a much better position later. I'm super excited to go back and play River a bunch more times now that I know what good play is supposed to look like. 😆

[@kalennoreth]

Welcome to the game! I really enjoyed reading your comment, it reminds me of just how much depth/flexibility there can be on a single spirit. It sounds like you have a good idea of how you're going to progress, I hope you continue to enjoy the game!

[@peterxu5043]

Tried the strategy and defeat lvl 5 Sweden. Watching this tutorial video twice with pause pays off. Thanks

[@jg2323]

Much obliged for the clear explinations on your reasonings for your choices. Many of the guides I've read for spirits tend to be vague 'depending on X or Y you might...' type things. Which, while I get the nature of the game is that it plays out very differently due to RNG and what combos of spirits, don't help much in figuring out WHY a move is a good move in the long run. You videos have been good for helping me get a more focused view on strategy for the spirits than broad generalizations most guides make.

[@kalennoreth]

Thank you for the feedback! I do try to go into great detail, and I'm glad to hear it's helping. One of the advantages (and limitations) of doing guides this way is that things can get super specific.

[@Giannis_Krimitzas]

The thing I like about your videos structure is that you present each Spirit with the strategy that works at Adversary 6. For example, I am studying this video and I thought 'this strategy cannot simply works at A6'. And guess what: Next videos River at A6 with this strategy and you crush it. You have done magnificent job and you provide a lot to Spirit Island community. Thank you

[@kalennoreth]

Thank you for the kind words! I definitely do try to showcase strategies that I think scale well, but it's probably worth noting that you will have to vary things somewhat depending on which adversary you're playing against. If River tries this game plan against England 6, for example, it's probably not going to go very well (at least in solo).

[@ConorChinitz]

Nicely done! I really like these kinds of videos.

[@kalennoreth]

Thank you, and glad to hear it! I'm planning to try and get through all the spirits in digital, so 10 more to go.

[@RatchetSly]

I've never played Rivers solo before - the rush to max level innate is a strategy I've not thought of! I tend to play River in team games as a very team support spirit; shoving invaders out of potential problem lands and into teammate damage, and tossing buff cards at them. One reason might be that a friend loves playing Ocean, which does kinda neuter Rivers' coastal damage card after the first few turns. Washing an inland town into the sea is a worthy tradeoff for that.

[@kalennoreth]

One of the things I really like about River is their ability to be both supportive AND a powerful attacker in the later game. I think this build manages to get a nice balance between those. I do love pairing them with Ocean, though, as it's wonderful to have those excellent control powers turn into destruction!

[@davidnobrega1401]

great tutorial video. Well done!

[@meatball6119]

Thanks for making the video. Great insight!

[@kalennoreth]

Glad it could help!

[@edwardstock3534]

Nice video, and very clear reasoning, thank you! At 10:40, would it be better to not remove the town using the fear card because the Dahan will destroy it anyway during the ravage and you earn 1 extra fear?

[@kalennoreth]

Absolutely, that was a mistake on my part! River needs all the fear it can get, and removing the explorer instead would have been strictly better.

[@mccrispy]

I found the River's Bounty/sacrificial Presence tactic interesting. I'm normally a bit more precious about my Presence, but I can see how the early sacrifice builds a much stronger position for the following turns.

[@kalennoreth]

Yeah, you can probably tell how much I hate those inland cities in that I'm willing to sacrifice presence/Dahan to clear them. I think one of the tricks to getting better at this game is to evaluate when it really doesn't hurt to lose presence, especially if you can gain a lot by doing so. Giving up presence is often a lot less painful than you'd expect.

[@marknemergut8244]

@@kalennoreth River can rebound quickly too with their middle Growth option of placing 2 presence as well. Excellent video, really appreciate this! I played my first game ever last night and chose River and got destroyed, but this helps from a strategy standpoint for sure.

[@kalennoreth]

@@marknemergut8244 Welcome to the game, hope you enjoy it! It can be a bit of a learning curve, so don't get discouraged!

[@marknemergut8244]

@@kalennoreth I appreciate that, thank you!

[@marknemergut8244]

@@kalennoreth FYI - I’ve won twice in a row on different island boards using similar strategies to your tutorial, your video was seriously extremely helpful! Thanks again!

[@Eatmoarantz]

Thank you so much for these videos! I just got the base game and am getting my butt kicked on even the lowest difficulty so this was very helpful. It was great seeing your train of thought. Would you recommend River as for solo beginners? Or would Lightning or the other low complexities be easier to learn?

[@kalennoreth]

Sorry for the slow reply, but thank you! I personally like River for new solo players because they tend to have the most flexibility of the low complexity spirits. Lightning is indeed my second choice, although the reclaim loop they often get stuck in makes me only recommend them if you really want to focus on offense/destruction.

[@michaelbaker7499]

I think river is the best out of the base spirits and I really love playing alongside him, mainly because my favourite spirit is ocean and the two of them synergie insanely well.

[@kalennoreth]

River will always be one of my favorites (I played them in my first game ever) and the synergy with Ocean is awesome :) Have you ever tried Ocean + Shadows or Ocean + BoDaN? They're also really cool combos.

[@michaelbaker7499]

@@kalennoreth ocean and shadows? No. Ocean and bringer of dreams and nightmares? Yes. They have insane synergy. So much fear. Ocean was the first spirit I played and he won me over straight away.

[@markusmaier8368]

Hey Kalen! First off i love your Strategy videos! Very looking forward to the other spirits coming up :) Would you maybe give a list/ranking for the spirits for Solo Play and for 2,3,4 player games respectively? Would very much appreciate that! Cause i love playing the Lightning spirit solo, but find the river much slower and I'm not sure if i could take on adverseries or scenarios on higher difficulties.. Keep up the good work!

[@kalennoreth]

Thank you! It's always nice to hear people are enjoying them! I don't really have a tier list/ranking of spirits in solo or 2-4 player at the moment. If I ever put something like that together it would probably be more of a "how enjoyable do I find this spirit in solo (or in multiplayer)" kind of thing, and be pretty subjective. Would that still be interesting, or are you more thinking of a traditional tier list? I will say that I think River has a lot of potential in solo (except for England 5+, that matchup is painful), but if Lightning is more your speed you might really enjoy Thunderspeaker or Fangs in solo if you haven't tried them out there yet.

[@markusmaier8368]

@@kalennoreth sure! I‘d still be interested 😊 as of all tier lists they are all subjective in some way - but you get a feeling what more people tend to play and a general feeling what is strong 👍🏻 as i‘m still learning the game i would appreciate it! 😁 Yeah the only downside of river are the towns which can get out of control.. i otherwise like Lightning and river both. Thunderspeaker and fangs i have yet to try.

[@-peter5905]

Agree with all the other people said. It was so enlightening! Thank you. My only question is - when you uncover the reclaim one option and then the next one, do you always perform the both of them, meaning reclaim and gain NRG or just the latter? I saw something similar with the thunder lady also and was wondering the same 😅

[@kalennoreth]

Reclaim 1, elements, and other bonuses on the tracks are always in addition to the highest uncovered number for both energy gain and card plays. Does that answer your question?

[@kylemacadam9167]

Yea decent guide. I personally prefer taking the 1 top 1 bottom track for the 2 energy on turn 1 because it prevents a build or takes out a coastal town. Especially useful against adversaries like France. It delays massive flooding nuke by one turn, but it means you can fish earlier for majors to deal with cities which are river's most problematic invader.

[@kalennoreth]

I think this also is good against England where massive flooding just doesn't do as much at top level. Then the delay doesn't matter so much, and the extra energy can let you pivot to majors.

[@FredSuckssss]

Hi Kalen! Love your videos, I want to know more for other spirits such as serpent and Keeper. Is there any way to support you into making more videos? I see your last one is 3 months ago and if this is something you like, I'd like you to continue making more videos

[@kalennoreth]

Thank you, glad to hear you're liking the videos! I have unfortunately had some real life concerns come up recently that have been delaying me, but I fully intend to get back to making guides in the near future. I will be doing some other Spirit Island content before that, starting with a livestream about an hour from now!

[@FredSuckssss]

@@kalennoreth thanks for answering! If only real life was as deterministic as this game... I understand and I'll be in the lookout for those videos/livestreams

[@rsb762]

Hi, Kalen. Your videos are crazy good. I play Spirit Island on my iPad, and I see you use a cursor. How do you do that? Keep up the good work.

[@kalennoreth]

Thank you! I play mostly on the Steam version of the app on my desktop, hence the cursor.

[@ryudd1107]

hey! so i'm pretty new to this game and I have a question. I'm curious as to why you didn't push the town on land 6 in 13:05 even though wash away can push up to three. Is it only limited to one land?

[@kalennoreth]

Yep! Generally speaking, powers target only one land and do all their effects in that target land.

[@Giannis_Krimitzas]

Hello Kalen. I have a question for you. Whenever you have time to spare, can you tell me how to handle this situation with River? Board C, vanilla game with no expansions, no adversary. The first 3 cards are in sequence: Wetlands, Sand, Jungle. I got crushed, blighted early and trying to wrap up my head to see the path but I can't seem to find it. Thank you

[@kalennoreth]

Heya! Happy to share my thoughts. Assuming I'm playing the general strategy from this video, we'll be doing a bottom track rush build. Here's what I would do: Turn 1 - I want to solve both Wetlands. Use Growth 2 from bottom track to lands 7 and 5, play River's Bounty and Wash Away. Invaders build in Wetlands, explore in Sands. Wash Away explorer + town from land 8 to land 7, use Massive Flooding to move town from land 5 to land 7. River's Bounty to spawn a new Dahan in land 5. Land 7 will be a problem if the invaders explore mountains later, but we have time to deal with that if/when it happens. Turn 2 - Land 2 is going to be hard to deal with, so I'm just going to let it blight while I take control of the rest of the board. Use Growth 2 from bottom track, putting both presence in land 4 (so now we have a sacred site adjacent to every land on the board). Reclaim One gets back River's Bounty, play all our cards. Flash Floods the explorer in land 6 to prevent the build there. Boon of Vigor for an energy. Invaders ravage in Wetlands (explorer in land 5 dies), build in Sands (just land 2), and explore in Jungles. Massive Flooding hits land 4 to kill the explorer and stop the build. River's Bounty pulls two Dahan into land 4 from land 5 and spawns a new Dahan. Turn 3 - This is our first reclaim turn and first power gain. I would take a minor power, looking for something that helps with land 1 (Jungle) or maybe land 2 (Sands). We're already willing to take a blight in land 2, so I'd prefer to focus on stopping the Jungle build. We want to play at most two cards this turn so we can max out Massive Flooding next turn, most likely playing our new minor and Wash Away. Use Wash Away to handle one of the explores this turn. Turn 4 - Time to unlock our full innate! Growth 2 (either two from bottom to get 5 card plays or one from each of top and bottom to get 2 energy/4 card plays), probably into land 2? Reclaim Wash Away and play our 4 unique powers to unlock the third level of Massive Flooding. From here out, you should be able to deal with clumps of invaders between Massive Flooding and Flash Floods (ping a city in the fast so it dies to Massive Flooding).

[@Giannis_Krimitzas]

@@kalennoreth Hello Kalen. You were very descriptive and I understood completely. Your way of playing made total sense and that was indeed the path to win this game. I am continuously trading punches with this excellent game. You'll hear again soon. Thank you for your time.

[@GendoIkari_82]

10:40 Is it a mistake to remove the town there? It would have been destroyed by the Dahan anyway which would have been a fear. Could have removed the explorer instead.

[@kalennoreth]

Yep, I believe you're correct! I was focusing a bit too much on other parts of the game, and missed that chance.

[@AzureIV]

10:05 Is there a reason you aren't playing River's Bounty here when you can reclaim it next turn? Next Growth you can choose Growth 3, get another card, and still play four cards.

[@kalennoreth]

True, we could still get four cards, but would then be relying on getting something on element from the power deck in order to get massive flooding at tier 3. It might be better to do the play you described, but I think it's slightly less consistent.

[@checho3847]

How many cards you can reclaim each turn?

[@kalennoreth]

The Reclaim One spot allows one reclaim each turn.