Reclaim Economy
Reclaim is the quietest Growth option in Spirit Island and the one most often discussed by its community-canonical terms — reclaim cycle, reclaim loop, cumulative energy. When you internalize Reclaim as an economy rather than a button you press when you run out of cards, whole spirit archetypes open up.
This chapter codifies that economy.
The rule
Reclaim (Growth option on most spirits): retrieve all your played Power Cards back into your hand.
That’s the whole rule text. The strategic depth is in when you Reclaim — which determines how often each Unique can fire across a game.
Key terms (community notation)
From latentoctopus’s canonical glossary, lifted into this book:
- Reclaim cycle: the turns between one Reclaim (inclusive) and the next Reclaim (exclusive). A 4-turn reclaim cycle means you Reclaim on T1, play cards T1–T4, Reclaim again T5.
- Reclaim loop: a reclaim cycle of length 1 — you Reclaim every turn. Lightning and Grinning Trickster can sustain this; most spirits cannot.
- Cumulative Energy (CE): total energy you’ve gained via Growth across the game. Track this — it’s the denominator for every Reclaim-amortization calculation.
Why Reclaim is an economy, not a button
Each card you play is “spent” — it lives in your discard until Reclaim brings it back. So the number of times you can fire a given Unique over a game is bounded by:
Plays per game = (total turns) ÷ (reclaim cycle length) × (CP available those turns, capped at hand size)
Working example — Shadows on an 8-turn game:
| Reclaim cycle | Plays of Concealing Shadows |
|---|---|
| 4 turns (reclaim T1, T5) | 2 full Reclaims × 4 CP ≈ 6–7 plays (capped by CP each turn) |
| 2 turns (reclaim T1, T3, T5, T7) | 4 Reclaims × 2 CP each ≈ 8 plays, but you gave up a Growth slot 3 extra times |
| 1 turn (loop) | 8 plays, but every turn burned on Reclaim Growth |
The faster you Reclaim, the more times each card fires — but the fewer Growth slots you have for energy, presence placement, and new card gains. Reclaim cycle is a resource allocation, not a convenience.
The four reclaim archetypes
Spirits cluster by how they approach Reclaim economy:
1. Reclaim-loopers
Every turn is Reclaim + 1 CP (or 2 CP if the spirit has a Growth branch that stacks Reclaim with other gains). The Uniques fire every single turn.
Spirits: Lightning’s Swift Strike (classic — 1-CP plays, all Fast, fires every turn), Grinning Trickster (loop opening variant), Shadows on specific openings.
Draft consequence: Majors that you play once per loop cycle are devastating. Powerstorm’s “Repeat a card you played this turn” with a 1-turn loop means every turn Powerstorm doubles another card. Minors are underdrafted — you don’t need volume when each card fires 6–8 times.
2. Short-cycle reclaim (2–3 turns)
Reclaim every 2nd or 3rd turn. The dominant pattern for moderate-complexity spirits.
Spirits: Downpour Drenches the World (opening 1), many Shroud openings, Keeper variants.
Draft consequence: Minors that add elements matter, because you play them multiple times per cycle. Majors are viable but you need ≥2 cycles left to amortize them (see Forget Economy in Major vs. Minor).
3. Long-cycle reclaim (4+ turns)
Reclaim once or twice in the entire game. You’re playing a slow, card-accumulation strategy — the Reclaim happens only after the hand is fully depleted.
Spirits: Vital Strength of the Earth, Stone’s Unyielding Defiance, most heavy-Major shoppers.
Draft consequence: Each card played matters a lot — maybe it fires twice the whole game. Forget cost is enormous (you’ll rarely re-play a forgotten Unique). Majors here need to be game-closing; a Major played once and never again is exactly the “just take the shiny” trap the Major vs. Minor chapter warns against.
4. No-reclaim (or reclaim-irrelevant)
Some spirits rarely Reclaim because their card economy is structured elsewhere. Shifting Memory of Ages can re-gain Forgotten cards (a Reclaim analogue); Fractured Days can replay other spirits’ cards; Serpent has its own card-slot math around being Dormant.
Draft consequence: the Reclaim cycle math doesn’t apply — use the spirit’s specific card-economy chapter.
When to Reclaim
The decision usually reduces to three questions, answered in order:
- Am I about to be handlocked? If you’ve played 3 of 4 cards and the one in hand doesn’t match next turn’s needs, Reclaim now rather than wasting a turn drawing air.
- Does the Growth slot have a better alternative this turn? Energy gains, presence placement, and card gains all compete with Reclaim. If the board state or adversary cliff demands one of the others, Reclaim later.
- Am I at the end of my reclaim cycle anyway? If your cycle is 4 turns and you’re on turn 4, Reclaim and get on with it. Don’t squeeze an extra turn out of a cycle that’s already paid.
You should almost never Reclaim with more than 1 card still in hand. If you have 2 cards in hand and you Reclaim, you paid a Growth slot to “refresh” a hand that wasn’t empty — a ~50% Reclaim inefficiency on that cycle. Exceptions: the Growth branch bundles Reclaim with another gain that was worth taking on its own; you’re setting up a specific card-combination next turn.
Reclaim + Repeat stacking
Spirits with native Repeat access (Lightning’s Powerstorm, Gift of Strength in hand, Keeper’s Innate) see Reclaim’s effective card count multiply. A Lightning loop with Powerstorm means:
- Reclaim (every turn) → 2 CP → Powerstorm + one target → target plays twice.
That’s effectively 3 card-firings per turn from a 2-CP slot. No spirit without this combination can match that per-turn throughput.
Draft consequence for loopers: Repeat-target cards are premium picks. A cheap Minor that enables Powerstorm’s Repeat is worth more than an expensive unique-effect Minor — because the Repeat doubles whatever you put on the other slot.
Common mistakes
- Reclaiming on autopilot when the Growth menu had a better option. Energy gains compound over the rest of the game; a Reclaim you didn’t need wastes the whole slot.
- Extending the cycle too long to “save” Growth slots. If your hand is empty and you skip Reclaim because you’re banking Growth slots for later, you wasted a turn on one card play. That lost play compounds worse than the Growth slot you saved.
- Ignoring the cycle when drafting. Drafting 3 Minors on a 4-turn-cycle spirit is fine — they each fire 2× per game. Drafting 3 Minors on a long-cycle spirit is bloated; you’ll only play each 1× and the slot pressure eats into your Uniques.
Further reading
- Energy Curves — Reclaim cycle interacts with energy via the “Reclaim + gain 1 Energy” Growth branches.
- Major vs. Minor — Forget Economy amortization depends on cycle length.
- Card Draft Theory — draft cadence aligns with Reclaim cadence.
- latentoctopus Glossary — canonical terms (Gn, nE, nCP, CE, cycle, loop).
- BGG thread 2652960 — Lightning Reclaim Loop — deepest community discussion of the 1-turn-loop case.