Lightning's Swift Strike/Antistone's Opening
This opening doesn't seem quite as "clean" as some of the others, but here's what I've got:
-1-
Growth: 2 presence (from top)Cards: Shatter Homesteads (destroy town, 1 fear)
Placing 2 presence from the top increases energy generation, which is nice, but for Lightning it's also important to establish a second sacred site to provide range for powers (especially in large games).
We're allowed to play 2 cards, but we want to trigger our innate next turn, so we're only playing one.
Swiftness of Lightning (special rule) can make that fast; if destroying a starting town will create some lands that are out of range of exploration (taking into account the new towns that will be built first), then that's tempting. If not, you probably want to ignore the special rule and play the power slow, when it can destroy a town that's about to ravage next turn.
-2-
Growth: +3 energy, place 1 presence (from bottom)Cards: Lightning's Boon (one ally makes 2 powers fast) Raging Storm (1 damage to all) Harbingers of the Lightning (push 2 Dahan; 1 fear if buildings)
This triggers your innate, Thundering Destruction, letting you destroy another town. Remember that you can use your special rule to make this fast, too.
Raging Storm should be comboed with another hero to destroy buildings, or else used on a location with only explorers to prevent a build action.
Harbingers of the Lightning should ideally put Dahan in a land another spirit is defending; alternately, you can put them in a ravaging land where you destroyed the buildings so that they can mop up the explorer.
If you need to destroy invaders faster, it can also be used to pack Dahan into some place that's about to ravage for 3 damage (town+explorer); one of the Dahan will die, but the surviving ones will counter-attack.
-3-
Growth: Reclaim, gain a power (minor), +1 energyYou have high enough energy generation that you can play at least Shatter Homesteads + Lightning's Boon + Harbingers of the Lightning and trigger your innate again. If you want, you can reclaim multiple turns in a row to keep doing that--but that means no presence placement. However, if you don't reclaim on turn 4, you won't be able to play 3 cards on both turns 3 and 4.
Variants:
On turn 1, you can play Lightning's Boon or Harbingers of the Lightning instead of Shatter Homesteads if you want. Playing Lightning's Boon first will force you to play one power slow on turn 2 (since you'll have 4 slow powers but only 3 air elements).If playing in a one-spirit game, Lightning's Boon does very little to justify its energy cost. In that case, you might consider playing NO cards on first turn, and then playing everything except Lightning's Boon on turn 2. However, again, this means you won't have enough air elements to make ALL of your powers fast on turn 2, so you'll need to pick one to resolve slow.
If someone can give you 2 extra energy on turn 1 (e.g. Ocean's Hungry Grasp with Tidal Boon), you can play no cards on turn 1, then place 2 presence from the bottom track on turn 2 and play all 4 of your starting cards.
Remarks:
Most spirits really want to use all their card plays every turn, but Lightning has a very easy time getting lots of card plays and a hard time getting lots of cards to spend them on, so that may not always be practical.This makes it less likely that you want any major powers, and also means effects that let you gain extra power cards are really nice--see if any player can pick up Gift of Minor Power, and try making friends with Keeper of the Forbidden Wilds or Serpent Slumbering Beneath the Island.