After game 1 last night, I have now played 2 more 2 handed games of Spirit Island—I did not procrastinate all through my work-free day, I did get started on my taxes.
Game 2
But … as previously mentioned my 2nd game was with Relentless Gaze of the Sun (aka Space Laser) and Hearth Vigil (Thunderspeaker: the next Generation). I still played without an opponent because I am out of practice and the spirits are new to me.
I felt like the two spirits had very good synergy even though they were working opposite ends of the board.
Space laser works by just burning up invaders and … burning up the land as well—until she learns to focus better (by getting cards with additional elements). She also has a power that lets her repeat card powers which is very powerful if you get the right stuff. With this one I got absolutely lucky with my card draws drafting 2 powers that let me clean up the blight she was spreading and a major power that fit perfectly: Transformative Sacrifice: destroy up to 3 presences and take (!) as many minor powers and play them for free. You get to keep those powers and Relentless Gaze has a growth option that allows her to return 3 destroyed presences to the board (well, she is pictured on the card so it makes sense that the power fits her style)
Hearth Vigil is far lower risk. It‘s a big cuddly Dahan loving hound that makes the Dahan very strong and moves with them a bit like Thunderspeaker.
Game 3
With the moderate spirits all tested, I had to go for the more complex ones and decided to just throw a Level 1 Sweden into the mix. That was almost too much for me with these two:
- Dances Up Earthquakes
- Wandering Voice Keens Delirium
If these two spirits needed soundtracks one would be Van Halen with Jump and the other would be Moonspell with Opium.l
I nearly lost it when the board was at one point completely overrun with cities(!!!) and I was getting into the Level 3 Invader cards with two land types…
But that was the round just before the Earthquake was finally finished being danced up and I destroyed so many invaders that I accumulated 4 fear cards for the following round and those just mopped up the leftovers before I could even get to the invader phase.
The last holdout somewhere in the Jungle, the Dahan would have finished them, but they ran off before I could dance up more Earthquakes. And my major powers for this game. I never got to trigger Fragments of Yesteryear because at some point the game ending came very suddenly.
Earthquake-girl is a bit slow but once the dance is done, it is quite devastating. The biggest problem here was my abysmal luck of the draw with minor and major powers always getting the wrong symbols and so it took me 2 attempts to get a really big Earthquake going (one that quakes in all the lands where I distributed my tokens and not just one of them). I really like the machinations going on here but it is definitely a risky one to play.
It didn‘t help that Delirium was a bit of a slacker. It took forever to get the tracks freed enough to power up the Incarna and then the Incarna was never quite in the right place. The powers barely triggered at all… I think I might have been to busy with Earthquakes on the other side of the island to give justice to this spirit.
And the events… all the good stuff fizzled and all the bad stuff converted my lovely Dahan into little plastic loving invaders.
But just like that Spirit Island has jumped into my solo-challenge 
Finally.
