A Spread of Rampant Green

General Strategy

• Growth: Unlike the other core-game Spirits, it has a two-part Growth: you always add a Presence to Jungle or Wetland, in addition to a choice from the right. Given that one of those three also adds Presence, Rampant Green will get Presence out more quickly than just about anyone. The choices on the right give a good variety of options, though "+1 Card Play this turn" is unusual - A Spread of Rampant Green can choose to spike its activity in a way most Spirits can't.
• Presence: Its Presence tracks are some of the worst we've seen: its Energy gain is barely better than Ocean's Hungry Grasp, and its Card Plays are as low as Vital Strength of the Earth's. This appearance is slightly deceiving, since it can play Presence faster than other Spirits, and it has the option of temporarily boosting its Card Plays via Growth - but still, it's not exactly super-strong here.
• Special Rules - Choke the Land with Green: Here's a powerhouse of an ability! A Spread of Rampant Green can entirely shut down a Ravage or Build in a land where it has a Sacred Site. And with the ability to play 2 Presence in a single turn, it can make a Sacred Site on-demand (in a nearby Jungle or Wetland, at least). It does have to destroy one of those Presence...
• Special Rules - Steady Regeneration: ...but it can eventually regrow, placing destroyed Presence back onto the board. This regeneration isn't just useful for Choke the Land with Green; it could also be critical for maintaining Presence once the Island becomes Blighted, albeit at a cost in Energy. Of course, placing destroyed Presence is worse than placing new Presence, so this ability is most useful in later game.
• Innate Power - Creepers Tear into Mortar: 1 damage to a Town or City isn't very good - by itself it does nothing. But the higher levels of this innate permit either destroying a single Town/City outright, or spreading out single points of damage to finish off multiple damaged population centers. The targeting is pretty restrictive, although A Spread of Rampant Green does tend to want to get up close + personal with the Invaders, and will have more Presence out than most Spirits.
• Innate Power - All-Enveloping Green slows down the Invaders' Ravaging through sheer volume of greenery. Defend 2 isn't much, but it reduces the damage of (1 Explorer + 1 Town) from 3 down to an insignificant 1, so it's useful in a commonly-occuring situation. Similarly, Defend 4 can just-barely-guard against (1 Town + 1 City). This Innate differs in several ways from the ability to prevent Ravages altogether via Choke the Land with Green: it allows Dahan counterattacks, it can be performed at a greater range, and it doesn't destroy Presence - but it requires certain elements, can only be done once/turn, and is limited in how much damage it can stop. The two dovetail nicely to provide defense in a wide range of situations.

Both Innates require a lot of Plant to activate. Two is available via the Energy Presence track; let's look at the Unique Powers:

General trends:

• For elements, it has 4 Plant, 2 Water, 2 Moon, and 1 Sun. It'll have little difficulty in hitting 3+ Plant as the game goes on; its ability to trigger Innate Powers is more likely to revolve around its secondary elements of Moon and Water. (Some have asked why it uses Moon rather than Sun. While all plants gain energy from sunshine, on a conceptual/spiritual level, A Spread of Rampant Green is more strongly aligned with the Moon aspects of regrowth and transformation than with Sun aspects like day, light, heat, dominance, constancy, focus, and command.)
• They're not super-expensive, averaging less than 1 Energy each. In early game, Energy looks tight, so this will probably be helpful. Green powers up quickly, though, and by late game will probably have the leftover Energy to use one or two of the more affordable Major Powers.
• There's not much offense or Fear, and what there is is restricted. In a smaller game, A Spread of Rampant Green will probably need to take damage / fear-dealing Power Cards. (In a larger game, it can just keep the Invaders in check while everyone else powers up to hammer them.)

Specific cards:

• Fields Choked with Growth forces the relocation of a single Town - or of multiple Dahan, since they know how to listen to the message being sent. Nicely inexpensive, though Slow, so using it to best effect will require understanding how the Invaders are going to act.
• Gift of Proliferation lets another Spirit add a Presence, ramping them up faster (in both board presence and Presence tracks) than they otherwise would. This can be especially effective for Spirits with limited ability to place new Presence (as their Presence tracks tend to grant greater benefits per placement) or for Spirits with good late-game payoffs at the end of a long Presence track.
• Overgrow in a Night lets A Spread of Rampant Green get even more Presence on the board - and at Fast speed, so it can be used to set up its Choke the Land With Green ability! The Fear option is probably more of a situational / late-game use for this Power Card, since getting additional Presence onto the board is so good.
• Stem the Flow of Fresh Water does damage - to just one Town/City in lands with plentiful water, to all Towns & Cities in Mountains and Sands (where water is harder to come by). This is a tricky card to use effectively: it needs to combo with other powers to actually destroy anything, and while it works quite well with the "Creepers Tear into Mortar" Innate, it doesn't provide Moon so is of limited use in triggering it. It's Slow and targets from a Sacred Site, so any Sacred Site you dismantle during the Invader Phase (by using it for Choke the Land with Green) won't be available to target this Power from. Finally, it's at its most effective in the two terrains that are harder for Rampant Green to get into. However, if you do set it up well, it can wipe out multiple Towns/Cities... and for a damage-dealing Power, it's incredibly cheap.

Overall A Spread of Rampant Green is - both metaphorically and literally - a grappler that goes to close quarters and pins down the Invaders, holding them in check while the Spirits grow in power. It will need to rely on allies, new Power Cards, and/or the Dahan to help it out with damage and fear, but can also help its allies to develop faster. It has to manage the tradeoff of when to sacrifice Presence to prevent Ravages / Builds, and benefits notably from a bit of foresight, so is a medium-complexity Spirit: fine once you've internalized how the Invaders act, but not good for a first play.

Links to Guides

Antistone's Opening[↗]

Phantaskippy's Guide[↗]