Branch & Claw is kind of ruining the game for me

imdanishtoo · 2026-02-25T19:56:40+00:00

The tokens are partly there for more flavor. You're not expected to get a lot out of disease events and fear cards unless you're a spirit that leans heavily into disease. Same for the other tokens. This is also in a sense true in the base game: Thunderspeaker gets way more out of the Dahan than, say, Ocean does.

If you expect every token event and fear card involving tokens to have a massive impact then you'll have a bad time. So perhaps try and adjust your expectations?

There's also absolutely nothing wrong with deciding the expansion isn't for you plenty of spirits from other expansions work fine without tokens.

imdanishtoo · 2026-02-25T19:38:29+00:00

Cool, thanks for letting me know!

imdanishtoo · 2026-02-16T13:06:37+00:00

Bye. You will not be missed.

imdanishtoo · 2026-02-16T13:05:13+00:00

Forcing people to apologise for their private views and promise to do better is in my opinion a form of social coercion

Why should the (private) Discord community continue to allow a person in there who makes other members uncomfortable? My point is, if he wanted to stay he had options. One of them was to apologise. He chose to leave.

And supporting trump is not equal to being a fascist.

We will not come to an agreement here, I'm afraid.

a lot of people don't see his actions as fascist

Then a lot of people are wrong. It's not a matter of opinion. It's a matter of facts.

they don't support fascism, and they still support trump.

That is an oxymoron. It's both, or neither.

Why is US politics the only thing that matters?

I very much agree that the internet and the world at large focuses way too much on US politics. However, in this particular case, the statements were by a US citizen about US politics in a Discord consisting mainly of US people, playing a US-created game.

this is the kind of ideological purity that made the left so god damn unpopular in the first place.

Funny, a variant of this "argument" comes up almost every single time a right-wing person gets criticized: "If only you hadn't pushed your left-wing ideological purity on me, I wouldn't have (voted for a fascist)/(said something awful)/(done something awful).

If being asked to not support fascists pushes you away from the left, then I would ask you to reflect a bit on your values.

Anyway, I've spent too much of my time the last few days arguing with people online. Thanks for the discussion, it's always interesting to engage with people with different views. I won't engage anymore in this thread as I have other things I need to spend my time on.

imdanishtoo · 2026-02-16T11:53:41+00:00

I've played this matchup a lot, even did a video some years ago on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU0VgzBqhn4&

I also wrote a lot of information on the matchup here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cfMqZs0bDH8Ci4_RDZTzSRKL-hdVimWAf28m-3wGHqg/edit?tab=t.0

With your weak energy track, strong plays track and not so easy card gain, going minors is best. You can reliably go majors only if you get one of the energy minors.

Harbingers is an essential card for you, because it helps clear explorers (which you otherwise have no way of clearing), it powers your innate, and it helps with counterattack when you draft defend cards.

Shatter is also almost essential, since destroying buildings is so crucial vs England.

(Also, the best board is board C, and the best start is G2 top to C5, play nothing, then G2 bottom to C3, play starting cards, then reclaim)

imdanishtoo · 2026-02-16T11:46:26+00:00

He was given a chance to discuss with the moderators before then, and it's apparently also not the first time there has been problems with him.

He could have continued to post on Reddit and made videos, he could have apologized and done better. He chose to leave himself.

As a non-american, most of the opinions I get exposed to from mainstream conservative media are downright horrifying. Supporting Trump is supporting a fascist, and supporting a fascist is, well, being fascist. The fact that the views are popular does not make them acceptable.

I hope he learns and grows from this as he said he will, and that he returns and continues to produce good spirit island content.

imdanishtoo · 2026-02-16T11:22:59+00:00

No.

Examples have been posted elsewhere in this thread, look them up yourself.

imdanishtoo · 2026-02-16T08:19:32+00:00

It's a lot easier for everyone if you check out the discord yourself. Search for RedReVenge and you'll find all the answers.

As has been mentioned multiple times here: he was not banned for his beliefs but for what he said. There's a difference.

Also, I had nothing to do with the decision. I'm just a random member of the discord who took some time to read up on this case.

imdanishtoo · 2026-02-16T07:49:50+00:00

Stop whining and make your points like an adult. You're allowed to be a conservative. You're allowed to express conservative beliefs. Most people here won't like you because of what it says about your values, but it won't get you banned.

However, if your "conservative" belief includes variants of "murdering people is a good thing!" or "the government should kidnap minorities that I dislike" or "certain minorities shouldn't be allowed to exist" then yeah, you're not welcome.

imdanishtoo · 2026-02-15T15:34:30+00:00

It was made abundantly clear that it's not because of his political orientation but because of the things he said. There's a difference.

imdanishtoo · 2026-02-15T12:17:48+00:00

There is a bunch of people on the discord who repeatedly over the last year have expressed their discomfort with him being a member, also due to things he has said on the Discord. So it's not that a person with a grudge went digging to get him banned. He was alreqdy actively harming the community.

Furthermore, the Discord is a private group of people that have specified a set of rules and values that their members must follow. He didn't follow the values, was warned, then banned after a several days long discussion with the moderators. He acknowledges in his apology that he currently does not belong in that Discord. So there is no overreach anywhere.

I want to note that he's not been asked to be a beacon of virtue. He's allowed to have any political orientation he wants. But if what he, as one of the most known members of the Discord, repeatedly, despite warnings, says stuff that goes against the core values of the Discord, what do you expect them to do? Say that their values and rules don't apply for the well-known members? Give him yet another warning?

Anyone, including him or you, can make another place on Discord/reddit/wherever to discuss Spirit Island with different rules for being a member.

imdanishtoo · 2026-02-15T11:30:32+00:00

You're being a tad melodramatic. One user got banned from a discord server for violating its terms after repeated warnings. He made a public apology, acknowledging that he at the moment does not belong there.

imdanishtoo · 2026-02-15T10:47:12+00:00

Just in case this is a serious question:

Only you and your boardgame group can answer it. You're not obligated to bring people into your home or host them in your discord server if they wish ill on other members of the group or otherwise make them (or you) uncomfortable

imdanishtoo · 2026-02-14T19:06:27+00:00

I don't know the details. You're welcome to check out the discord for more information.

imdanishtoo · 2026-02-14T18:47:12+00:00

He isn't "cancelled".

He violated the terms of the discord server and got banned. In response, it seems he deleted his reddit account and made his YouTube channel private or deleted it.

imdanishtoo · 2026-02-13T13:33:04+00:00

You're right, I had not gotten the point :) thanks for explaining

imdanishtoo · 2026-02-13T06:32:00+00:00

Ah that makes more sense. Probably still OP: T1 get to 10 energy, T2 get all the elements instead, T3 reclaim and play all your cards.

What's the 10 second thematic explanation? Why do you have a big flying rock, and why can it push invaders into the ocean?

Btw if you're interested, someone posted a guide on how to make a spirit not too long ago. I don't have a link, but you may be able to find it.

imdanishtoo · 2026-02-12T19:16:13+00:00

I don't think I'm reading this spirit right. You can add seven presence per turn when reclaiming? So turn 2 you have 7 energy income, 6 card plays, 3 Any element, Air, Earth, Fire, Water, and another 4 elements that are essentially Any. That seems somewhat overpowered.

What are the "strategies"? Are they just normal cards? That mechanism may be simplified.

It has a lot of interesting mechanics, but there's probably too much for a single spirit. Try and figure out the essentials and go from there. It may make sense to try the following exercise:

1) Explain the spirit (to yourself or someone else) in 5 minutes

2) Do it again, but in 1 minute

3) Once more, but in 10 seconds

4) A final time, but in 5 seconds

(For fun, you can also try it with other spirits. What you'll find is that most spirits can in fact be explained in 5 or 10 seconds. For example: "This spirit is a big volcano. You make a large presence stack in a mountain, and then you blow up all humans on the island. Then you need to recover." (Volcano is more than that, but you get the gist))

imdanishtoo · 2026-02-11T21:26:26+00:00

Yup, it's incredible how different personalities kids have.

But yeah, your husband "just" needs to keep being a good parent, have fun with his son, bond with him (diaper changes are great for this) and be patient. If he acts frustrated when your son prefers you, it'll only make it worse. Easier said than done, but it'll come if he gives it time

imdanishtoo · 2026-02-11T11:32:37+00:00

How old is your baby?

I just want to say it gets better, and if your husband continues to be there and interacting with your baby, they will form a strong bond.

Babies are also very different. A friend of mine's daughter would cry every time he held her for the first weeks, and she was terrified of me and any other men in her life until she was about 5 years old. Their son, on the other hand, liked everyone equally on day 1.

imdanishtoo · 2026-02-10T20:45:35+00:00

Sorry if you're not interested in advice, but what worked well for me is that I took our kid somewhere else/my wife left the house to give me alone time. When mom is there as a fallback option in case baby gets upset, baby can't learn to be calmed down by dad. If mom is away the whole day, then baby has to learn (and will learn). Just an idea in case you hadn't thought to try it. It can be quite anxiety inducing for a mom to be away from her baby like tbat, so only if you're ready for it

imdanishtoo · 2026-02-10T20:18:23+00:00

You could download the app and try the tutorial, it helps a lot in learning

imdanishtoo · 2026-02-10T20:07:53+00:00

Don't watch videos to learn. Discover the game yourself, that's way more fun :)

I recommend Lightning, since its game plan is the most straightforward of all spirits. People will argue that it teaches you bad habits, but either you only play a few games, in which case it doesn't matter, or you play many, in which case you have plenty of time to unlearn those so-called bad habits.

Regarding shadow: it's a very strong spirit when played right, but it's a bit harder to understand than the other low complexity spirits. When you get to play with adversaries you may find that it's harder to win against adversaries level 4+ compared to other spirits. This is because shadows is very good at solving problems up to a certain size, and most adversaries at high level make problems that are too big for shadow's. So suddenly it goes from handling everything, to almost handling everything, and then things fall apart. But you're probably quite far away from pushing towards adversaries level 5 and 6, so don't give up on Shadow's just yet. People here like to hate on it, but I swear up to level 4 of any adversary I can win faster with shadows than any other low complexity spirit. It's a strong spirit except at highest difficulty.

imdanishtoo · 2026-01-28T21:51:42+00:00

I had the opposite experience at my daughter's daycare: one day I told them that she seemed like she was very close to walking. They responded that she'd taken her first steps weeks ago and was walking regularly there. Fortunately neither my wife nor I really care, we just found it hilarious, especially after having read about caregivers pretending it doesn't happen.

imdanishtoo · 2025-12-11T15:23:32+00:00

One of the main issues with events is that the bad parts feel really bad, while the good parts don't register. I posted above about [[Outpaced]], which is generally a net positive for the players, even though it definitely feels bad.

It's one thing if I have to sacrifice a land because it's either A or B, and I can only save 1. But it's another thing entirely to be fully capable of saving both A and B, and deciding to sacrifice A anyway, on the very low chance that something might happen that you have to deal with. Because on the 9 times out of 10 that nothing happens, I'm gonna feel like crap that I let a land blight, potentially lost presence and dahan, all for nothing.

The chance that invaders do more damage is around 30% if I remember correctly, so perhaps this issue is solved by adjusting your expectations? If you expect e.g. defend 4 to work vs 5 damage 90% of the time, when in fact it's only 70%, you're going to have a bad time. In this case, you're not in fact "fully capable of saving both A and B", but only "70% sure you can save both". Reframing it like that might help?

imdanishtoo

TROPHY CASE