[Seriously Casual] Hitchcock's "The Birds"

[Ephraim]

It should come as no surprise to some of you to learn that I'm ever-so-slightly obsessive/compulsive. I brutally contort sentences to avoid dangling participles, I never take a sandwich out of the kitchen without first taking a bite of it, and if I pull two or more copies of a single rare out of booster packs, I build a deck with that card.

The card that prompted today's deck discussion is [card]Faces of the Past[/card]. The first aspect of this card is abundantly obvious -- if you're playing with Faces of the Past, you want to be playing a tribal deck. the second aspect of the card is also obvious -- you want those creatures to tap for some effect.

The first deck I tried to build used Elves as the key creature type. After all, Elves tap for mana, they tap for life, they tap to give other creatures power and toughness bonuses. And better yet, most of them are little, so it's easy to ditch them to the graveyard with Skullclamp. Bonus! They seem like the perfect creature type, don't they? They're really not. The Elfclamp deck already exists and adding Faces of the Past to the deck doesn't do a whole lot for it. Sure, the kills you achieve with Faces of the Past in play are enormous, but the extra colour slows the deck down and let's face it -- being able to deal more than 100 damage in a turn means nothing in a duel. Plus, there was really nothing to invent there. Other people -- much better deck builders than I am -- had already put that deck together. I'd have to search elsewhere.

For a long time, Faces of the Past just sat in my binder, sadly waiting for me to fulfil my compulsion. Then I recalled a card that I often made fun of -- [card]Keeper of the Nine Gales[/card]. What's to like about it? Aside from costing less to cast, the card's totally inferiour to Tradewind Rider. There it was, staring me in the face, though -- another substandard rare that wanted to be put in a tribal deck. Now I had something with which to work.

From Keeper of the Nine Gales, the deck started to assemble itself. [card]Skyshroud Falcon[/card], [card]Bay Falcon[/card], and [card]Zephyr Falcon[/card] (Hooray for the consolidation of creature types) are auto-inclusions because they can attack on my turn and still be available to team up with Keeper of the Nine Gales to bounce my opponent's stuff. [card]Suntail Hawk[/card] and [card]Aven Envoy[/card] earned their positions on the merits of being cheap. [card]Sage Owl[/card] isn't exactly obvious -- I did consider [card]Raven Familiar[/card], [card]Sage Aven[/card], and even [card]Aven Fateshaper[/card] in this position, but in the end, I decided that my best plan was to keep my creatures' mana curve tight.

There were a few slots left and I decided I needed to dedicate some space to card advantage. I happily took the opportunity to play with [card]Airborne Aid[/card] and I reluctantly included [card]Skullclamp[/card]. (Since the deck operates with a little bit of combo character, I felt cheap about it.) That left two slots open and me with no idea what would really fill out the deck. Later, sorting through my cards, I stumbled across the unlikeliest card, which ended up being perfect in the position: [card]Dispersing Orb[/card]. The fact that it costs to play is mostly irrelevant. Because I don't want to use it until I already have Keeper of the Nine Gales, 3+ other birds, and Faces of the Past out, it's never a problem to hold it in reserve. Once it does come down, however, it's quite potent. If I can play it, I certainly have the resources to activate it at least once and the effect it generates dovetails nicely into what the deck is already trying to do. Playing with this deck, Dispersing Orb enabled me to engage in some truly broken shenanigans. With enough mana for two activations and all of the other combo pieces on the table (multiple Keepers of the Nine Gales and numerous birds), I was able to bounce nine permanents at the end of my opponent's turn. From that point on, I had my opponent one step shy of a hard lock until I eventually killed him with my Falcons.

Anyhow, here is the deck list -- have fun, go nuts.

Creatures (28)
4 Aven Envoy
4 Suntail Hawk
4 Bay Falcon
4 Sage Owl
4 Skyshroud Falcon
4 Zephyr Falcon
4 Keeper of the Nine Gales

Spells (10)
3 Airborne Aid
2 Dispersing Orb
3 Faces of the Past
2 Skullclamp

Land (22)
9 Plains
13 Island

[Mouth for War]

The card that prompted today's deck discussion is Faces of the Past.

     I'd have probably been forced to try something stupid with the various "Tims" out there (Prodigal, Ice Age, Merfolk, etc.), but we'll stick with "The Birds" for now...  

For a long time, Faces of the Past just sat in my binder, sadly waiting for me to fulfil my compulsion. Then I recalled a card that I often made fun of -- Keeper of the Nine Gales. What's to like about it? Aside from costing  less to cast, the card's totally inferiour to Tradewind Rider. There it was, staring me in the face, though -- another substandard rare that wanted to be put in a tribal deck. Now I had something with which to work.

Later, sorting through my cards, I stumbled across the unlikeliest card, which ended up being perfect in the position: Dispersing Orb. The fact that it costs  to play is mostly irrelevant. Because I don't want to use it until I already have Keeper of the Nine Gales, 3+ other birds, and Faces of the Past out, it's never a problem to hold it in reserve. Once it does come down, however, it's quite potent. If I can play it, I certainly have the resources to activate it at least once and the effect it generates dovetails nicely into what the deck is already trying to do.

     While I'm sure you're deadset on the Keeper and the Orb, I think I'd rather have Opposition.  It works sooooo much better than the Keeper (something I actually paid money for before I realized how much better the oppositions I already had in the deck were).


     Something else that may be missing, depending on whether you want to win with beatdown or have friends playing a lot of creature removal, is Soulcatcher's Aerie.  I put these in (as opposed to Coat of Arms) to counteract what were becoming common deck types in my area - burn and other tribal decks.  The Aerie's function solely for birds, and make burn players think twice about roasting your Hawks/Falcons.

     I've a feeling, though, that your Faces take the same slot as my Aeries...

. Suntail Hawk and Aven Envoy earned their positions on the merits of being cheap

     Okay, I understand the cheap part (in fact, I also have the Hawks in my build), but the Envoys...Is an 0/2 really worth a slot?  Why not a Skyshroud Condor, a Stormscape Familiar, a Coast Watcher, or a Welkin Hawk?  Each of these choices offers a better alternative (CW = pro-green, Welkin = recursion, Condor =2/2, Familiar = cheaper white CCs) for one additional mana.


Here's my decklist to compare/contrast :

Creatures (25)
4 Suntail Hawk
2 Stormscape Familiar
4 Sage Owl
1 Skyshroud Falcon
2 Welkin Hawk
2 Skyshroud Condor
3 Coast Watcher
2 Aven Smokeweaver (an overreaction to burn)
1 Aven Cloudchaser (for those pesky enchantments)
1 Cloudchaser Eagle (same thing, different name)
1 Commander Eesha (probably too expensive)
1 Major Teroh (ditto)
1 Radiant, Archangel (yeah, yeah, yeah...so it isn't a bird - it's BIG, it flies, and it doesn't tap to attack)  :lol:

Spells (11)
3 Soulcatchers' Aerie
1 Theft of Dreams (should almost certainly be another Airborne)
2 Opposition
1 Airborne Aid
4 Battle Screech (thinking of taking one out - I draw them an awful lot)

Lands
11 plains
11 islands
2 Seaside Haven (my version of Skullclamp - I have yet to see opportunity to prove the synergy, but I'm still hoping that they'll show up in the same damned games as the Aeries...)


     It's pretty obvious that you have a more stable base of creatures due to the cheaper casting costs (not to mention mine looks more than a little haphazard due to trying to counteract too many things instead of just "doing my thing")...

     I'll still maintain my stance on Opposition over Keeper, though.

[KDenz81]

I really like this deck idea Ephraim.  It's using some cards that were considered crappy rares from Onslaught block and totally abusing them.  

I'd have to agree with Mouth of War, in that Soulcatcher's Aerie would be awesome in this deck, it goes well with Dispersing Orb.  But I'd have to disagree with using Opposition.  That only taps their stuff down, they can still use it if nessecary.  If it's back in their hand, they're stuck.

My good friend Chris had a bird deck that rocked Keepers, but he didn't use anything as broken as Faces of the Past.  He used Battle Screach and Panoptic Mirror to pump out bird tokens then would bounce things and clamp the tokens to make all his other birds bigger.  The Aerie definately turns your annoying 1/1 flyers into serious threats quickly.

[Duffy]

Maybe I can be of some help here, I've played a Mono-white version for some time (pre-mirrodin) with pleasurable results:

I'm afraid I can't remember all of it  
4 Suntail Hawk
4 Welkin Hawk
4 Soulcatcher
2 Lieutenant Kirtar

4 Battle Screech
3 StP
2 Wrath of God

1 Enlightened Tutor
4 Soulcatcher's Aerie

4 Skullclamp

the thing that made this deck tick was an early Aerie and Clamp. You can freely block any attacker and let your birds be killed, filling up your Aerie until at one point you've got some massive birds out.

The Welkin Hawk - Skullclamp combo is excellent, I definitely recommend running 4 Welkin Hawk along with 4 Skullclamps

If you are set on the U/B version I'd advice against Airborne Aid. Most of the time you will have, 3-4 birds out and you will leave yourself tapped out and with 4 cards in your hand you can't use. IMO, it's too costly for what it does, it being a sorcery too. A better plan would be Impulse or Brainstorm which are more versatile.
I must agree with Mouth for War on Opposition. Your combo takes up 2 cards that have a 3cc and 5cc. In my experience the bird deck can't wait that long and you will want to cast threats at that point in the game, unless you have complete board control.

Also, I think cards like Sage Owl would be better then Aven Envoy, in combination with Fetchlands it makes half a Brainstorm, let alone his ability to do damage and the fact that it dies thru skullclamp.

g'luck

[Ephraim]

I am glad that this deck has generated some interest. Mouth for War and Duffy, your ideas are good, but I'm going to remind you before I begin commenting that this deck was built around Faces of the Past. The more I look, the more I suspect that Soulcatcher's Aerie will work all right, but Battle Screech just isn't going to fit. It requires a lot of white creatures, which probably forces me to remove Zephyr Falcon and Bay Falcon, both of which have synergy with Keeper of the Nine Gales, which has synergy with Faces of the Past. There are some cards I'm willing to drop, but I definitely want the focus of the deck to be on Faces of the Past and Keeper of the Nine Gales.

As much as I like the idea of using Dispersing Orb, I'd be happy to exchange it for a couple of Aeries. I also like the idea of using both Sage Owl and Spire Owl, instead of the Aven Envoys I have now. They increase my ability to dig for a Skullclamp, which is the least prevalent combo piece in the deck. (The reason, by the way, that I was running Envoys in the first place is simply because this deck lacks 1-drops.)

As for Airborne Aid, I think that you underestimate it, Duffy. It's no Ancestral Recall, but drawing 3-5 cards for , even at sorcery speed, is pretty good. The only downside to being tapped down is that I won't be able to play the goodies I just drew. The alternative is not running Airborne Aid at all and stalling after I barf five birds onto the table with no card-advantage engine in sight.  In fact, I doubt that I need 8 Sage Owls, so I will probably only put in 2 Spire Owls when I replace Aven Envoy, to make room for a fourth Airborne Aid and a third Soulcatcher's Aerie.

Afterthought...
Maybe instead of putting in 2 Spire Owl, I'll put in 2 Raven Familiar. They're better card advantage, even if they're a little bit more costly. Having Echo, they also have a neat interaction with Skullclamp.