u/Remote-Ad-3848

No adversary because testing.

Herald of the many Footed is a relatively simple Spirit that knows EXACTLY what it is and what it wants to do: it's a glass cannon that wants to fuck up buildings and killing shit.

Despite it's relative simplicity, it has more depth that what the previous description might led you to think. The combination of Poisonous Base, Collateral Damage and Ever Moving Swarm is both your greatest asset and your most glaring weakness, because it heavily encourage clustering, which while it's true that it makes your toolkit more effective, it also makes it so that any beast removed is almost GUARANTEED to take one your presences away. And if you're unlucky, the only available presence will be from your sacred site, which will in turn turn off Poisonous Base, meaning you can't kill the city/town and... You get the point.
It might sound a bit far-fetched, but I got REALLY close to that specific situation TWICE due to the Beast Attack event, so it's certainly something you have to take into consideration.

That said, the spirit is very good at taking out threats, even if the lack of real control effects makes it so that you have to play a little bit catch-up .

Herald also can struggle to reliably trigger Terror of What's to Come, but unless you're very close to the end of the game it shouldn't matter as much as triggering Overrun by Insects.

Rise of Termites is your best card, and it might be a tad too strong in my opinion. Certainly doesn't need the Fast version, and for something that can effectively triggers itself... Yeah, that card feels a tad overturned.

Now, because I play without adversaries and without scenarios, I have to point out that hyper-aggressive glass cannons like Herald tend to become a bit "feast or famine" whenever you increase the difficulty, especially against Russia for obvious reasons.

Since a few people have asked, I decided to share it.
Here's a step by step guide on how I do it:

1. get a 2/3mm thick cardboard and trace the measurement of a Spirit Board

2. cut out the shape with an xacto knife or a box cutter

3. print out the homebrew Spirit you want to make the board for

4. cut out the the Spirit board

5. swear like a sailor because you fucked up the measurements of the print

6. get a correctly measured print and cut it out

7. pour tons of craft glue on the cardboard cutout

8. spread it evenly with a wet brush

9. line up the print and glue it

10. wait for it to dry. Don't panic if the cardboard starts to bend

11. use an xacto knife or a box cutter to remove the excess paper and/or the excess cardboard

12. flip the cardboard and do the same thing on the other side. Check to make sure not to glue the print upside down

13. use craft glue and a wet brush to seal the corners as best as you can. this is important because it'll prevent your board from peeling off in the future

14. spray some generous amount of protective film to avoid scratches (there are professional ones, but hairspray is a good cheap option)

15. get the printo of the Spirit cards and cut them out

16. make sure to line up the front and back

17. glue the front and the back together

18. cut the excess papaer so there are no white bits on either sides

19. sleeve the cards

20. start playing

No adversary because testing.

Gravekeeper is a relatively simple Spirit that commits to a simple gimmick and does its job remarkably well.

At its core, Gravekeeper can only put down presence by killing Invaders. It's a simple gimmick, but has a handful of things to consider.

First thing, it can struggle to get where it wants to go. It is remarkably slow, but once it gets where it wants to, it's not going to move.

Second, if Gravekeeper doesn't have diseases to use Those that Stayed Died to Disease it's going to have a rough time handling the massive influx of Explorers that pop out thanks to There is no Army Without Soldiers. Which means, paradoxically, that you almost always want to put a disease in the slow phase, immediately after the Invaders have built. Luckily, that's not exactly a hard thing to do thanks to Your Brother Does Not Remember You.

Overall, it's a pretty powerful Spirit, but I can see it struggling against certain Adversaries. I can also see it pairing exceedingly well with spirits like Breath of Darkness Down your Spine, which is probably the best Spirit partner since it helps both with picking up leftover explorers and by carrying Gravekeeper's presence wherever it needs to be

No adversary because testing.

So, this was by far the closest match I ever had, literally coming down to one fear card flip. It was a fun match, and thankfully it allowed me to understand the jist of how Storm wants to play.

Effectively, Storm wants to be a hyper-mobile Volcano Looming High. It sounds a bit counter-intuitive, especially looking at the cards, but that's because the main tool Storm has is the innate Storm Torrent the Invaders. It's an exceedingly good power that did 90% of the work, and in order to make the most out of it, you want to feed surround the target land with as many presence as possible and dump as much energy into it.

Unfortunately, gathering energy for Storm is... A bit convoluted. Or at least, that's how it's going to feel like at first. Your growth option that grants energy depends entirely on how much Vapor you have, which is the amount of presence you have moved into the ocean (plus a couple extra effects). If you set this up correctly, you can gain a significant amount of energy (in my case, 8), condensate all that vapor (aka, put you vapor presence back on the island) and absolutely wreck a land thanks to the Protect X and Deal X damage to a land. I never got to use the third tier ability because I misunderstood the play style of this spirit turn 1 and 2, which forced me into a very bad situation, but that power should pretty much be a game over for almost any solo game.

That said, the spirit does struggle to gain new power cards, which it can only do thanks to one effect on the bottom track (which I never used because I was scraping by for energy for most of the game) or thanks to Eye of the Storm, which is arguably your strongest card.

Overall, Storm is an extremely technical but very fun Spirit that can create some frankly ridiculous power swings if you can set up the board correctly

No adversary because testing

I played two games because during the first one I got so obscenely lucky with the draw the game was basically won turn 2. (In case you're wondering, I reached fear level 2. I just didn't flip the last fear card)

So, Violent Death is a very interesting Spirit because it has no Growth option that allows it to place Presence. Instead, in order to place Presence it needs to gather Dahan/Invaders that die in its land and use them to empower itself. In theory that means it should be very "feast of famine", but it doesn't really feel like that. The growth is slower, but the spirit itself is surprisingly reliable at being where it needs to be to pick up those souls and I can only assume it's only going to be insane if combined with something like Ocean or Volcano (now that's a funny idea...).

The cards and the powers themselves are quite powerful, but they kinda have to be because turn 1 and 2 feel like you're trying to catch up.

One thing I noticed is that despite having a very mobile growth option, often times you want to use it offensively to set up Ashes to Ashes, which can be combined with Return Of Those Who Were Lost presence placing for some surprising damage bursts that are exceedingly satisfying to pull off.

Fear Is For The Living is a bit of a basic innate, but it is very reliable fear for a spirit whose entire toolkit feels very surgical in its approach, but at the end of the turn it feels a bit like a reward for having completed the turn.

Overall, I think this spirit might be quite susceptible to different scenarios and/or adversaries, but that's for someone else to comment on. I don't play enough adversaries or scenarios to be the judge of that

No adversary because testing.

Breath of Guardian Flora is an interesting Spirit that almost entirely depends on the presence of Wilds.

That would make you think it is a control spirit, which... Fair, it does offer a lot of control tools, but imo this is primarily a fear spirit.

Not only it is incredibly easy to generate fear with Breath, but the combination of fear + downgrade makes it so that reaching a fear Victory is even easier.

Now, while the spirit is pretty strong, it also require a decent amount of planning because it's stronger tools rely on putting down a lot of Wild tokens, which require some forward planning, but it's nothing too complex, it just makes it slow to react and that is probably going to be a bit of an issue in certain scenarios or with certain adversaries.

Regardless, it is a pretty fun Spirit that will do well both solo and in combo with other Spirit

No opponent because testing

So, this marks my first loss in this series.

Deathgrip is... Complicated to talk about. It is an ok spirit, but its main mechanic, the use of fear cards, is swingy at best and completely pointless at worst.

Apart from some VERY bad luck in drawing events, flipping two or three fear cards in a single turn only to discover they don't help you at all isn't fun at all and that happened to me more than once. Although, to be perfectly clear, I did interpret the rules as "get a FACE DOWN fear card and pay 1 energy to reveal it + activate it", which might be the reason I lost the game.

The spirit is also VERY energy hungry, which is more of a personal taste than anything but it feels like something worth mentioning.

Overall, this spirit feels like something that could get a lot of success as a dedicated support Spirit in a 2 or even a 3 player game, since it can produce a surprisingly reliable amount of fear, can dish reliable amount of chip damage and a move 2 + fear card + 2 moon is a great growth option for moving around

No adversary because testing

First thing to note about Eerie is how weird the spirit feels. You start with all your presence on the island and slowly put it back on the board.

Similarly, you WANT to forget cardsto get access to your powerful ability EMBRACE NOTHINGNESS. As a result, you're going to run through your power deck quite quickly.

It's definitely not an easy spirit to use, because it forces to re-learn (or at least stop and really think) how the game is played.

That said, the spirit is strong.

To be perfectly fair, I did get quite lucky with the power cards, but that's not saying much when you get two draw one growth effects.

The energy generation is... Shockingly consistent. I took the +2 energy growth option turn 1 and NEVER used it for the rest of the match because of SEEK OBLIVION second effect.

The one issue this spirit has are cities. It REALLY struggles against cities, but it does have a good deal of tools to prevent their construction until it can get the final ability of EMBRACE NOTHINGNESS, which is the only way for this spirit to handle cities without multi-card combos. Although I have to admit I only have the physical version of the base game + Branch and Claw, and badlands is certainly going to help out a lot.

Overall a pretty fun spirit that led to a fun, if a bit on the easy side, match

No adversary because testing.

Buzzing Breeze has a very complex track, but once you start playing it it's surprisingly easy to pick up. The powers are pretty straightforward, but balancing board movement and spirit track shuffling can be quite tricky. I, for once, focused a bit too heavily on the top/left sections of the track, which left me starved for energy.

I got a few unlucky events that blighted the island, but overall I found it pretty good at stalling builds and manipulating the board (no surprise there), but the lack of reliable damage can make it quite tricky to handle.

Overall I did enjoy it quite a lot. While a single game isn't enough to fully judge its capabilities, it didn't feel overpowered (if anything, it felt underpowered, but it's probably due to my sub-optimal decisions turns 1-3)