So I slapped together Caverns, Vial, the newly spoiled hatebear changeling, looked for the most playable birds, and threw in some generic good cards to top it up. Pull out a manabase pretty much at random and add a sprinkle of meme cards that care about birds and this is the result:
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Judge's Familiar
4 Baleful Strix
4 Unsettled Mariner
3 Aven Mindcensor
3 Nimble Obstructionist
2 Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Airborne Aid
4 Aether Vial
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Island
2 Karakas
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
1 Seaside Haven
2 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
1 Windswept Heath
Results so far indicate that the deck can pull its weight and win games by surprise, but presents an anemic clock (as it turns out, beating down with 1/1s can take a while). It also struggles against equipment. You also lose to nonsense like Blood Moon etc.
I'm now looking for sideboard cards that hedge the matchups that appear problematic at first glance. Soraya can boost the team even though she's a human, and the banding is actually super helpful. (I'm also looking forward to the numerous judge calls or playing that deck on camera and have commentators awkwardly attempt to explain banding.) Cloudchaser Kestrel can take care of the few enchantments in the format. Am I missing anything?
Popeye stompy mkII: This time it's birdicle.
Flavor fail not using scalding tern as your fetch.
4 soulcatchers' aerie plz. Soraya the falconer too. It's errata'd to bird now.
Yeah, Soulcatchers' Aerie is BRUTAL, and you should be running four. I'm not convinced the other Bird Lord (Lady, really) is worth it. I think you also want Squadron Hawk as a 4-of, if only for brainstorming the extra copies away.
Legacy decks: mono U painter, strawberry shortcake, imperial painter, solidarity, burn
EDH decks: zedruu voltron, rakdos the defiler, persistent petitioners, blind seer
I think you should consider these cards:
Bone Picker
Roc Egg
Rukh Egg
Keeper of the Nine Gales
(Soulcatcher)
(Welkin Hawk)
Cabal Therapy
Soulcatchers' Aerie
+ the land which let's you sacrifice a bird for value.
Sacrifice enablers and Judge's Familiar enable Bone Picker and triggers Aerie.
The Eggs are card advantage with Therapy.
Soulcatchers' Aerie is a must, that's what makes Bird tribal worth it
Battle Screech is a really good way to dump birds onto the field
Pride of the Clouds can act as a manasink on stalled games or as a dangerous finisher to press an advantage
Squadron Hawk is a high quality bird
Seaside Haven is more important with Soulcatchers' Aerie, you'd want more than a single copy
I feel like the "UW Bird Deck" should be playing Moat and Suppression Field, since they are massively disruptful cards in those colors that don't crowd out anything critical to UW birds.
Along this line, I think two of the best birds may be Unsettled Mariner and Stormscape Familiar; so leaning into a Chrome Mox deck.
There's no reason to play green or black cards when there's so much value already in UW birds.
Green just gives manafixing (even though it's your fourth color).
Black gives card draw (Baleful Strix), but you can also draw cards via Squadron Hawk + Brainstorm/Seaside Haven/Mistveil Plains. Shedding down to 2 colors allows a smoother manabase.
(Mariner is one of the best Slivers IMO, what's it doing in a Bird deck?)
If you do play Black, you probably want Bone Picker and Cabal Therapy and Welkin Hawk for a more card-advantage/sacrifice themed deck.
Edit: Caw-Go
//Spells: 16
4 Aether Vial
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Soulcatchers' Aerie
//Birds: 22
4 Judge's Familiar
4 Pride of the Clouds
4 Squadron Hawk
4 Welkin Hawk
3 Aven Mindcensor
2 Aven Mimeomancer
1 Keeper of the Nine Gales
//Lands: 22
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Flooded Strand
2 Prismatic Vista
2 Tundra
2 Island
2 Plains
2 Seaside Haven
1 Mistveil Plains
3 Wasteland
Combos:
Squadron Hawk + Brainstorm + fetch = Get 3 hawks. Then Brainstorm, put 2 hawks back and reshuffle. Then cast the remaining hawk to get those 2 Hawks back later. 0 cards lost.
Squadron Hawk/Welkin Hawk + Mistveil Plains = Unlimited hawks. Keep putting dead ones on the bottom of your library, then you can fetch more with the hawk's ability. Add Seaside Haven as a sac outlet/card draw engine for lategame advantage. Keep Aether Vial @ 2 to make it even easier to recast hawks.
Aven Mimeomancer = Turn 1/1s into 3/1s to speed up your clock. It only changes the base P/T, so Pride of the Clouds still gets its buff and Soulcatchers Aerie still makes them bigger. You can also use it to turn enemy creatures into X/1s so your endless swarm of 1/1s can kill them.
Last edited by FTW; 06-01-2019 at 05:23 PM.
No love for Thrummingbird
A worse Diffusion Sliver!?
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