Vital Strength of the Earth/ThommyMann's Guide

General

Lots of people look past Vital Strength of the Earth and consider it a somewhat weak character. I admit it was one of the last spirits I tried because I thought he looked so vanilla. Little did I know that I was missing out on one of my favorite spirits to play. If you've played the spirit, and found it lacking, hopefully this guide can help you start dunking the level 6 adversaries in no time.

The first two things you have to do is not care about what's printed on the card thematically. Your innate is to be utterly ignored, and 3/4 of you starting cards are going to be forgotten in the first half of the game. Your starting powers are so inefficiently expensive. Last opening tip is to think of yourself like a high energy starlight, you're looking to figure out what your game plan is based on the majors you get.

You are a tall damage spirit, meaning you're most efficient at destroying tiles with lots of invaders on them. Your best strategy for width is based on using holy sites. This means you're often best paired with wide spirits like Grinning Trickster.

A note on Aspects. Don't take them if you're looking to be stronger, with one exception. They're mostly for fun and to add variety, they aren't a patch or fix for any of the spirits. If you're playing Sweden or with Fangs, it can be a good idea to take Resilience.

Strategy

Turn 1: 2nd growth to create a holy site from energy track. If lucky it can defend from the first ravage. Gain a major power, hopefully one that costs 3 (or 4 if great for next turn). Forget Rituals of Destruction. Use major power or Draw of Fruitful Earth to deny builds whichever is better.

Turn 2: 1st growth option to reclaim, 3rd growth option if major power was not useful, really bad, or absurdly expensive. Place presence from energy track on top of an explorer who will build, preferably one with a Dahan also in their land. Play major power, possibly play guard the healing land instead.

Turn 3: 2nd growth, gain another major power. Forget Year of Perfect Stillness, except against England. Place presence from energy track to create holy site the land where you have one presence (where the explorer was and is now a town and an explorer). If there are Dahan there, this land can now be declared mostly safe all game except vs Sweden or Russia (also France and Hapsburg take some alternate considerations). Play a major power or guard the healing land.

Turn 4: 1st growth option to reclaim, take presence from card play track and again try to put it where there is an explorer that will build and hopefully Dahan.

Turn 5: 2nd growth option to gain a minor power or replace a crummy major power with another major. Add presence from card plays tack to make another holy site. You can now drop two major powers a turn way ahead of the curve.

From now on you'll start alternating 1st (reclaim) and 2nd (gain a power) grow options. Pick up minor powers too and grow down the plays track vs the energy track as suits your hand. You're main strategy is to place presence during 1st growth phases into lands building and then defending by making holy sites in 2nd growth phases.

Further Advise

You're cycling through the major and minor power decks, looking for the very best cards. And you're playing those best cards, every single turn. Soon two of them a turn, eventually 3. Your energy track easily supports 2 major powers a turn which is your goal. 4 great major powers, 2 played every turn, is the best midgame possible. Also remember Guard the Healing Land removes the blight in the fast phase, which can be the difference between flipping the blight card and not.

You've probably built up a rainy day fund from going to 6 energy while only playing one card a turn. So you can probably choose the best effects from the events in the early midgame. Which lots of strong spirits might struggle with at this point in the game. Or cast some stuff down into the briny deep, because vital earth likes to dunk his foes, and sometimes he breaks the rim.

Ignore your innate power, unless it comes up naturally late game in a happy little accident. Your real innate power is your energy track. Just take the strongest cards, and minor powers that might activate those strong cards. Don't feel beholden to Sun, Earth, and Plant energy. You've got big damage energy instead.