Spirit Island: Favorite Spirit Tier List: UPDATED

[@davypi2]

I've spent so much time (really, too much time) on the digital app. Watching this has made me remember how much fun a lot of the NI spirits are. I need to get back into playing physical more often.

[@CheeseDud]

Gonna change your profile picture now that Dances has boogied down into F tier? Really enjoyed watching this one. Can definitely see your playstyle from your picks.

[@RedReVenge007]

The artwork is so beautiful!

[@markmittelbach7975]

As someone who's favorite spirit is Transforming wildfire I'm glad you found it a blast to play with, because I knew you hadn't played it much so didn't know what you though of playing with it. It's not crazy strong but it's good and it can combo in a lot of different ways which makes figuring out combos really exciting. I hope to see you try it on the channel sometime. Only downside for me is I do not find it fun to play solo. It can work, but I don't enjoy it at all.

[@sarahsloot2290]

My partner used to play Ocean almost every game, and I like playing with Ocean but it’s so tiresome ad nauseum. So one day I grabbed the Ocean tile immediately, after the game: “I get it now, you’re doing a lot with that inland, I’ll mix it up more”. Also now they draft a lot more inland help when playing Ocean. 🎉

[@lawrancelittle338]

That’s sad, I personally love the mentor aspect of memory. Love the vid though 😊.

[@onnisnare244]

Same! Definitely spirit that likes synergistic combos, but I think it also offers delightful team effort from the table to figure out how to best utilize its cards. In our group I feel like everyone wants to always immediately know what cards they got and start barter for them😂

[@lawrancelittle338]

@@onnisnare244 I also like the theme behind it as well, the old wise spirit that is willing to teach other spirit it’s powers and knowledge. It’s also such a cool spirit for teaching newer players 😁.

[@roncadwallader6410]

I wanted to like Mentor but the take 2 instead of draft just kills it for me. Memory feels consistent but this puts you at the mercy of good/bad draws. Maybe I need to play it with a higher player count or with spirits to give me more powers.

[@rmlains]

WHOA tier list maker, haha. Hope it made the vid a bit easier to record!

[@AndreasVNesje]

While I agree with most stuff, I'd place Lair in S-tier personally. Lair is probably my favorite aspect, it's such a great way to play. Not so powerful it trivializes any matchup, but sooo much fun! You need to shake off the feeling of "My board, your board", and I think any spirit that breaks the pattern from regular games are great. Lair pairs great with any control+fear spirit, such as breath and MM. So much fun into England. Thing is, you need to embrace it. "Lair stole my Dahan, It's so frustrating" no no, it's more like "i helped build up OUR lair so now it has 10 Dahan and 30 explorers and pulls everything into it every turn". It's so great. I love it.

[@thomashantgin5124]

wildfire just scares me tbh. i’m interested to see transforming wildfire tho

[@Serpent_gang]

Cool tier list and pretty accurate overall (except for serpent of course, this is an SS tier spirit)🐍🐍🐍

[@Infinity-0033]

My favorite spirit too, however I enjoy all of them more or less

[@chosenoneunmatched4617]

Thanks for the effort you put in..particularly also ranking the aspects. Poor Shadows. Hehehe. The only thing I'd add is, I think you probably are TOO good at the game. You see "the matrix" as it were. Win conditions, vs high level adversaries, multiple spirits etc... One of the things I personally live in this game is the strong theme of the spirits...which is why my tierlist would probably be a bit dull...since, I really do love most of all the spirits. Rising Heat, and Devouring are ones I struggle with, because I can't place their themes, and how they differ from othet spirits already in the game. Do my brain doesn't quite "get them" How would you describe them? Rising heat kinda feels, like a damagey spirit with similarity to River. Devouring feels like Ember, or even Rising himself... just damage. Do you have a way of looking at them thematically to differentiate them from other established spirits? I also struggle a bit with Towering and Keeper in the same vain. Anyways...great stuff. Appreciated. Always liked your tierlists...shame it wasnt over an hour long...i personally love the deeper dives into each spirit. 😁👍👍

[@cmckee42]

I would love to see more Nourishing and Encircle games!

[@WeirdestMars]

I can’t wait for all the spirits to be on digital. Have the battle is set up and finding people to play with

[@lovingwords472]

How much are you willing to play suboptimally on spirits that are already broken? With a spirit like Voice i always battle between going for the more fun game or the one i know will win. Nust wondering if you might enjoy a spirit like dances more if you played a suboptimal but still game winning strategy.

[@RedReVenge007]

For myself, it feels bad to play suboptimally.

[@cmckee42]

Travel River: how the mighty have fallen!

[@Anna-vx2pe]

I really wanna get back into the game and really dig into locus. Once finals are done I may have to.

[@RedReVenge007]

Locus is a blast to play!

[@kunkudunk1133]

I’m in a similar boat with dances. I love the theme but it makes the game very predictable. On top of that, often I’ve seen people do almost nothing while building their quake and risk triggering the loss condition or just getting tons of blight (or both).

[@johnboi3933]

"I don't like how this spirit does the same thing over and over again... C Tier" *then proceeds to put Stone in S tier* lol I love these personal tier list vids. You love what you love and hate what you hate and sometimes the reasons dont make sense #toptrackstone

[@RedReVenge007]

Stone's Reclaim Loop is very different than Lightning or River's Reclaim Loop.

[@Reasonably_Andy]

When Stone reclaims it's (likely) playing different cards each turn. The reclaim isn't about "I need all my cards back" so much as it's about "I need the extra 2 earth for flexibility and I'm placing presence anyway." Lightning will *eventually* play some different cards, but River rarely does since the uniques already do everything it needs to.

[@RedReVenge007]

@@Reasonably_Andy Another thing is, River and Lightning Reclaim loops keep it's progress halted. While Stone's continues to excel via presence placement.

[@Quezell]

@@Reasonably_Andystone is also still accumulating new powers as you reclaim loop from your presence track so its just like the reclaim is happening as a tack on almost

[@ragnar3434]

Does immense reach D tier if the player knows not be greedy and doesn't forget their own support power for a major? Are there any spirits that can manage that?

[@RedReVenge007]

Probably not. The Spirit is Feast or Famine. It either completely trivializes the matchup or dies a horrible death.

[@hunteriv4869]

@@RedReVenge007 This is my biggest issue with it. I really *wanted* to like Immense when it came out because I like that it has a similar play concept to Memory but without all the token juggling and land watching that makes base Memory annoying for me. The problem is that it simply doesn't see enough cards. Memory can still combo a major with one of the uniques to keep up some board interaction outside the major and keeps growing even while reclaim looping, but Immense has to either pick up some minors to throw away or toss away their starting hand (slowly) and hope for some game controlling majors to orient around. And if you get mediocre majors it just...doesn't do much, and is frustrating to play. Frankly, there's nothing Immense can do that a Starlight major build or even Memory can't do simply better and more efficiently. This wouldn't be so bad if Immense had a smooth and straightforward play style, so decent for beginners, but Lightning's growth pattern simply doesn't work well with majors IMO, so I find my first few turns are virtually useless and I end up in a non-growing reclaim loop halfway through the game and either win or lose on that basis. It just feels bad. I'd love to see some modifications to the original aspects after the NI release as so many of them are really well designed (with a couple exceptions I'm not a fan of). You can tell the design team has really learned a lot with NI in making things both balanced *and* interesting to play.

[@brianmurphy9039]

That Delta on Shadows vs. Stranded though ... As a frequent shroud player I'll never play base shroud again but from B to F tier? when you hit the 3 or 4 plays shroud , Daaammmnnn . Sure some times depending on advisory / board/draw base can lose before that 3 or 4 play setup and having to trust fall in to fear cards to almost meme levels (especially solo vs. 6-7+ diff advs is tough) . Especially after ranking Vengeance so high I would expect base shroud to move up a bit . same "wait till end game when I'm a monster" framework but with the added bonus of early game helping Wildfire/Green/other frequent low damage spirit keep a presence and kill with remainder damage on cities with extra fear and energy generation. almost feels complete reverse ocean to me. ocean give bonus kills to what spirits can already kill and gets Exponentially weaker with each player, shroud feels stronger with more options to help and leach from. That Isolate does help SO, SOO , SOOO much though. early game it seems like luck of the draw, Mid is where it really helps and end game you are either hopeless or are so far ahead that you are wantonly giving it out cause it doesn't matter. all that being said I'll still play stranded shroud as my spirit for teaching newbies playing the base 4 as it emphasizes blight and growth as controllable resources , fear as a requirement and learning that the sooner you stop the invaders with denial , the farther you are ahead in the game. Stopping an explore is 3 turns ahead, stopping a build is 2 turns ahead and stopping a ravage(or no counter defend) is stopping this turn only.

[@roncadwallader6410]

I kind of get your point on Keeper, it is overpowered but i love it. You are still playing the game though. Dances on the other hand is stupid, the boom turn just makes everything else irrelevant, not a fun play pattern.

[@ragnar3434]

Oh hey, someone else doesn't like earthquake. Both times I played it, i think I made the right decision about 20 percent of the time and still annihilated the enemies. So what's the point then? I could crank the difficulty, but I personally didn't enjoy the core conceit of the spirit enough in the first place. It just doesnt have a place in my life.

[@Asternius]

I dont get the Dances rating? If it wins turn 4 with that one specific build and it ruins the spirit for you, just dont play that build.

[@RedReVenge007]

You can't control how other players pilot the Spirit.

[@Asternius]

@@RedReVenge007 that's true. love the video and the content!

[@MorBor23]

I wish they have done better playtesting on that spirit…

[@kotgaf7332]

Don't get your point on the Eyes. Yes, it's powerful but it's totally boring, and doesn't have any really interesting descions, imo.

[@RedReVenge007]

Decisions for Eyes: Drafting 0s vs 1 cost plants. Variety of viable builds. ~Fast Tempo ~TT Midrange ~Pure bottom track Reclaim loop. Dahan minigame where you don't overextend for full counter attacks resulting in Dahan getting stranded. Growth into Jungles vs Growth into other lands. Push/Pull between card usage such as Abductions vs Guidance Combo potential with Boon of Watchful Guarding.

[@davypi2]

F Tier - Stop liking things that I don't like!

[@MarceloKuchiki]

so much "i don't like when people play this spirit" or "when other people pick this spirit the game just..." i really like your gameplay videos and your game analisys. but i entered this video to see your favorite spirits for you to play with and the excessive concern with how other players play them made me leave the video early. yet tierlist videos are problematic by themselves, i think... some spirits go to S tier purely based on their power, some just because you like them without a specific reason, some go down just cause you don't like when someone else pick them, some are placed randomly due to you not playing them enough and finally the thematic aspect is mostly ignored... i don't know... things are all over the place. i know its your list of your own favorite in the end of the day, regardless of what criteria you use. i just think for a better viewer experience you could have defined specific criteria beforehand like: theme, power, build diversity, complexity, fun to play in team, etc and them kind go over each point for each spirit... however i reckon it would be too much work for a simple tierlist video. but that's just me... and this video specifically, just wanted to leave some feedback since i enjoy your content overall.

[@RedReVenge007]

I appreciate your feedback! None of the Spirits on this list are rated highly due to power. It's due to what I consider to be fun play patterns and mechanics. Now it is true that powerful Spirits tend to yield fun results! Or atleast that's my opinion. I did list out the criteria at the start of the video and I completely understand if you disagree with my criteria.

[@andrewtate6401]

How a spirit plays with others seems like a valid trait to consider.