My Top 10 Favorite Fish in Finspan

Hey, I'm Jamie from Stommyer Games, and today I'm excited to talk about my top 10 favorite fish cards in our game Finsspan. Finsspan is a sequel to Wingspan that looks like this. There, there we go. And uh in Finsspan instead of d instead of like moving right to left like in wingspan you are diving down three different dive sites and visiting fish along the way.

And unlike wingspan which I'll probably use as a frame of reference several times throughout this video because it is the foundational inspiration for fininspan. But unlike that you dive all the way down to the bottom every time and that has meaning in fins spin because you get a little bonus the first time each round you get to the bottom of the dive site.

So today I'm going to talk about my top 10 favorite cards in Finsspan. Some of them selected by Stommy Ambassadors, some of them selected by me mostly or at least partially to demonstrate different concepts in the game. Before I get there though, I want to share something special with you. For over so Finsspan, we released in early 2025.

And so over the last 10 months, as of the recording of this video, I think it's around 10 months, we have been collecting data from people who report it on a form on our uh website that asked the question, it asked the question uh what aquatic animal would you most like to see in a future expansion or promo pack?

And I also say in that question, you can't quite see it here, but I say in that question, if you want, you can just uh you can just pick a category of animal that you want to see. C category of aquatic animal that you want to see or if you picked a specific aquatic animal, you can let us know the category.

So, I thought I'd go through and share some of the top picks that we have so far according to this survey that will probably influence future expansions for finan. So, at 17% we have mammals. So, aquatic mammals like whales and dolphins that is the topic right up close to that. So, by far the top two categories aquatic mammals and then just fish.

And I think the reason this category is so broad is that there are a lot of different types of fish in uh in the the the waters of the world. Um if we get a little bit more specific, here are three other categories that jump out a little bit. Seephalopods, a a top category here, which is great. I I would love to explore more sephalopods like octopuses.

Um here we have sharks. Sharks a top pick. There are some sharks in Finsspan. We'll bring up one of them today, but there are a lot more sharks that we didn't explore in the core game of Finsspan. We have freshwater fish. So, this is, you know, a lot of people their their most frequent exposure to fish is from the freshwater experience, not necessarily from the uh the saltwater ocean experience or sea.

Crustaceians. I love crustaceations, crabs, lobsters. Uh yeah, I would love to see those in the future expansion. We have turtles up next. Aquatic turtles. Mollisks, jellyfish, and now we're getting into some very specific categories here. Jellyfish. I guess jellyfish don't count as sephopods. Yeah, they're a different category.

Extinct fish. This is something that we've been have have been requested for uh for wingspan a lot too. Extinct birds. Pipe fish including seahorses is a category down to 2% here. Um e ainoderm including starfish and amphibians if we go down to 1.7%. So, I thought it would be fun to share that data with you um before I jump into the top 10 list of things that are likely to come in some form in the future of Finsspan.

And some of them do appear like uh I mentioned the sharks appear. Uh I believe there might be a maybe not maybe not a jellyfish. There are seahorses in the core game. Um, no crustaceations that I can think of, but yeah, there there many other types of aquatic fish or aquatic creatures that I think will will appear in Finsspan in the future.

So, let's start talking about uh the top 10 fish in Finsspan in somewhat no particular order, but I'll list them from 10 to one. And we're going to start with the abyssal anglerfish. This is picked by ambassadors. And really, these aren't in exactly the appropriate order because five ambassadors picked this one.

Um, so it is uh yeah, it is one of the more popular picks from Stommyer Ambassadors. Um, so the angler fish, what makes this special in the game is a few different things. one, it can only be played in the depths, uh, deep down underwater. Uh, it has an a game end ability. So, there a small number of cards in the game that have a game game end ability.

Either something a special ability that triggers or some extra points you get at at the end of the game. And this one says at the end of the game, you get three victory points if no tokens are on this fish. Tokens are a big part of Finsspan that you have this living ocean mat of uh of of young and eggs.

Eggs don't move around, but the young move around, the schools move around. You have this very living mat. So, you're trying to avoid having tokens on the angler fish at the end of the game. Um, so yeah, that is for this sake of the list. This is number 10. Next up, we have the Emperor Red Stapper. Nice big image here.

So, this is one of my picks for my favorite fish. This has an if activated ability. So, every time you dive past this fish, you get to lay an egg wherever you want. The benefits in in Finsspan, unless specified, otherwise you can gain whenever you want them. Um, and I picked this one largely because for two reasons.

One, I think it's a beautiful illustration. It's one of my favorite illustrations in the game. It's a really distinct looking fish. But two, because Finsspan does something somewhat special in that it has a vertical requirement on some fish and it has a horizontal requirement on other fish. So, some of some many fish have a uh a zone requirements.

This one you need to play in the daylight zone, so it's a little bit closer to the surface of the water, but it this particular fish also has a purple dive site requirement. These are a little less thematic than or much less thematic than the than the zones, but it's just giving players a little bit more of a spatial puzzle as to where they put this fish.

This particular fish is limited to the purple dive site. And the purple dive site is uh you you gain a specific default benefit from that dive site and that's why this fish is designed for that dive site specifically. That's the emperor red snapper at number nine. At number eight, we have the giant manta ray.

One of the ambassador picks. Four different ambassador. My ambassadors picked this beautiful manta ray. Um, this one I picked because it has a when played ability. So, we have when activated ability or if activated abilities and we have when played abilities. And this one's particularly fun because you get three young, which is a huge benefit to get three young.

So right away if you wanted you could place all three of these young on the same fish and get a school. Or you could put them on different fish and keep them as separate young. Maybe you want separate young at that time in the game. Or maybe you could put two on a place where you already have one young and that turns into a school and you put the other young elsewhere.

A lot of flexibility with this. Um so I really like these when played abilities and this particular one is quite strong for the giant manta ray. It does cost you a young to actually play it, but it's still quite good that you're getting three young. Next up, we have the giant orefish. This one is really neat for a couple different reasons.

One, I had played this card a few different times. It is it is a a beautiful like almost otherworldly looking fish. Uh, and I played this a few times without realizing how big it is. Like, you can't really tell. It could be like a tiny little fish, but you look at it, it's over a thousand centimeters long.

This is a massive fish. And if you look online for some photos, you could see how big this orfish looks. This has a when played ability that does one of my favorite things on Finsspan. Finsspan is built around positive player interaction. This one has an all players benefit. So whenever you play it, all players get to put an egg on every fish in their blue dive site.

Um, so this is a pretty cool ability in that a you're trying to play it at a time where it benefits you the most. Maybe when you have a lot of fish in the blue dive site that don't already have an egg. So you can only put one egg per fish in on on on each card in um in fins bed on each fish. Some of them are pre-printed on the map, so I'm saying fish.

But also, if you want to be a little devious instead of just friendly, you might wait until other players have a lot have many different uh cards in their blue dive site that already have eggs on them. So, they're not going to get as strong of a benefit as you get when you play this card. Next up, we have the great white shark.

This was picked by 10 ambassadors. Three ambassadors picked the orfish. 10 ambassadors picked the great white shark. I think because this this is one, you know, one of the most infamous sharks in the world thanks to Jaws and other movies that uh that that showcase the great white shark. It is what we call in the game an uber predator.

So, there are actually two predator icons up here at the top of the fish. This ability is another all players ability. When played, all players can put an egg on every uh fish that has the predator icon that has at least one of these icons. Um, this is a very powerful ability. You could go after a heavy predator strategy.

Predators often have uh costs that involve eating young or consuming other fish. You have to you have to you must put this fish on top of this card on top of another fish. Um, it's worth 10 victory points. One of the highest victory point values for a card in the game. And yeah, this is this and it's also a beautiful illustration.

This is one of the coolest cards to get. like when it's one of those cards that's so distinct that whenever I draw this infin span I have to find a way to play it and I have to find a way to maximize it. It really encourages me to lean into the predator strategy if I do that. Next up we have the longspine porcupine fish.

I picked this one for a few different reasons. Um and notably I picked it [clears throat] because this is a size matters fish. We have these cards in Wingspan, too, but they look at the exact measurement of the fish. In Finsspan, we make this a little bit easier to keep track of. What this does is it it says you get to put an egg on every fish, every medium fish.

So, we have three different icons here that mean either large, medium, or small. This is the medium icon. And so, I I really like that element of of Finsspan that it gives you an icon to look for. makes it very easy to scan your player mat to see how many large fish you have or in this case how many medium fish you have.

But I it makes it a lot easier to determine uh to play and use these size matters fish uh because you're only scanning for an icon instead of a specific number. So I really like that in the long spine porcupine fish. Next up we have what I think is one of the most beautifully illustrated fish in the game.

This is the mandarin fish. Look how vibrant these colors are. the there's the creatures of the world, especially in the in the water and in the sky, are are just stunning. This is a stunning fish. The reason I picked this one in particular, though, is that it is a starter fish. You can see it has these notches in the corners.

So, at the beginning of the game, you get to start with two starter fish. And we decided to go with this method in Finsspan. So, you get two starter fish and then three random other fish just to ensure that uh that your first few plays of the game are turns where you can play a fish if you want to if that if that's what you want to do early in the game, which is probably a good call early in the game that you can play them and they give you a pretty strong benefit.

I would say even a stronger benefit than um than many of the other fish in the game for a fairly low cost. So, manner fish, you're discarding a card from your hand to your personal discard pile, and then you get to draw three fish and lay an egg right away. That is a very powerful start to the game.

It gives you this big boost at the beginning of the game. Um, they have a different card back. I really like the idea that we went with these uh these starter fish. You're still only shuffling two decks. your a small deck of starter fish and then a big deck of fish cards, but it it makes the beginning of the game ramp up really quickly and gives you these good feelings early in the game.

That is the mandarin fish. Next up, we have the pilot fish. Another illustration I one of the things I worried about with Finsspin when we were creating it is even though there are vibrant fish like the mandarin fish in the game, I was worried that there would be too many fish that are kind of different scales of gray that maybe wouldn't look great on the cards.

And I think this is a great example that even shades of gray can look beautiful in a in a detailed illustration like on the pilot fish. I also wanted to highlight the pilot fish because of this icon right here, which means gain a card from your personal discard pile. One of my favorite features in Finsspan is that for most of the costs in the game, this one doesn't have one.

This one you pay an A. But for most fish card costs in the game, you are paying a fish card from your hand. You're getting rid of it, but you're not getting rid of it permanently. Instead, you're putting it in your per in your uh your personal discard pile. And there are some default ways, one built into the player mat, some of them built into fish for you to get those cards back.

So, it means that you don't have to completely agonize over which cards you get rid of, like which cards you play and which cards you get rid of because there's a pretty good chance you can get some of those cards back. And this one, you get four of them back. That is hugely powerful. And also one I would say oft forgotten rule in Finsspan is that say I only have two cards in my discard pile.

This icon the backup uh benefit for this icon is uh if I don't have any cards in my discard pile I just get to draw from the top of the deck. So if I played this card when I had two cards in my personal discard pile, I would gain both of those cards and then the last two icons or I could do it would mean that I would draw from the top of the deck.

Um, so that is a nice benefit that it there's never uh there's never a bad time, I think, to play a card like this, the pilot fish. Next up, we have the sail fin flying fish. This is the cover fish for Finsspan. There actually two different flying fish in the game. This is one of them, and this was picked by three different uh three different ambassadors.

And this is another example of getting a card back from the discard pile. Um, I have seen flying fish once in my life. I was on a on a on a little cruise and you know, maybe my eyes deceived me, but I I am pretty sure I saw these flying fish. And what was remarkable to me about them is that it wasn't just a little jump out of the water like I thought they were doing.

It looked like they were birds flying along the surface of the water. And the reason why I'm 99% sure that they weren't birds is because they disappeared. I I couldn't stop looking at them and they suddenly disappeared because they had gone back underwater. But it was amazing how long they stayed above the water.

And you can see it here. When these leave the water, they can fly up to 400 meters at speeds of up to 70 kilometers per hour. That is like a bird flying above the surface of the ocean. They are incredible. Uh yeah, check out a video online of watching flying fish fly. It is I would say it is different than maybe what you expect and and they are just in the air for much much longer.

So yeah, sail fin flying fish. An incredible fish. I think we're getting to the end here. This might be the last one. the the whale shark. Let's see if there's any more to come. Oh, there is one more after this. So, the whale shark here is another all players ability where you're playing it on a certain type of dive site.

This was picked by five different ambassadors. And I think this one is picked and I often go after this one for the same reasons that I go for the great white shark. It is just such a distinctively large fish. Uh the largest fish in the world specifically. It may live up to 130 years, 300 teeth, and yet it feeds on tiny fish, shrimp, and plankton.

And it's can be over 2,000 cm long. I know we use centimeters, which kind of throws off that scale a little bit, but it is a massive animal. Um, and it does take it is a bunch of points. It is the most points in the game, 12 points. It does require you to eat a school, which is a lot of points that you're losing.

You're losing what is it? six points for losing a school. Um, but still 12 points and you get an egg. Each egg is worth a point on each of the green dive site fish. So, it is a very powerful fish and just one of those that you kind of build around. You have to build up to it a little bit because you need to get that school.

You need to find a find the right time to play it. Uh, but yeah, the whale shark is very satisfying to play. And we'll end is the yellow box. And I wanted to highlight this one both because of how unique and colorful it is, but also because I mentioned earlier in the video, one of the distinctive features in Finsspan is how it brings the the ocean to life, the waters to life because you are moving tokens around all the time.

You're moving young around. You're moving schools around. You're moving young so they can become schools. And then you're maybe moving schools so they can get out of the way of other schools. And this icon right me here means to choose either a young or a school and move it as far as you want in one direction.

Um either vert in one orthogonal direction vertically or horizontally. Um and that is neat. I it really brings I think the ocean to life when you're moving these tokens around. They aren't stagnant. They aren't staying in one place. Um, and even at certain times in the design, we considered doing that with the cards themselves, but we found that was actually quite annoying, especially since we had these tokens that were moving around, too.

It's much easier to move the tokens around than move the cards around. But, uh, yeah, this was uh it was it was really neat to see this aspect come from the design and and the development of Finsspan, to see these cards, the these mats, these oceans come to life because of abilities like this where you can move young and schools around on your player mat.

And this one happens to also be an all players benefit, which I love. the positive player interaction in Finsspan. I'd love to hear what you think for any reason, whether it's thematic or mechanical, what your favorite fish is in Finsspan and maybe your pick for either a category or a specific aquatic animal that you're hoping will show up in a future Finsspan expansion.

I'd love to hear about that in the comments below. And yeah, let me know. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks.