Flame spirits are nasty little buggers.

Flame Spirit
Ally
Requires: Theurge, Uktena
Renown: 6
Rage: 1
Gnosis: 5
Health: 3
The Flame Spirit can burn itself out in one damage 3 attack (aggravated). The spirit may only be affected by Umbral attacks and Gifts.

They're a favorite of decks using Taking the Death Blow or Shieldmate for obvious reasons, most characters can't hit them!

Incarna Sigil is the easiest way to deal with this vile creature, but you need to know to put it in the deck!

So what to do against the little bastards if you didn't build a deck around defeating them? First, get to the Umbra. You can get them with a few Gifts but it's harder. I'll cover that below. Most decks will have some way to get to the Umbra. Step sideways, chase down the little bugger.

If you don't have a caern in your deck, but do have an Umbral Escape, attack the spirit and Umbral Escape against it. Then whack on it. Odds are good that the Flame Spirit's controller will realize you can get it now and opt to explode it next round. Play a block or dodge. That burn out is an ATTACK and can be avoided. You didn't get any points, but you did get rid of it.

Even easier is if you happen to have a spirit ally of your own. Since spirits exist in both worlds, simply declare your ally will attack Umbrally... and clobber the flamey dog. Again, watch out for it exploding and block and dodge appropriately.

Now, if you want to actually kill the thing for points, that gets trickier. If you're playing a deck that has Fast Strikes and can get Umbral, you can kill it it. Remember, the flame spirit's exploding ability is an attack and resolves as such. Fast Strike it to death before it gets to explode. Or, if you have a deck using stymies like True Fear or Balor's Gaze use those to prevent it using the ability. That 6 VP will be yours!

To be truly evil, however, there's nothing quite like stealing the flame spirit and using it to attack the original owner. Command Spirit will let Theurges take control of it. Bottlecap of Shakey Mac can be used by any Gaia character, but can only be played once per game. Once you have control, send it on a suicide run against its original owner.

If you just want the Flame Spirit gone, pack an Exorcism, Spirit Drain in your Theurge deck. If you have mostly Homid, use the Close the Bawn Moot. It works in any Gaia deck with Homids and will fry all spirit allies. It can't get rid of ones summoned by a Wyrm pack, but those are rarer as they're only two wyrm characters that naturally get them. If you happen to favor Uktena, the Rite Shattering the Binding Fetters will also get rid of the pesky flaming canine.


If you've been regularly facing someone using Flame spirits and you're quite sick of them, build a Theurge Black Furies deck with Sister Judith Paws-of-Light, Cassandra Shadow Watcher, and Mari Cabrah (the smaller). Now stock up on a Exorcism, Spirit Drain, Pandora's Box, and Wasp Talons. Pick which ones you want to use. The Furies Theurges make a nice pack built to deal with annoying spirit allies.
Exorcism will just outright discard it. Spirit Drain will let you destroy it AND heal yourself of all damage, but requires a lot of Gnosis to use (so you'll have to boost Cassandra and Mari's Gnosis. A Pegasus and crescent Moon will let you do this easily). Pandora's Box will let you lock it up out of play. Wasp Talons is for if you want to take a crack at killing it. It CAN be affected by Gifts. Wasp Talons does 4 damage, plenty to kill a Flame Spirit. Get into combat and pop the Talons and off that flame spirit.

Obviously, you can't rely on having your opponent HAVE a flame spirit for you to kill, so if you go that route, make sure to include spirit Enemies for you to fight.

If you're just getting started with Rage, there is a prebuilt spirit slayer Black Fury Theurge deck for beginners that's available as a preconstructed deck on the Gatling Engine. It really just relies on the Spirit Drain, but gives a good guideline for what you're looking for in a spirit killer deck.
Gatling engine will allow you to play Rage free online:
http://www.ccgworkshop.com