Birds of Paradise
Set Price Alerts

Combos Browse all Suggest

Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Highlander Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Oldschool 93/94 Legal
Planechase Legal
Premodern Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Birds of Paradise

Creature — Bird

Flying

: Add one mana of any colour.

rckclimber777 on Build a Deck with Me …

14 hours ago

First a quick introduction. I've been playing magic off and on for years. When this site first started out, I was super active and then I stopped playing. I recently got back into it and plunged deep into the Commander format. I love building decks around interesting concepts and often trying to break cards.

My slightly ambitious goal is to create a series of threads that show my thought process as I build a commander deck. I figure it will serve two purposes: First, it will aid newer players who have some precon decks and perhaps are looking to upgrade them or they see a commander and want to build it, but aren't sure how. The second is purely self-motivated in that more experienced players can fine tune my own logic and make suggestions for my own improvement.

So with that, the first commander deck I'm going to build here is Ghired, Mirror of the Wilds. This is a card that begs to be broken and creates for interesting and powerful decks. There are also several different lines you can choose to go with. You can make it go infinite if you like degeneracy or don't like the people in your playgroup, or you can decide to go the way of building lots of tokens quickly and then turning them sideways and swinging. (Spoiler alert we are going infinite)

So first things first, we need to think about what the commander actually does and what it is going to need to do that effectively. First, it allows all nontoken creatures to tap and create tokens that I control that entered the battlefield this turn. So a couple things to point out: First is that it is tokens not creature tokens specifically, so treasures, clues, food, etc. are fair game. Secondly, it doesn't have to be my turn that the tokens came in, you can activate the ability at instant speed if you create a token on your opponent's turn. Now Ghired also is only 3 mana in Naya colors with Haste which means he's going to come down early in the game, so we'll want some other creatures out there when he comes down to start building up tokens right away.

With his abilities in mind, there are a couple things that we want to think about: Cards that create tokens, cards that double tokens, cards that untap things, and cards that do interesting things when they're tapped, example Wylie Duke, Atiin Hero, who comes down early as well, and when she is tapped I gain life and draw a card. We will obviously need to consider interaction, ramp, and card draw, but those are secondary in my thoughts. Every deck needs those, but what items you add often depends on what your deck is trying to do. In this case, we want to make tokens, tap creatures, make more tokens.

Token Generators

So a couple really good token generators here to start would be things that keep making them rather than one offs. In my playtesting Oltec Matterweaver is hard to beat. It comes in early (turn 2 if you can get a sol ring). When you cast a creature spell you can copy a target artifact or bring out a 1/1 gnome. Turn 1 you play a plains and a sol ring. Turn 2 you bring this out, turn 3 you bring out Ghired, creating a copy of sol ring, tap your Oltec Matterweaver and create another sol ring. You now have 3 sol rings on the field on turn 3... You are now the archenemy, congrats?

Some other standouts are Emmara, Soul of the Accord who when tapped creates a 1/1 soldier with lifelink. So tapping will actually create two tokens. Thousand Moons Smithy  Flip is another beast of a card. It comes down turn 4, Ghired is already out along with any other low cost creatures. Let's say you have a Birds of Paradise and Ghired when this comes down and maybe a mana rock. You create a 5/5 Gnome (2 creatures, 2 artifacts, and the gnome itself). Now you tap the bird and Ghired and create two more Gnomes. You now have 3 7/7s, on turn 4...

Honorable mentions here are things like Smothering Tithe who will create treasures each opponent's turn, tap a creature and create another. Rain of Riches, create some treasures, copy them cast something and get cascade.

Also, populate is a thing, I like Growing Ranks and Nesting Dovehawk for that.

Doublers

Ok, so doublers is a pretty easy topic, there are quite a few out there, they are expensive and honestly for this deck you don't need much. I chose a couple that I particularly like for this and by like I mean I own them and didn't have to go out and spend $50-60. Examples are Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation  Flip, Mondrak, Glory Dominus, Primal Vigor (careful as this one applies to everyone not just you).

Untapping Abilities

Untapping abilites can make it even worse as time goes on. If you have a Seedborn Muse you untap each upkeep so they draw a card, Smothering Tithe creates a treasure, during their end step you tap your creatures creating more treasures. Untap on the next opponent's untap step, rinse and repeat.

This is also where infinite combos begin to happen. Sunstrike Legionnaire untaps everytime a creature enters the battlefield. Make a creature token, tap sunstrike legionnaire, create another creature token, sunstrike legionnaire untaps, rinse and repeat, gg. Midnight Guard works too for one more mana. Other options include making copies of your own creatures that untap creatures when they enter the battlefield like Hyrax Tower Scout, Zealous Conscripts, Sparring Mummy. Mix that with notable salty cards like Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Molten Duplication, Splinter Twin, Jaxis, the Troublemaker and you're off to infinite again. (Jaxis uses his ability targeting sparring mummy, sparring mummy comes in untaps him, now Jaxis just taps to make a copy of the sparring mummy token (from Ghired) which has haste, it comes in untaps Jaxis, rinse and repeat, swing with a legion of sparring mummies)

Cards that do cool things when tapped aren't super plentiful, but the two I've mentioned already are great for this deck. (Wylie and Emmara).

Interaction, ramp, card draw

Now for the ramp, interaction, and card draw. Ramp is fairly straightforward, since we have the Oltec Matterweaver, I opted to put in some signets, but left some other stones out. Normally when I'm in green I go heavy on green ramp. I opted for cheap ramp spells like Rampant Growth, Farseek, Three Visits and Birds of Paradise (could maybe use more mana dorks since having a body later will help in producing larger tokens).

Interaction is super important in this one. Board wipes are coming, targeted removal is coming, so need to prepare, but we also need to be flexible in taking out our opponents. So to save us from board wipes, we have Heroic Intervention, the ubiquitous and hopefully soon to be reprinted (one can dream) Teferi's Protection, Boros Charm, and Smuggler's Surprise (which is heroic intervention in disguise).

Getting rid of threats is crucial, so Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares are useful, but not as useful as Beast Within, Generous Gift, and Stroke of Midnight. These obviously target more than just creatures, but also produce tokens. There are situations where a well-timed beast within on your own treasure token to create a 3/3 beast that you can copy a bunch of times is the right play. That make it not just removal, but also a token generator.

Finally, we come to card draw. Since we are producing tokens (hopefully most turns) we can include things like Bennie Bracks, Zoologist and Idol of Oblivion. I also like Welcoming Vampire for this deck. It is creature heavy so Guardian Project is great, so is Beast Whisperer and Garruk's Uprising. Esper Sentinel is always good. We already have Wylie from earlier. Getting card draw is vital to the survival of any deck and particularly this one as we need to be producing tokens regularly and you need cards to produce them. I chose to run about 11 card draw engines in the deck to ensure I'm drawing regularly.

Lands... I mean... make sure you have dual lands in the deck and triomes if you can. One noteworthy utility land is Grove of the Guardian which can have a nice payoff when you create an 8/8 with a few creatures out along with Ghired.

I'll post the deck that I built from this thought process on my page in case you want to see the final product. And if you made it this far thanks for joining me on this, I hope it was helpful. Feel free to comment on how you would do it differently or cards that should have been mentioned. Also feel free to mention commanders you want to see built. I have a couple in mind to start but want to see suggestions as well.

kamarupa on Cloaked Whispers

2 weeks ago

I love the concept of this deck, but it is def not going to be easy to make it work well. You have some obvious needs in 1) getting the combo pieces 2) having enough mana to cast them all before your opponent stops you 3) having room for defense and removal and 4) making sure your cloaked creatures die.

1) You not only need have some way of assembling your combo, you also need a way to put a spell on top of your library. I have to do this with my deck Cover Girl. The only spells I could find that made sense in that deck were: Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Brainstone, and Scheming Symmetry. I suggest running 2x of each of the first. Scheming Symmetry is a pretty big risk, so I advise against that here. The upshot of Jace is that you can cycle through your library 3 cards at a time, so you not only get to control your top card, you also get to filter for what you need.

2) Provided you employ some added filtering with Jace and Brainstone, I think you can remove some of your extra threats. This will allow for a little ramp. I guess I'd probably go with Birds of Paradise unless you're worried it will get bolted for being a bird. Then I'd probably go with a land enchantment like Fertile Ground. I think with the high-ish cost of your combo pieces, a little ramp is going to be helpful in creating a consistency in speed. (not to be fast, just to be as fast as it can be more reliably)

3) It occurs to me that cloaked spells could be blockers IF you both don't have all the combo pieces in place AND you whiffed with Hide in Plain Sight. Those are somewhat narrow conditions, so it's probably best not rely on that. I see you have room for 35 more cards, approx 24 of which will probably be lands, so I'll have to wait and see how much room you have for more defense and removal, but I think you have to include Bone Splinters. It's not as fast as I'd like but it pulls double duty in kicking off the final step in your combo and it does it for 1 MV instead of 3 like Start / Finish. I'd probably throw in 1x Fog, too. And Assassin's Trophy and Abrupt Decay would be excellent additions to the mainboard and sideboard. I'd probably go 4xBone Splinters, 2xAssassin's Trophy, 1xAbrupt Decay in the main and then extra of the instants in the sideboard.

4) Bone Splinters helps make sure you creatures die, but a board wipe like Killing Wave would probably be useful as well late game.

YStar27 on can i activate Reconnaissance on …

3 weeks ago

if i attack with a Birds of Paradise can i activate Reconnaissance on it multiple times and then tap Birds of Paradise before each one resolves and make infinite mana?

thanks

TMMadsen on Wolves of Armageddon

3 weeks ago

What do you think about possiably adding Weaver of Blossoms  Flip to the deck and cutting down or out lambholt elder?

I think Weaver of Blossoms  Flip is a bit costly on the mana-side. With Birds of Paradise, Scorned Villager  Flip and Krallenhorde Howler  Flip I'm doing pretty good for mana, so adding another mana-producer might be over the top. Lambholt Elder  Flip packs quite a punch, and lets me draw cards which is awesome. I think, I'll try experimenting with replacing Birds of Paradise instead. They're missing the werewolf subtype, but they contibute with a lot of speed. The Weaver of Blossoms  Flip however can be used in combat. Thank you for pointing me to this card!

Branchloft Pathway  Flip for mana versitility.

I recently ordered a playset of Sunpetal Grove to improve mana versitility. I looked at Branchloft Pathway  Flip, but they're quite costly where I live, and decided to go with Sunpetal Grove instead.

Thank you for the feedback.

Caerwyn on How Can I Put Ziatora, …

1 month ago

Frenzied Tilling is a terrible card. Five mana to destroy one land and get one tapped basic? Yikes.

Why don’t you start with the basics before doing anything weird. Cultivate gets you one untapped land, possibly a second if you do not have a land to play for turn, basically making it cost one or two mana. You have your classic dorks, like Birds of Paradise. Delighted Halfling would be particularly good for you, given your high prevalence of legendary cards. You could cut your three-mana rocks and go with the many two-mana options available.

Ramp should not be fancy - it should be efficient. You want to play it early so you can start playing big things faster - that means you really want to focus on mana ramp which costs one or two mana (or functionally costs one or two mana because it gives you untapped lands).

euqinU on Improve my Magus Lucea Kane …

1 month ago

This is my currently only one deck, I plan to add a Birds of Paradise Poison Dart Frog Delighted Halfling but I don't know if I have enough. Lucea Kane X-Spells

NV_1980 on 5 Paths, Infinite Destinations.

5 months ago

In its current state, this deck has a problem: its average CMC is too high for its mana-fixing/ramping/rock or dork capabilities. I know this is supposed to be fixed by casting Jodah, but during play-testing on average this took me at least 4 turns; usually 5 or 6. I think your best bet in solving this would be to include some cheap-to-cast mana dorks like Birds of Paradise or Bloom Tender and maybe some more ramp spells.

DemonDragonJ on Should I Replace Arcane Signet …

5 months ago

I have a copy of Arcane Signet in nearly all of my EDH decks, but several of my EDH decks, most notably my Chulane deck and my Ghired deck, have a strong emphasis on creatures, so I am contemplating replacing the signet in those decks with a mana dork (i.e., a creature that generates mana), most likely Birds of Paradise, but I would like to ask everyone else here for advice on that subject.

What does everyone else say about this? Should I replace Arcane Signet in some of my EDH decks with a mana dork?

Load more