Board Game Arena

How do you counter Echidna? If the opponent buys this Djinn, he easily and consistently get 70 gold or more. I don't understand what can be done about it. Opponent only need two blue meeples to make it all work, and I can't remove all the blue meeples from the board. Is Echidna overpowered, or is there a way to deal with it?

Based on my discussions of the game with Andrewsmile, yes, Echidna is the strongest Djinn by a fair margin. Cashing in multiple Fakirs for double value with the builders is incredibly efficient.

For playing around it I would consider using the bidding mechanics to your advantage with knowledge of how powerful it is. Djinns are always revealed at the start of the round so there's always an opportunity to bid for it. Try to win the bid without too much coin loss or make your opponent bid a massive number to claim it and then bid zero.

If it shows up, play the bidding minigame to the best of your ability. We'll need an expert opinion on how to evaluate it and make smart bids. Taking first bid for 18 would guarantee claiming it, but would be a net loss of 18 points, not sure if it's always THAT good. If the opponent did a moderate first bid like 5, 8, or 12 then bidding 18 seems like a no-brainer in most situations.

There's never any sure fire plan, but I would pay attention to fakirs and making optimization of other moves while the opponent gears up to use. They need whites fakirs and a useful square. There is sometimes time to contain it a little.

I have lost while executing a smooth enough 70 pt move with it. There are plans but I think the game is more difficult to play for whoever does not have that genie.

I realize that buying Echidna is a good idea, but I'm more interested in what to do if the opponent already has her. It's like it's impossible to prevent Echidna through miple control, I guess I can try to buy out fakirs, but it's probably not possible to completely keep the opponent from fakirs either. And when I buy fakirs myself I will lose points, I could do something more useful

Echidna is indeed the most powerful Djinn by a wide margin, but there are a couple things you can do to mitigate:
just doing blue moves near where the best spot on the board is (there usually arent multiple nonadjacent spots with 5+ blue tiles touching) will clear them out and force your opponent to either execute early or fail to find a good opportunity
taking all the fakirs you can from the shop
rushing camel placement to force an earlier end and giving your opponent less time to payoff.

The worst thing you can do is try to outvalue the echidna user, they will always win the long game if you dont get all the blues off the board. I've beaten huge echidna turns a fair amount, but against an opponent of equal skill you really need to prioritize denying echidna from your opponent in the first place.