Downpour Drenches the World - Advanced Guide by Sarusta
Intro
Downpour Drenches the World is, in my humble opinion, one of the stronger Spirits in the game. It does it all: stellar Defense, Invader Control, Dahan movement, Power Card Repeats for both yourself and your fellow Spirits, and Damage. The only thing it’s lacking is Fear generation. Downpour is a very consistent Spirit that has tools that keeps its board empty and under control while giving out support via Gift of Abundance and even providing Defense via its Presence.
Downpour is easily my favorite Spirit, and I’m hoping to help others enjoy playing Downpour as much as I do, as well as impart some of my knowledge of the Spirit to others.
For this guide, I am going to assume you know what Downpour’s basic abilities are, and have its Spirit Board and Power Cards ready to refer to. If you don’t have a physical copy available (ex: you play with your friend’s copy), you can find this information on the Spirit Island wiki here. (I was originally going to put images of all of them in here, but it felt like it was taking up too much space.)
Now, the disclaimer. There are many ways to play Downpour (as with all Spirits). I am predominantly going to be talking about one way that I have had the most success with it across the board. This doesn’t invalidate other ways of playing Downpour.
The Build - Rain Nourishes the Dahan
This method of playing Downpour relies heavily on Dahan. The general principles of the build are:
- Defending primarily with Unbearable Deluge rather than with Rain and Mud Suppress Conflict
- Dealing with Invaders primarily through Dahan counterattacks and Isolation
- Using Repeats of Unbearable Deluge and Dark Skies Loose a Stinging Rain to reposition Dahan for counterattacks
- Isolating key lands using Deluge and Dark Skies to prevent Invader/Adversary propagation
- Relying less on Rain and Mud and Foundations Sink into the Mud
Why eschew two huge parts of Downpour’s toolkit in this way? While Rain and Mud provides a lot of “free” Defense, it comes at a steep cost of removing Dahan counterattacks, which is a huge source of damage.
Foundations may be great at killing buildings, but it completely ignores Explorers, and without killing Explorers, the Invaders will just keep coming back. Not to mention the huge downsides with leaving Explorers alive vs. certain Adversaries (France, Russia). Also, while Repeating Foundations to destroy a huge land full of buildings may feel good, you’re using several Repeats to only deal with one land, whereas if you’re using Unbearable Deluge to move Dahan around, you end up Isolating and protecting more lands incidentally.
Of course, this doesn’t mean you ignore Foundations and Rain and Mud. You just want to use them sparingly. The benefit of this build is that those two tools still exist in your kit, and can be used whenever you find them useful. Late game, once you’ve drafted some more Defend cards, you can start using them on your own lands so that you benefit from Dahan counterattacks, while “donating” your presence to your allies’ boards to help Defend with Rain and Mud. Foundations is also great at helping to clear out huge problem lands that your allies may have let build up. Additionally, if you can hit Rain and Mud’s Level 3, you should usually turn that on. The upside of -1 Health to all Invaders usually exceeds the downside of losing Dahan counterattacks.
For an example of a “play” utilizing Deluge, Defense, and Dahan movement, consult the Scotland section at the end of this Guide, in the Specific Adversary section. While the specific play is designed to play around Scotland, the Repeats and Dahan movement are exactly the sort of thing this build is trying to exemplify and take advantage of.
Isolation, it’s so Good For Me
(Yes, that’s a “Lemon Tree” reference in 2022)
We’re going to take a quick sidebar to talk about Isolate as a mechanic, because it’s going to be your bread and butter for how you keep your board from spiraling out of control.
Isolation prevents Explores and prevents Invaders from doing stuff in adjacencies. Why is this so important? Preventing Explores from happening in an empty land solves the land for the next turn. There will be no Explorer to Build, and thus, no Ravage in the following turn. That’s an entire land you get to ignore for your next two turns. It protects your Dahan from Sweden’s Escalation, because they no longer Explore into that land.
Adjacencies are important due to Adversary mechanics. If you have ever played against England, you know what I’m talking about. Isolating an empty land that would have normally Built using England’s Level 1 means it doesn’t Build any more, as it no longer meets the criteria of being adjacent to two or more buildings. This also counters Scotland Level 3 and 6, Habsburg Level 1’s Gather mechanic, and Russia Level 2’s normally unkillable Explorers.
In short, Isolate helps keep your lands empty and safe.
The Opener
Again, there are many ways to open with Downpour. I’m going to talk largely about the opening which I think is the best for this particular approach with Downpour, and situations in general. Two other situational openers will be discussed too, but they come with disclaimers.
Opener: G2 > G3 > G1 > (loop G2 > G1)
G2: Place 2 Presence from bottom track.
G3: Place 1 Presence from bottom track, unlocking 2 Card Plays.
Turn 1 - Card Play: Dark Skies/Foundations
4 , 0 Energy remaining
(Discard: Abundance, and if you need Defense next turn, keep Deluge and Discard the card you didn’t play of the two above. If you don’t, keep whichever of Dark Skies/Foundations you didn’t play this turn, using it to solve a land next turn.)
This is the “standard” opener. With two activations of Pour Down Power available, you can use one to gain an Energy, and Repeat Dark Skies/Foundations. This usually (barring Adversary effects) lets you deal with the two lands that are building on the first turn by either stopping the builds, or killing the Towns that build. In Turn 2, you pick G3, hopefully drafting a useful Minor (see Power Cards section for selection tips), playing both cards regardless. Turn 3 is the Reclaim, because you’re out of cards.
A benefit of taking this Opener is that 2 Presence placements can create a Wetlands that you may need for targeting purposes of Dark Skies. It’s also the most flexible, and gives you the most opportunities to solve your lands. You will have either Dark Skies or Foundations available on Turn 2, and enough /Energy to repeat it at least once.
After your Reclaim, you’ll just be looping G2 and G1. Your next G2 after your first Reclaim (Turn 4), you’ll generally want to take 2 Presence off of your Top Track, as you won’t have 3 Cards to play if you try to go Bottom Track for your third card play. (6 cards in hand, play 2 on Reclaim Turn, play 2 and Discard 2 on G2 Turn).
By the following Reclaim you’ll have picked up another card so that you can unlock the third card play. (Now 7 cards in hand, play 2 on Reclaim Turn, play 3 and Discard 2 on G3 Turn.)
However, if you have managed to Gain just one extra card through any means, you could instead take 2 Presence off the Bottom Track to hit 3 Card Plays, as you’ll have the requisite 7 cards. Your third card play will generally be used on exactly Gift of Abundance to make up for the missing elements. This is very nice for your team, so you may be able to convince a teammate to give you said Power Card by promising them Abundance in the future.
Other Openers: G3 > G2
There is another classic opener that starts with G3 > G2. This can be better, depending on Adversary, but it also depends where your priorities lie. The opener given above will never be wrong, this one could just be situationally better. After the first two turns it becomes the same build as above.
Turn 1 - G3: Place 1 Presence from bottom track.
Card Play: Foundations (usually)
1 Energy remaining
Turn 2 - G2: Place 2 Presence from bottom track, unlocking 2 Card Plays.
Card Plays: Dark Skies, Deluge
5 , 1 Energy remaining
This gives you lots of repeats on Turn 2, but no repeats on Turn 1. You would only want this Opener if you have a very specific game plan, like purposely allowing a Build > Ravage to happen on Turn 1 > 2 (to prevent Russia 6 maybe), or because you can’t deal with the land (the Ravaging land is your Coastal City). This sets you up to have more tools on Turn 2 to deal with the larger Ravage. It also allows you to see which minor power you gain in Turn 1, potentially allowing you to better plan ahead for your Turn 2.
Other Openers: G2 Spam, Meme Build
This… this build is a meme. You spam G2 off of the Top Track, playing 0 cards due to discards (except for one card on Turn 1), stockpiling tons of Energy, and relying on Defend from Mud and Rain and presence movement to maintain your board. Eventually, you finally do a G3 and pick up a Major which you repeat a bunch to try to stabilize your horribly overrun board.
It’s possibly functional in low difficulties, but at higher difficulties you’re going to let your lands build up and you’ll probably take a lot of Blight. It is inconsistent at best due to not making active progress on your board through Dahan counterattacks (since you’re using Rain and Mud) and relying on gaining the right major power to repeat.
That said, I mention it here because I have a sneaking suspicion it might be valid against specifically Habsburg. You want to take Blight vs. Habsburg anyway to stop taking the Escalations… so you have nothing better to do. You can sacrifice a little bit of the massive amounts of presence you’re putting down to stop Loss Condition Blights from happening. Then once you’re good and Blighted to hell, you can slam a Major and hopefully clear up your board.
Specials and Innates
Drench the Landscape
A pretty simple Special Rule, letting you turn terrain into Wetlands for purposes of targeting with your Powers. It’s important to note that a Sacred Site now lets Unbearable Deluge Isolate a land. Make full use of it, as it’s very important for Downpour to have Wetlands.
Pour Down Power Across the Island
This is the reason to play Downpour, and what makes it so unique among Spirits. Repeating land-targeting Power Cards is an incredible tool, especially when it comes to 0-Cost Powers. Make sure to maximize your on every turn to get as many Repeats as possible. Don't be afraid to gain some Energy either, if you find you don't need the Repeats.
Water Nourishes Life’s Growth
The uses for Levels 1 and 2 of this Innate Power should be fairly straightforward. Gaining Energy is great, and you’ll want to reach those Levels as often as possible. Gathering 1 Dahan is helpful occasionally, too.
Level 3 is a very nice thing to reach, and it can really save you in a pinch. It is quite important to know that you’re not preventing damage to the land, or to Dahan, you’re just not adding the blight. Keep in mind that if you were to Cascade blights into that land, those would also be prevented, which can be quite nice.
Rain and Mud Suppress Conflict
As mentioned earlier, you’ll rarely want to activate this Innate. Removing counterattack damage from Dahan is just too much of a penalty. If you are unfamiliar with the rules of elemental thresholds and manipulating them, I’ll have a section right after this to explain it in detail.
Activating Rain and Mud for just 1 Defend per presence can occasionally be helpful. It’s rare, but it’s possible that you may not mind reducing Dahan damage by 1, and adding one more Defense to make sure the land doesn’t Blight. It’s usually correct to try and kill all the Invaders possible, but sometimes Dahan counterattacks don’t matter as much, and you’re far more concerned with preventing Blight. Or sometimes if you just have a lot of Dahan in a land, the counterattack reduction isn’t important.
Alternatively, since you have lots of presence placement and movement, if you find ways to Defend your lands without having your presence in them, you can always place your presence in lands your teammates need help Defending, and turn on Rain and Mud.
In short, the less you turn this on, the better, but don’t be afraid to turn it on if you have to. It’s still a tool in your kit, after all.
The Level 3 of Rain and Mud is very, very strong. First of all, it synergizes very well with Foundations, but it is also great for other Spirits. If you’re able to activate it, you likely will want to. Make sure to spread your presence out to lands where it’ll be most useful. It’ll take some communication and collaboration to make full use of it.
Rules of Elemental Thresholds and How to Manipulate Them
Just because you meet the thresholds for an Innate does not mean you have to use it. When I say “do not activate” this Innate, it means you’re intentionally deciding to not use it. This is a decision that must be made during the Fast phase, when you would normally use this Power, and you cannot change your mind once the Fast phase is over.
The infographic above loosely details what your options are.
Let’s assume we have 10 each of , just for demonstration purposes.
You can always choose to “allocate” elements to your Power. You are not required to activate a threshold just because you meet it. If you wanted to only have 1 Defend on each presence, you could say “I’m allocating 1 and 3 for Rain and Mud”, even though you have more. This would mean you only get 1 Defend per presence, even though you technically qualify for 2.
However, if you were to activate Level 3, you would have to say “I’m allocating 3, 9, 2 for Rain and Mud”. This would mean you also get the effects of Levels 1 and 2, whether or not you wanted them.
An “interesting” option here is that you could “allocate” 5,1, thus turning on Level 2 but not Level 1, since you’d be lacking the . It doesn’t matter at all for Downpour, but it could matter with other Spirits with more varied elemental thresholds.
Power Cards
Unbearable Deluge
Let’s talk about the most important power card, the reason you’re doing this build, and playing this Spirit.
Mandatory Push 2 Dahan and Defend 3 seems like it would be a reason not to do this build of Downpour. But when you can repeat this card so freely, you can just push the Dahan right back in, while Isolating another land and netting 1 extra Fear.
When using Unbearable Deluge to Defend a land and push two Dahan out, you’re typically going to want to push the Dahan right back in again for the counterattack. You can do this with a repeat of Deluge, a cast of Dark Skies, or other Minor Powers that manipulate Dahan. If you do use Deluge or Dark Skies, make sure you’re taking advantage of the Isolate that will be generated alongside the Dahan movement. Push your Dahan to a land where you’ll want an Isolate, then use Deluge/Dark Skies to push the Dahan right back into the land they ran out from. Judicious use of Isolates in this manner can help solve other lands while you’re defending the current problem.
Dark Skies Loose a Stinging Rain
A rather straightforward card. It Isolates, it moves Dahan around, and it can push Explorers out of lands to prevent Builds. Keep in mind the Wetland origin requirement, but also keep in mind you can move your presence around to create those Wetlands.
Gift of Abundance
An amazing Support card. You can’t Repeat it, but it’s so good for others to receive. The helps you gain Energy with Life’s Growth. You will be taking the option to return destroyed presence to the board more often than your allies, since you’re removing your presence quite often to remove Blight with Life’s Growth.
Being one of the few Spirits with the ability to provide Repeats to others also makes Downpour a very valid selection for extremely high-level (read: Dual Adversary or higher) situations where you’re forced to rely on cheesy strategies, but that’s a whole other discussion. Suffice to say, Downpour can hold its own on Defense while providing the Repeat Support that is so heavily desired in high-level gameplay.
Foundations Sink into Mud
The card you use when you need to destroy a land full of buildings all at once. Again, keep in mind you can make a Sacred Site to have the Wetlands needed. Also, while the 1 Damage to all Buildings mode is usually the most tempting, never forget the 2 Damage to Towns mode exists too. You can split up Repeats across lands to pick off single Towns, or in weird situations involving Badlands or extra Health on Invaders, you might choose to do a combination of the two options to maximize damage.
When you do use Foundations, you’ll want to try to play it on a turn where you took G2 for the extra 2, to maximize Repeats of it.
Gaining New Power Cards (Drafting)
First of all, let’s get one thing straight: you’re going to be drafting Minor Powers almost exclusively. Downpour is generally not a Major Power Spirit, which is especially true of this build. You won’t be able to afford to play Majors and repeat them unless your teammates are feeding you a vast amount of Energy. In general, it’s not worth taking so much Energy Support away from other Spirits for Majors. Downpour is a self-sufficient strong birb who don’t need no Support. While always helpful to get extra Energy, it is rarely needed, meaning your team will likely be better off giving Energy to another Spirit.
Minor Powers
When gaining Minor Powers, you want to pay particular attention to elements and cost. Elementally, you’re looking predominantly for cards with . Secondarily, you’ll want at least a couple Powers with , to help trigger Water Nourishes for your Energy gain. After that, & are both nice to help trigger Rain and Mud Level 3 in the late game, but you shouldn’t need to actively seek them.
For Energy Costs… zero. You want zero-cost powers more than anything else. There are plenty of 1-Cost cards that are good for Downpour, but 0-Cost Minor Powers are going to be your bread and butter because it costs you nothing to Repeat them. They also need to be land-targeting powers so you can repeat them.
We’ll start off with two phenomenal examples:
These two Powers are Downpour’s favorites, by far. 0 cost, huge Defends, . What more could you ask for? Mesmerized even has an Isolate! If you ever see them in your draft, you pick them. It is almost certainly incorrect to not pick up these cards if given the opportunity. (If you need to choose between the two, Mesmerized beats Sap, and it’s not even close.)
I’m going to have to stop posting card images now, because otherwise 75% of this guide is going to just be card images. Instead, here’s just a quick rundown of some other good Minors for Downpour. This isn’t meant to be exhaustive, but they are roughly ordered by power (the top ones are stronger than the bottom ones). You can look these up on the Spirit Island wiki here.
Call to Guard - 0 Cost, Dahan movement. No , but it doesn’t matter, it’s great to repeat for massive Defense. Honestly, one of Downpour’s best cards after Mez/Sap. Note that repeating the Damage mode is also a viable option, with repeats it could actually kill buildings.
Call of the Dahan Ways | Cycles of Time and Tide - 1 Cost, so they can be expensive to repeat, but Dahan creation is incredible. Worth trying to repeat as much as possible. At least they have to help defray the cost.
Sky Stretches to Shore - Spirit-targeting card, so no repeats, but it’s on-element and more importantly, makes Foundations Fast. All the downsides about Foundations go out the window when you get to play it Fast and solve a land instantly. Honestly, I’d rather someone else had drafted this card and used it on me, but if you find it, you take it.
Quicken the Earth’s Struggles - No , 1 Cost. This is rough, but remember what I just said about Fast Foundations? This is Fast Foundations. Card is really good, but you’ll need to be careful how often you use it due to the cost. Using it for Defend 10 is also perfectly good.
Strong and Constant Currents | Flow Downriver, Blow Downwind - 0 Cost Invader Control, has Good to have, but you’re unlikely to repeat them a lot.
Call to Isolation | Enticing Splendor | Lure of the Unknown - 0 Cost Control, with no . Control is great, but don’t take too many, you need the .
Carapaced Land | Drift Down into Slumber - 0 Cost Defends, with no . Don’t take too many, but they’re good enough in a pinch.
Gift of Power - See section “Support Cards” below. You’re looking to pick this up on your first/second Card gain, and play it on yourself, to facilitate going for 3 Card Plays.
Sucking Ooze - Isolate, . It doesn’t look like it does a whole lot on paper, but we’ve established how strong Isolate can be, making this surprisingly good.
Hazards Spread Across the Island - Mostly on-element, except for missing . Making copies of tokens is quite a strong effect, and the card gets much better if you have a Badlands you can proliferate.
Thriving Chokefungus | The Shore Seethes With Hatred - Good elements, and Badlands are nice with Foundations. Decent cards, but I wouldn’t repeat them too often since they’re 1 Cost.
Elusive Ambushes | Favor of the Sun and Star-Lit Dark | Nature’s Resilience | Domesticated Animals Go Berserk - 1 Cost Defends. They’re expensive, but in general, they’ll do.
Entrancing Apparitions, Confounding Mists - See above, but with additional Control. Not bad.
Voracious Growth - Damage with . It works fine to emulate Foundations, but just like Foundations, it’s expensive to Repeat. At least the means you get Nourish for Energy.
Infested Aquifers - Requires a Disease, which you can place with a Repeat, but it can work like Foundations, and kill Explorers! It’s hard to use, but it’s quite good when you can make use of it.
Pull Beneath the Hungry Earth - 1 Cost Repeatable on-element Damage. It’s… fine. It’s like a really weak Foundations, but sometimes that’s what you need.
Rain of Blood - 0 Cost, Fear-spam. 3 Fear a cast is a good rate. I know a lot of people like this card, but to me it sort of feels like patching a hole in Downpour’s bad Fear generation. It’s fine, if you can afford to take some time off to generate Fear it works wonders, but I generally prefer dealing with the board state to “do-nothing” cards like Rain of Blood. Maybe that’s an artifact of me playing mostly multiplayer games, where 3 Fear is a lot less than it is in solo.
There’s lots of other 0-cost cards that are good when repeated, there’s lots of other cards that are that will work just fine. The above are just the cards I found worth noting.
Major Powers
I know I said not to draft Major Powers, but sometimes you’ve received enough Energy, or you’ve gotten a free Major from some effect, or you’re in a bad situation and it’s time for a Hail Mary.
Bargains of Power and Protection - This card targets a land. You can repeat it. Getting your presence off your track is an insanely good deal, it should be easy enough to threshold. Having your Dahan defend for you without any further action on your part is amazing. Play it once, repeat it once (maybe twice if you’re having a rough time), then spend the rest of the game pushing Dahan around, automatically defending, solving your lands for you.
Smothering Infestation - Easy threshold, 3 Cost isn’t too expensive to repeat, lots of damage, and you largely get to ignore the targeting restriction. Two casts ought to annihilate a land.
Mists of Oblivion - Usually, most Spirits wouldn’t touch this with a 10-foot pole. But being able to Repeat this and easily reach the threshold makes this a phenomenal card for Downpour. With its massive range, you can hit most anywhere on the board. Two casts should empty a land.
Storm Swath - Maybe you’re seeing a theme here. “1 damage to all Invaders” is an incredible effect on Downpour, and this is no different. It’s a little more difficult to threshold than the above two, but it’s still quite strong. Try to threshold it if you end up with it.
Vigor of the Breaking Dawn - This card is just absolutely insane, especially with Repeats. It’ll be slightly hard to threshold, given it’s completely off-element, but if you can, it’ll clean up your board, then everyone else’s.
The Trees and Stones Speak of War - Should be easy enough to threshold, and it’s like a slightly weaker Vigor. 2 Cost makes it easy to Repeat. It’s very good if you can get a hold of it.
Thickets Erupt with Every Touch of Breeze - 3 Cost, possible to threshold, decent damage on repeats with a good side effect.
Walls of Rock and Thorn - Should be easily thresholded, but at 4 Cost it’s going to be real hard to repeat. Strong card though.
Winds of Rust and Atrophy - I’d rather my majors have more impact than “just” Defense and a Downgrade, but it’s hard to complain in a pinch. 3 Cost means you can Repeat it, but keep in mind the usual Repeat rules.
Pent-Up Calamity - 3 Cost, hard to threshold, but quite good with Repeats. It’s not great, but it’s not bad.
Tigers Hunting - 2 Cost is the only reason this is even slightly reasonable, as you’re almost never going to threshold this. A couple Repeats can clear out a land, though.
Support Cards
As mentioned earlier, Downpour is a strong independent birb who don’t need no Support.
…that said, there is some Support I like to receive on Downpour occasionally. As mentioned in the Openers section, gaining one single extra Power Card lets you get to 3 card plays much earlier. Receiving a Reclaim on Turn 3 is also just as good, from something like Gift of Constancy.
Extra Energy is always great so that you can Repeat more expensive cards more often.
Gift of Nature’s Connection specifically is worth mentioning. Downpour is often the best target for this, as 2 gets you an entire other Repeat. It is worth keeping in mind too, that if you’re just going to end up spending that 2 on Energy, you would’ve been better off getting 2 Energy instead of 2 from Nature’s Connection.
When it comes to Nature’s Connection, it’s not a terrible card for Downpour to pick up itself sometimes. If you don’t have many good other options, you can take it, and play it on yourself for 2. It severely lacks all the other elements you want, but 2 can just be a good effect.
Downpour doesn’t like picking up Support cards in general since you can’t Repeat them, but there are some others that aren’t bad to pick up. Elemental Boon and Gift of Power are usually fine, because they are on-Element. Once you have 3 Card Plays, it should be okay to spend the 3rd Card Play on something you don’t plan on Repeating.
The one Major Support card you may consider if it comes up is Entwined Power. I find this to be a severely underrated Major Power, and is very strong… provided you can threshold it. Fortunately, it’s perfectly on-element for Downpour, but 4 could be challenging to threshold (all 3 cards you play need in them). The effects aren’t necessarily something good for Downpour specifically, but 3 Energy and a Card Gain for 2 Spirits is just a very strong effect in general. Trading cards around and targeting with others’ presence is a fun effect, but mostly a cherry on top.
Specific Adversary Strategies
France
A very good matchup for Downpour. Make heavy use of Dahan manipulation to take advantage of Slave Rebellion. Cards that give Strife tokens become incredibly powerful, you should do everything in your power to get as many Strifed buildings in Dahan lands as possible right before Slave Rebellion turns. Remember, unless there have been modifications made to the Event deck, Slave Rebellion will happen the first time when there are 3 Event Cards in the Discard, and 7 on the second time.
Foundations can be set up to kill a land that's building a lot of Towns, but be wary of the loss condition when building that many Towns.
Note that Isolate does not stop France Escalations from putting Towns down even in empty + Isolated lands. You’ll still want to play the Isolate guessing game as much as possible to stop Explores into empty lands though, since Downpour doesn’t deal with Explorers too well.
Russia
Another very good Downpour matchup. It might actually be my favorite one to play against, because it takes full advantage of Downpour’s abilities. Though, this also inherently means it’s quite tricky.
Isolate means Explorers die forever. Make very liberal and conscious use of Defend + Isolate + Dahan to murder every Explorer you can. Feel free to eat some blight so that you don't take Russia 6's extra invaders too often, you can easily remove the blight with Water Nourishes.
I frequently intentionally push Explorers into a 3-Explorer land, then Isolate + Defend + Dahan to murder Explorers.
Scotland
A good matchup. Isolate stops most of their most annoying tricks. Isolate inlands to prevent Scotland 6. On Scotland's Coastal Explore turn, do your best to Isolate the entire coast so that nothing will Explore there. If you have to take a Blight for that, do it, it's usually worth it. In general, Isolate the Coasts whenever possible just so that you can skip Coastal Explores and/or Scotland 3’s Build rule. Try to Foundations away Scotland's 2 Coastal Cities ASAP so that you can control the builds and not take the Escalation.
If your initial Explore is on your Coastal City land, you could try the G3 > G2 Opener instead. With it, you can play Dark Skies and Unbearable Deluge, Repeating Deluge twice. Defending for 6 in your 7-damage Land 2, pushing your Dahan out and back in.
Specifically in this case, you are activating Deluge on Land 2 twice, pushing the Dahan that was in there out to Land 3. Then you repeat Deluge on Land 1, pushing those Dahan into Land 2, then Dark Skies on Land 3, pushing the just-pushed Dahan back into Land 2.
This clears your Land 2 of Cities, and Isolates your entire Coast for the next Explore. You had the option to push the initial Land 2 Dahan into land 4 or 5 instead if you so wished, and use Dark Skies to Isolate those lands, but in the case of Scotland, Isolating your Coast is usually your best bet.
(The Town that should have been built in Land 6 is dead due to Turn 1 Foundations.)
This does run the “risk” where Scotland 6 will trigger in your inland land that matches Land 2, dropping a Town there. It’s up to you if you’d prefer to control Scotland 6, or get a quick handle on your Coastal cities. They’re both equally valid, and quite frankly, this opener is very specific, because they have to have Explored Land 2 on Turn 1 in the first place.
England
A good matchup, even though you need to work a lot harder to kill the buildings, and Foundations stops being as good. It’s a good matchup because Downpour is one of the few Spirits able to keep England 1 Builds under control with Isolation. Try to keep most of your lands as clear as possible, and make sure you ready Foundations preemptively to destroy large built-up lands before you die to the loss condition.
The power of the Dahan-centric build will really shine here. Isolates stop England’s awful build rules, and Dahan counterattacks work a lot better at killing buildings than Foundations will, since you can do a lot more damage with a mass of Dahan.
Downpour’s low Fear-generation is a bit of a dagger in the back here, if you’re not able to get Fear cards to stop the High Immigration double Builds from England 6, but you can mitigate that by just stopping those Builds in the first place via Isolate.
Prussia
A decent matchup. It's a bit fast, even for Downpour's control, so you will often eat some blights early. It'll be nothing you can't handle though, Prussia is rather weak to control, so just make sure you're stopping their builds with Dark Skies, or at least killing the building Towns with Foundations. Move their Explorers out, keep your Inlands clear to stop more Explores, and kill what you can. Prevention via Control is better than Destruction, and Prussia exemplifies that more than most.
Sweden
A decent matchup. Too much damage makes it hard to defend properly, but Sweden is really weak to control. Same as Prussia, stop their builds, let some lands eat blight if it costs too much defense to save them, then Foundations the problem lands later. Use your resources to cleanup smaller lands first. It’s possible to stop Sweden 5’s Mining Rushes with Isolate, but that requires Isolating a land that’s about to Blight, which is usually not very beneficial.
Make sure to keep your Dahan bunched together so that they don’t fall victim to Sweden’s Escalation either. Losing Dahan is bad enough, but them turning into Towns is simply awful. Isolate blocks Explores, which blocks the Sweden Escalaton too.
Habsburg
Downpour’s only bad matchup (imo). 4 health on Towns is awful, it’s very hard for Downpour to prevent loss condition blights without losing presence, which makes it hard to take blight to prevent the escalations/kill things with blight.
As with all Habsburg games I’d recommend intentionally taking the 3/5 Blight needed ASAP to stop taking extra Escalation Towns.
You’ll rely on big Foundations more often, using your Isolates to prevent lands from getting out of control. You can Isolate to prevent Towns from being Gathered by Level 1, and to prevent the extra damage from Level 6.
Plan to Foundations on turns where the Invaders are going to Build (and thus Gather) into a land that’s blighted, so you can clear out extra Towns with only 2 casts of Foundations.
Closing Remarks
I hope that this guide has been helpful to you in some way. If there are any questions you feel I have left unanswered, or sections you’d like written about, feel free to message me on Discord, Sarusta#7139.