Spirit Island Growth, Energy, and Card Plays

The Invaders grow on a schedule. Your Spirit grows by choice. Every Spirit Phase starts with Growth, and the choices you make there decide how much you can do for the rest of the game. This lesson is about building your Spirit’s engine without stalling it.

The Spirit Phase, in order

Each Spirit does three things, always in this order:

1. Grow. Choose one Growth option and do everything in it.
2. Gain Energy equal to the highest uncovered number on your Energy track.
3. Play and pay for Power Cards, up to the highest uncovered number on your Card Plays track.

The order matters. Growth comes first, so Presence you take off a track during Growth raises your Energy or Card Plays for this same turn. Uncover a 3 on your Energy track while Growing and you gain 3 Energy a moment later.

Reading your Growth options

Each Spirit’s Growth options sit at the upper right of its panel. Pick one section, unless the panel says otherwise, and do everything shown in it, in any order. The common pieces are:

• Add a Presence within a Range of your existing Presence.
• Gain Energy, on top of this turn’s normal Energy.
• Gain a Power Card.
• Reclaim Cards: return every played Power Card from your discard pile to your hand.

Every Spirit mixes these differently, and its Growth options are its personality. A Spirit that can add Presence and gain a Power Card in one option grows fast. A Spirit whose Reclaim option offers little else will feel each Reclaim turn.

Two tracks, one Presence at a time

Your panel has two Presence Tracks. The top one is Energy per turn. The bottom one is Card Plays. When you add Presence to the Island, you choose which track to take it from, always the leftmost Presence on that track. Each one you lift reveals the next space, usually a bigger number.

Only the highest uncovered number on each track counts. They do not add up. Some spaces also give a bonus Element while uncovered, and some Spirits have a Reclaim One space that lets them return a single card to hand each Spirit Phase.

The two tracks need each other. Lots of Energy with few Card Plays leaves Energy sitting idle. Lots of Card Plays with no Energy leaves cards in your hand. Unspent Energy carries over to the next turn, but unused Card Plays do not, and neither can be given to another Spirit.

If you always feel short on Energy, the rulebook suggests four fixes: take more Presence from your Energy track, skip some of your Card Plays, choose cheaper Power Cards, or take an Energy Growth option for a turn or two.

Where new Presence should go

Presence is also how far your Powers reach, since Range counts from your Presence. And a land where you have 2 or more Presence is a Sacred Site, which many Powers need. The rulebook’s advice:

• Put Presence close enough to the Invaders to use all your Powers on them.
• Spread out, so you can work with other Spirits.
• Avoid lands about to Ravage. If Blight lands there, it destroys your Presence.

That last point costs more than it looks. Destroyed Presence leaves the game. It never returns to your track, so it is a permanent loss of growth. One more option: whenever you would add Presence from a track, you may move one of your Presence from anywhere on the Island instead. That matters most once your tracks are empty.

When to Reclaim

Played cards go to your discard pile and stay there until you Reclaim. A Spirit with four cards and two Card Plays can go two turns before its hand runs thin.

Plan Reclaim turns, do not stumble into them. A good Reclaim turn is one where the Invader track looks calm, such as a turn when the Ravage card hits lands your team has already cleared. A bad one is the turn a Stage III card lands on two terrains near your Presence.

Minor or Major?

When you gain a Power Card, choose a deck, draw 4, and keep 1. The rest go to that deck’s discard. With a Power Progression card in your first games, you take the next card on its list instead.

• Minor Powers tend to be cheaper and smaller. They fill gaps and add Elements.
• Major Powers tend to be bigger and cost more Energy. When you gain one, you must Forget a Power Card: lose it for good.

You can Forget any of your cards, even a Unique Power or the Major you just took. Forgetting a cheap card you have outgrown is often painless. Take Majors when your Energy can pay for them; a Major you cannot afford to play is a card that did nothing.

Elements and thresholds

There are eight Elements: Sun, Moon, Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Plant, and Animal. You gain a card’s Elements the moment you pay for it, Fast or Slow, and keep them until the card leaves play. Elements are never spent. A threshold only checks that you have them, so 2 Water can meet every threshold that asks for 2 Water.

Innate Powers on your panel cost no Energy and no Card Plays. They only need Elements. That makes some Power Cards worth playing just for their Elements, even when their effect has no good target. You still keep the Elements if you choose to skip a card’s effect.

Growth is an engine in miniature. Our guide to engine building games covers the same curve across Wingspan, Splendor, Dominion, and more.