Relentless Gaze of the Sun

high Nature Incarnate

Relentless Gaze of the Sun

Growth (Always)

1

Gaze Action

2

Reclaim All + Add Presence

Add 3 Destroyed Presence Together

3

Gain Power Card

4

Gain Double Energy + Move Presence

Move 3 Presence Together

Presence

Energy

1

›

2

2 +sun

›

3

3 +fire

›

sun

›

4

4 +any

›

5

Cards

1

›

1

›

2

›

sun

›

3

›

Reclaim

›

4

Special Rules

RELENTLESS PUNISHMENT
After using a Power Card, if you had at least 3 in the origin land, you may Repeat it any number of times on the same target land(s) (ignoring origin, Range, and target requirements) by paying both:

the Energy cost of the Power, and
1 Energy per previous use of the Power this turn

each time you Repeat the Power.

(You may Repeat each Power Card multiple times, but its 1st Repeat costs 1 extra, its 2nd Repeat costs 2 extra, etc. Check if the origin has at least 3 when you target it the first time.)

Innate Powers

SCORCHING CONVERGENCE

Speed slow | Range

1

| Target Any

2

Move all of your

from origin land directly to target land. 1 Damage, to

/

only.

3

1

3 Damage to Invaders. 3 Damage to

. Add 1

without cascading.

4

2

1

3

if this Power destroyed any Invaders.

5

3

2

1 Damage per remaining

of yours in target land.

CONSIDER A HARMONIOUS NATURE

Speed fast | Target Yourself

3

1

When your Powers would Add

, you may Destroy 1

instead (there or elsewhere).

3

1

Your Powers don't damage or destroy

.

3

1

Choose another Spirit. They Add 1

to one of your lands.

3

1

Give up to 3 of your Energy to the chosen Spirit.

Setup

Put 2 and 1 on your starting board, in the lowest-numbered Sands.

You start with your 4 Unique Power Cards and 0 Energy.

Play Style

Uses stacks of 3 and high Energy income to hammer the same lands with repeated Power Cards. Because of its single-mindedness, is better at dealing with large problems than smaller ones.

Harms the land and while smiting Invaders unless it successfully changes its nature (by expanding into new Elements), which may mean partially foregoing the Sun and Fire that form the core of its initial strength.

Power Summary

5

offense

1

control

3

fear

2

defense

3

utility

Unique Power Cards

Strategy

General Strategy

Relentless Gaze is a high offence Spirit that can skip ravages, push invaders from multiple lands, create/move badlands, and repeat powers on the same land. Their basic strategy is to concentrate invaders into a single land, then use their badlands and repeats to clear them out. They have a unique ability to destroy (and re-add) presence instead of adding blight, drastically increasing the value of certain cards, and can set up strong reclaim loops due to their inexpensive starting hand and ability to place presence on reclaim. They support the team by accepting invaders from other boards, clearing built-up lands, and restoring destroyed presence. Their main limitation is a lack of cardplays, particularly in the early game. Here is some general advice.

Repeats have a total cost of 0 -> 1 -> 3 -> 6. So for 3 energy, you can use a 1 cost twice or a 0 cost three times.

Repeats are great, but you don't need them to solve lands. Unbearable Gaze can solve 2 lands for 1 energy, and even a single use of Focus the Sun’s Rays can stop an explore while repositioning presence.

Solving multiple lands lands with Unbearable Gaze is key to getting ahead. Get presence into a land that's building a town and adjacent to all possible explores, then move the newly built town and explorer. You need the option to repeat if the explored land already has a town.

Draft early. If you draft cards early on, you can space out your reclaim and dig until you have a game-winning combo. If you don't have cards, you'll have to reclaim a lot, which means you can't get more cards, which means you have to reclaim....

Draft a moon card. The second tier of your left innate normally adds blight, but if you have a moon and 3 suns you can destroy a presence instead.

Make Sacred Sites and Triple Stacks. Uniques need sacred sites and Special Rule repeats need triple stacks.

Destroying presence lets you reposition it on reclaim. It can be advantageous to destroy presence where it is not being used so you can immediately create sacred sites/triple stacks where you need them.

Take the Double Energy growth when you need presence movement. It’s good to save double energy for turns when you need both energy and movement (like when you want to solve multiple lands with Unbearable Gaze).

You can choose not to take blight... Gaze always places presence and excels at clearing built up lands, so it’s okay to reclaim loop Blinding Glare and stall for a few turns (normally Turns 3&4) until you’re ready to take control of the board.

...but you can also handle a blighted island. Going blighted tends to destroy lots of presence, but you can easily re-add destroyed presence. It increases the risk of cascades, but you have a skip.

The second tier of Scorching Convergence is not mandatory. The second tier of Scorching Convergence adds blight, destroys presence, and kills Dahan. Sometimes, it’s better to use the first tier only, even if you have the elements to hit the second threshold.

You can easily manage a giant dump land. You have a zero-cost skip, so you can put as many invaders as you want in a single land, skip it whenever it comes up, then pile on badlands and wipe it out at your convenience. You will need to play more proactively against adversaries with building limits.

Put Invaders and Presence in Badlands Invaders in badlands are easy to destroy. Badlands with presence can be easily reposition with Focus the Sun’s Rays.

It’s best to place badlands early. The sooner you get badlands onto the island, the more extra damage they will generate over the course of the game.

You can rush fear. Once you have 5 sun and 3 energy, you can generate 16 fear a turn with Blinding Glare, Focus The Sun’s Rays, and your left innate. This will close out games very quickly.

Starting Power Tactics

Because your Starting Powers can be repeated, you can use them flexibly to solve many different types of problems.

Withered Bodies can...

•Pick off a lone explorer

•Add a Badlands

•Add a Badlands and destroy a town (when repeated OR combined with Scorching Convergence)

•Add 2 Badlands and destroy a City (when repeated AND combined with Scorching Convergence)

Focus the Sun's Rays can...

•Pick off a lone explorer

•Destroy an explorer + town with 1 repeat

•Destroy an town + city with 2 repeats

•Deal double damage when targeting Badlands

•Move Badlands onto coasts, problem areas, or additional terrains.

•Reposition Presence to enable targeting or spike the damage of the Left Innate

Unbearable Gaze can...

•Solve two adjacent city-free lands.

•Cover back-to-backs with the option to repeat

•Push a single invader twice to create a pocket.

Blinding Glare can...

•Skip Ravages

•Generate huge amounts of Fear

•Protect against Harvest Bounty, Harvest Dust if repeated

Scorching Convergence (the Left Innate) can

•Reposition presence to enable targeting

•Destroy a town (with Badlands)

•Destroy 2 explorers and a town (with Tier 2)

•Destroy a town and a city (with Tier 2 and Badlands)

Builds

Gaze can open pure top track, pure bottom track, or go for a mixed build. While there are matchups and team compositions that heavily favor some specific builds, Gaze is a spirit that is best played contextually, without following a pre-set build path. In essence:

• Go bottom track when playing against Russia

• Go top track when planning for consistent element/card play/small action support

• Play contextually in all other situations

Check the guides section for more information on each approach.

Links to Guides

Top Track Build

Bottom Track Build

Contextual Build

Lore

From the Spirit Panel

Relentless Gaze of the Sun is an imperious Spirit, brimming with wrathful power that scorches the land barren beneath its focused regard. For long centuries, it viewed all others as beneath it, unworthy of consideration.

Yet since being thwarted during the Years of the Relentless Sun, it wonders if its pride deceives it - perhaps it should work with some Spirits and humans, rather than indulging in indiscriminate destruction?

It is still considering this idea. Regardless, the Invaders offend it by making the land fragile, forcing it into the intolerable choice between dimming its majesty and unintentionally scorching the land.

=Design Lore=

There are many Spirits of the sun and sun's light - some are gently beautiful, some are nourishing, some are aloof and barely touch the island at all. Relentless Gaze of the Sun is none of these things: it is a blazingly imperious Spirit that blasts the land with relentless heat. The tropical sun is something to respect and even fear.

The Spirit was not always like this - long ago, something happened that swelled its pride, turning its satisfaction at shining with bright and brilliant constancy into more and more of an obsession. It came to see the wilting of the land beneath as evidence of how amazing and powerful and important it was, rather than a sign of growing excess. It required rest between these bouts of intense activity, but the number of decades - and, eventually, years - between scorching bouts grew shorter and shorter, and the duration of the scorching-times grew longer and longer.

Some seaside Dahan villages figured a way to distract it, buying respite: every year before and during the dry season, they would send well-crewed boats out with shards of obsidian or reflective shell to flash the sun's brilliance back upwards, pulling the Spirit's attention slightly offshore with the apparent signs of an upstart contender for its brilliance. This held off disaster for a couple hundred years - and even after the growing hunger of the Ocean made such trips more dangerous, several Spirits of sky and heavens managed to keep the Sun's attention elsewhere... for a time.

But when its attention did return to the island, it was full of the wrath and built-up power of centuries. So began the Years of the Relentless Sun, when the Sun shone such power down on the island that it came near to devastating immense swaths of it. Several Spirits of moon and night tried to oppose it, but withered beneath the uncompromising assault; it was not until Shadows Flicker Like Flame took an interest that the Sun was effectively checked. Both Spirits came out of that confrontation somewhat the worse for wear, and are not nearly so powerful now as they were then - though perhaps this is a blessing in disguise. If they were as great in might and scale as they used to be, they would likely not be fast and nimble enough now to fight the Invaders effectively.

While it is still destructive, Relentless Gaze of the Sun has been at least somewhat tempered, and its motivations seem to be in the midst of a change. It used to act out of a sort of impersonal contemptuous fury, scourging low all who came under its gaze as an affirmation and manifestation of its power - not in an insecure way, or out of hatred, as a human might, but simply because that was its nature: to strike down those who dared raise themselves before it. But even Spirits with the constancy of Sun or Earth can change, over time, and grappling with a Spirit as shifting and protean as Shadows Flicker Like Flame may have accelerated that process. It is still a destructive Spirit, breaking down and burning up those upon whom it focuses its gaze, but it seems to be exploring the idea that 'those outside of itself' are not some homogenous mass, and that perhaps it ought to focus its contempt and fury on those actively opposing it? It is once again willing to communicate with other Spirits, and given that it's not actually trying to rule anything or boss anyone around, most Spirits are content to shrug and speak to it respectfully (if they speak to it at all), or just work around it - it is not a Spirit of great subtlety or connivance.