Cycle of birds.

[chrissss]

Corrupted birds


Creature birds
Flying
When Corrupted birds comes into play, you may have target creature get -1/-1 until end of turn.
: add or to your mana pool
0/1

“Once they roamed the skies giving back to the forest, now they just take creature's minds, and roam…”


Raging birds


Creature birds
Flying
When Raging birds comes into play, you may have it deal 1 damage to target creature.
: add or to your mana pool
0/1

“When the birds developed their powers, their former masters were surprised..only untill they felt the power."



Waterdiving birds


Creature birds
Flying
When Raging birds comes into play, you may return target creature with converted mana cost equal to 2 or less to owner’s hands. .
: add or to your mana pool
0/1

“The birds color lures their prey, and once the prey thinks it has the birds, the prey goes away.”



Cleansing birds


Creature birds
Flying
When Raging birds comes into play, you may destroy target enchantment. 
: add or to your mana pool
0/1

“Flavour needed”

Well, I thought that Birds of paradise needs some competition. Every bird has some kind of card advantage. Dual color, and 0/1 flying.
I made them produce 2 colors instead of 5, which makes them worse of in multicolor decks. Should I add damage to the mana ability?

Comments?


Current wording


Corrupted birds


Creature birds zombie
Fear
When Corrupted birds comes into play, you may have target creature get -1/-1 until end of turn.
: add or to your mana pool
0/1

“Once they roamed the skies giving back to the forest, now they just take creature's minds, and roam…”


Raging birds


Creature birds - goblin
first strike
When Raging birds comes into play, you maydestroy target artifact with converted mana cost 2 or less.
: add or to your mana pool
0/1

“When the birds developed their powers, their former masters were surprised..only untill they felt the power."



Waterdiving birds


Creature birds wizard
Flying
When Raging birds comes into play, you may return target creature with converted mana cost equal to 2 or less to owner’s hands. .
: add or to your mana pool
0/1

“The birds color lures their prey, and once the prey thinks it has the birds, the prey goes away.”



Cleansing birds


Creature birds monk

When Raging birds comes into play, you may destroy target enchantment with converted mana cost 3 or less.
: add or to your mana pool


0/2

[Nazdakka]

These are all undercosted by 1 because you're getting both a mana critter and a useful effect for only 2 mana. Check out Sparkmage apprentice or Aven Cloudchaser. Also, Corrupted Birds and Raging Birds are almost exactly the same card. The idea is good, just the execution needs some work.

[chrissss]

SoI should increase the cost by 1?

[ghostchild]

None of these seem undercosted. I think the costs are fine. But I agree that the red and black ones duplicating each others' effects is kind of bad for a cycle.

[Matt]

I think you shouldn't be confined by what Birds of Paradise are. There's no reason these have to be birds, or fly. Green isn't really supposed to get good flying creatures (or ANY flying creatures really) and BoP is just a holdover from the ancient past.

These should be 0/2 nonfliers, like Utopia Tree.

The funny thing about these (and what keeps them from being too good) is that they don't really fix your mana, because you had to have both colors of mana to get them into play in the first place.

[Norm4eva]

Functionally the Black and Red ones are very similar, I'd like to see some distance put between them somehow.  Maybe Black could force a discard?
Actually, I think as nonflying 0/2s they'd be really, really good.  Especially with fatter asses, playing any of these early represents a large tempo swing.  Their similarity to STE gives me compunction to mutter "everything's a time walk" under my breath but I won't do that, because they aren't that awesome, but they really are.

[Matt]

Nonflying 0/1 is also possible if 0/2 is too strong, but the point is that green shouldn't be getting  good fliers.

[Norm4eva]

I don't know if that applies here, because of the Gx casting cost of all four of them.  You're right, green has no business getting 'good fliers', but GU for example is perfectly reasonable - GU got some decent flyers via Simic and also had Leonin Skyhunter before White did (Gaea's Skyfolk).  I think it's more an issue of the concert of abilities that's going on here; combining mana acceleration with Unsummon means that these guys need to be fragile, even if they aren't actually 'fixing' the mana.
Either way I think we end up in pretty much the same place.  As is they're pushing the envelope a bit too much, but raising the CC makes them terrible so they should probably all just lose flying.  A cycle of ostriches!

[Matt]

Well compare these to signets  - they have a bonus, but they're gold cards, which are the hardest to use, instead of artifacts (the easiest).

[chrissss]

losing flying; ok. increasing CC is suicide.

what about making the black and red 0/2s, and the blue white 0/1 flying?

and about the red one, should it maybe destroy a artifact with CC 2 or less?

[dandan]

Corrupted birds

Creature birds
Flying
T: add  to your mana pool
T: add to your mana pool and ~this~ gets -1/-1
0/1
“Once they roamed the skies giving back to the forest, now they just take creature's minds, and roam…”

Raging birds

Creature birds
Flying
T: add  to your mana pool
T: add to your mana pool and ~this~ deals 1 damage to you
0/1
“When the birds developed their powers, their former masters were surprised..only untill they felt the power."

Waterdiving birds

Creature birds
Flying
T: add  to your mana pool
T: add to your mana pool and return ~this~ to its owner's hand
0/1
“The birds color lures their prey, and once the prey thinks it has the birds, the prey goes away.”

Cleansing birds

Creature birds
Flying
T: add  to your mana pool
T: add to your mana pool and you lose your next attack step
0/1

How to screw up a set's colour balance! 4 'off-colour' birds with 'on-colour' effects. It might even be more fun to sac the birds to get the effect (especially the 'Black' one but I was worried about it generating GB mana on turn 2)

[chrissss]

why in gods name would anyone play these rather than birds of paradise?????

no way.

changed it a bit.

now the creatures work better with equipment etc. plus each creature has flavour.

[Matt]

Birds pretty much have to fly. Don't make them be birds!

[parallax]

Birds pretty much have to fly. Don't make them be birds!

Besides, wtf is a Bird Goblin?!?

These could all be Elves or they could be X Druids where X is supported in the other color (e.g. Zombie Druid, Goblin Druid, Vedalken Druid).

[chrissss]

If they stop being birds, thgen I hqve to chqnge qll the flavour as well...

so better close this thread.