Heart of the Wildfire

Spirit Overview — Framing

Wildfire is “perhaps the most flexible and challenging Aggro Spirit the game has to offer” (jyonker13). Its identity is Blazing Presence — every Presence placement damages the land and (if 2+ Fire showing) adds Blight. You’re actively progressing the loss condition (latentoctopus) just by expanding, which means placement decisions are commitments, not free gains. Reclaim turns are structurally weak because placement is Wildfire’s damage, and a Reclaim turn is a no-placement turn.

Wiki-printed playstyle note:

Damage and fear machine extraordinaire, but also spreading blight at the same time. Can self-sustain and reposition with Regrows innate, but there’s a window before the innate is online where presence placement is a one-way commitment.

Identity capture (jyonker13, BGG):

Perhaps the most flexible and challenging Aggro Spirit the game has to offer.

The top track trap (latentoctopus): Wildfire’s top track is terrible — rushing 1 Energy delays 2 CP to T4 and 3 CP to T6, and the cumulative Energy gain vs. ignoring the top track is only ~+4 by T5 (= one G3). Default bottom track.

Complexity signal: High is accurate. The spirit has few decision axes but each is irreversible — placement, blight, reclaim timing. Losing a game to cascade-blight 3 turns ago is the signature Wildfire fail state.

Starting Setup

Put 3 Presence and 2 Blight on your starting board in the highest-numbered Sands. (Blight comes from the box, not the Blight Card.)

Three starting presences — highest starting count in the game — all pre-loaded on a 2-Blight land. Your starting board is a Wildfire kill zone out of the gate.

Growth Options (growthtype: “one” — pick one per turn)

Note G3 has a Wildfire effect bundled — the placement triggers Blazing Presence, adding damage to the destination land automatically. G3 is your signature opening Growth.

Presence Tracks

• Energy track (6 slots): energy0 → fire → energy1 → energy2 → fireplant → energy3
  • 0E → +Fire marker → 1E → 2E → +Fire + Plant marker → 3E
• Card-play track (6 slots): card1 → fireX → card2 → card3 → fireX → card4
  • 1 CP → Fire scaling → 2 CP → 3 CP → Fire scaling → 4 CP

Starting income: 0 Energy, 1 Card Play. Energy-light and CP-tight early. Top track reveals 1 Energy after first presence placed — enough to explain why latentoctopus calls it “terrible” (one slot for one Energy, late).

Core Mechanics & Special Rules

Special Rule: Blazing Presence

Post-Setup, after your Presence is added/moved, in the land it goes to:

• For each Simplefire showing on your Presence Tracks, do 1 Damage.
• If 2 Simplefire or more are showing on your Presence Tracks, add 1 Blight.
• Push all Beast and any number of Dahan. If you add multiple Presence to the land, resolve effects once.

Placement = Damage. With 0 Fire markers revealed: 0 damage. With 1 Fire revealed: 1 damage on placement. With 2+ Fire: 1 damage + Blight on placement. Your Growth is a damage engine, not a neutral card-economy move.

Special Rule: Flame’s Fury (printed as a Unique)

See Unique card section below — Flame’s Fury is printed as a card but functions as a pseudo-special-rule in most Wildfire analysis.

Innate: Firestorm

• Speed: Fast · Range: 0 · Target: Blight

Level	Thresholds	Effect
1	1 Plant	1 Damage per 2 Fire you have.
2	3 Plant	Instead, 1 Damage per Fire you have.
3	4 Fire + 2 Air	Split this Power’s Damage however desired between target land and any number of your lands with Blight.
4	7 Fire	In a land with Blight where you have Presence, Push all Dahan. Destroy all Invaders and Beast. Add 1 Blight.

Plant doubles the damage output — 1 damage per 2 Fire (L1) → 1 damage per 1 Fire (L2). This is why latentoctopus says “a Power that only grants Plant is better than one that only grants Fire” — hitting 3 Plant doubles every Firestorm’s output.

Innate: The Burned Land Regrows

• Speed: Slow · Range: 0 · Target: Any

Level	Thresholds	Effect
1	4 Fire + 1 Plant	If target land has 2 Blight or more, remove 1 Blight.
2	4 Fire + 2 Plant	Instead, remove 1 Blight.
3	5 Fire + 2 Earth + 2 Plant	Remove another Blight.

Self-healing. High Fire-threshold (4+) means this unlocks mid-game when Fire markers stack, not T1.

Unique Cards (all 4, Wiki-verified)

Asphyxiating Smoke

• 2 Energy · Slow · Range 2 from your Sacred Site · Any Land · Fire, Air, Plant
• 1 Fear. Destroy 1 Town. Push 1 Dahan.

Town-killer at R2 (sacred-site extended). Fire/Air/Plant carries all three Wildfire-primary elements.

Flame’s Fury

• 0 Energy · Fast · No Range · Any Spirit · Sun, Fire, Plant
• Target Spirit gains 1 Energy. Target Spirit does +1 Damage with each Damage dealing Power they use this turn. (Powers which Damage multiple lands or each Invader only get 1 extra Damage total. Repeated Powers keep the +1 per resolution.)

Damage-buff + 1 Energy gift. In solo, self-target for +1 damage on every damaging Power this turn. Fire/Plant carries threshold-critical elements.

Flash-Fires

• 2 Energy · Slow · Range 1 · Any Land · Fire, Air
• 1 Fear. 1 Damage.

The pivot card. latentoctopus: “Flash-fires should only be played if really needed, because it’s a terrible card: weak effect, high cost, bad elements (no Fire).” Actually has Fire per the Wiki parse — revisit: Fire, Air in its elements row. The card’s weakness is the ratio — 2E + Slow + 1 Damage + 1 Fear is dreadful on its face; its value is the Fire+Air element combo. The Major-draft opening exists largely to Forget this.

Threatening Flames

• 0 Energy · Fast · Range 0 · Land with 1+ Blight and 1+ Invaders · Fire, Plant
• 2 Fear. Push 1 Explorer/Town per Terror Level from target land to adjacent lands without your Presence. If there are no such adjacent lands, +2 Fear.

The starter-Ravage-mitigation card. 0-cost Fast, Fire+Plant. Push-scaling with Terror Level means T1 = 1 push, T3 = 3 push. Primarily used T1 on the starting-Sands land to push Explorers out before ravage.

Key Strategic Principles

1. Bottom track by default. Top track is “terrible” per latentoctopus. G3 is the workhorse.
2. Plant > Fire in draft priority. 3 Plant doubles Firestorm output; a Plant-only Minor outranks a Fire-only Minor.
3. Placement is damage. Every Growth-triggered Presence-add does Blazing Presence damage. Plan placements into Ravage lands or pre-Ravage Build-threat lands.
4. Reclaim is weak. Reclaim turns have no placement = no Wildfire damage. Minimize Reclaim cycles.
5. Entrap the Forces of Corruption is game-changing. Blight-management Minors outrank raw-element picks.
6. Flash-Fires is a forget candidate. Take a Major early only when you have a clean Forget target (Flash-Fires).
7. Don’t Full Fuego when Invaders just explored into a blighted land — cascading blight will flip the card before you can recover.

Possible Openings

Confidence scale: 🟥 tentative · 🟨 somewhat tested · 🟩 well-tested.

Shared starting state

• 3 Presence on starting Sands land; 2 Blight on that land.
• 4 Uniques in hand: Asphyxiating Smoke (2E Slow, Fire/Air/Plant), Flame’s Fury (0E Fast, Sun/Fire/Plant), Flash-Fires (2E Slow, Fire/Air), Threatening Flames (0E Fast, Fire/Plant).
• Starting income: 0 Energy, 1 Card Play.
• Growth type “one”: pick G1/G2/G3 per turn.

Opening A — Full Bottom Track (Minor/Mixed) 🟨 (default)

From latentoctopus Opening 1.

T1 · Growth: G3 bottom — Add Presence (R1) + 2E + Wildfire-damage.

• Income: 2E from G3. Place presence into a Ravage land or high-threat land.

T1 · Play (2E, 1 CP): Asphyxiating Smoke — 2E Town-kill.

• Pause-point: Threatening Flames is 0E — consider swapping if Asphyxiating target isn’t prime.

T2 · Growth: G2 top — Gain 1 Minor + Presence (R3).

• Card-gain turn. Draft Plant/Fire priority.

T2 · Play (0E + drafted Minor energy, 1 CP): Threatening Flames to push Explorers from starting land.

T3 · Growth: G3 bottom — +Presence + 2E + Wildfire.

• Firestorm L1 live if 1 Plant threshold hit (native elements from played cards).

T3 · Play (2E, 2 CP): Flame’s Fury + Flash-Fires/Minor.

T4 · Growth: G1 — Reclaim + Gain Minor (or Major if ready).

T5 · Growth: G3 bottom.

T4 end state (audit):

• 5–6 presence on board, 3–4 lands with Blight.
• 2 CP baseline.
• Firestorm L1 reliable; L2 reachable if 3 Plant drafted.
• Blight track has likely flipped — Regrows innate becomes critical.

Confidence: 🟨 latentoctopus’s primary opening. Works across most matchups except damage-resistant (England).

Opening A-Variant — Delayed 2-Fire (lower blight) 🟥

T1: G2 bottom + drafted Minor; play Flame’s Fury (3 damage via Special Rule + Firestorm). T2: G3 bottom; play Asphyxiating Smoke + Flash-Fires.

Trade-off: earliest 3 CP, lowest blight — but late 2-Fire means fewer Firestorm targets.

Opening B — Early Major (vs. damage-resilient adversaries, esp. England) 🟥

From latentoctopus Opening 2.

T1 · Growth: G2 bottom + Major gain (Forget Flash-Fires). T1 · Play: Threatening Flames.

T2 · Growth: G3 top (+1E + Presence). T2 · Play (3E, 2 CP): the Major (if cost ≤ 3E) or Asphyxiating Smoke.

T3 · Growth: G2 bottom + Minor (or second Major forgetting from discard). T3 · Play: Flame’s Fury + remaining Power.

T4 · Growth: G1 Reclaim + Gain.

Target: damage-resilient matchups where Firestorm alone can’t clear. latentoctopus: “Early Majors are often a gamble, but they can give Wildfire a (slim) fighting chance against damage-resilient adversaries, most notably England.”

Opening Decision

• Default Opening A (Full Bottom) for Prussia, Sweden, France, Scotland, Russia, Habsburg at most levels.
• Opening A-Variant when starting conditions demand low-blight T1–T2.
• Opening B (Early Major) only vs. England or high-Health NI scenarios.

Card Priority Ratings

Uniques — Wildfire-specific ranking

1. Threatening Flames — 0-cost Fast, starter-Ravage-management.
2. Flame’s Fury — damage buff + Energy gift; fits every turn.
3. Asphyxiating Smoke — Town-kill 2E.
4. Flash-Fires — pivot card; forget on Opening B.

Top 10 Minor Draft Picks (Plant > Fire > Air)

Top 5 Major Draft Picks (for Opening B)

Cards to Avoid

Adversary Matchup Matrix

Board / Map Configuration

[VERIFY — latentoctopus does not provide per-board ratings]. Heuristic: favor boards with central Sands/Mountains and isolated starting land so initial 2-Blight doesn’t cascade via adjacency.

Game-Phase Strategy

Early (T1–3)

• Bottom-track G3 cadence. Asphyxiating Smoke + Threatening Flames to clear starting-Sands pre-ravage.
• Firestorm L1 online by T2 with 1 Plant drafted.

Mid (T4–6)

• Firestorm L2 (3 Plant) = 1 damage per Fire. With 4 Fire markers, that’s 4 damage per cast.
• Regrows L1/L2 unlocks; self-heal cycle begins.
• Flame’s Fury on self = +1 damage per damaging Power.

Late (T7+)

• Firestorm L3 (4 Fire + 2 Air) — split damage across multiple Blighted lands.
• Firestorm L4 (7 Fire) — board-nuke in a Blighted-Presence land.

Synergy Partners (Multiplayer)

• Blight-removal partners — cover Wildfire’s structural weakness (Water Nourishes-level blight removal).
• Defend partners — free Wildfire to place aggressively without Ravage-mitigation duty.
• Fear-rush partners — Wildfire’s high Fear per kill snowballs with Fear-rush kits.

Common Mistakes

Tempo Profile

Source Notes

• Mechanics: data/references/wiki/heart-of-the-wildfire.json (Wiki-parsed 2026-04-23).
• Openings: latentoctopus concepts + Opening 1 / Opening 2 pages.
• BGG: jyonker13 thread 2313791.