Birds are one ofMagic: The Gathering’s oldest creature types, being in the game since the very first set, Alpha. There have been a ton of Birds released since then, with nearly 400 different Birds available to play with in the game.
The pool of Birds in Magic has plenty of powerful ones, many of which see play across every format of Magic, from Modern to Pioneer to cEDH. Birds have a lot of versatility, with some played in aggro decks, others played in tempo decks, and many in control decks. There are so many ways to play with Birds, and many ways to take advantage of them.
10Baleful Strix
The Old Tempo Staple
For two mana, Baleful Strix replaces itself whenever it enters the battlefield and leaves a great creature on the battlefield. Having both deathtouch and flying makes it both a great attacker and blocker, as your opponent will have to trade a creature if it wants to handle it.
Its low casting cost and abilities are what made Baleful Strix such a staple for tempo decks for so long. It’s good offensively and defensively, giving versatile to such a seemingly basic creature. It does require specific colored mana, so you’ll want to not have too many different colors if you want Baleful Strix in your deck.
9Nesting Dovehawk
Token Machine With Wings
Nesting Dovehawk is a great Bird to include in any deck that’s focused on creating creature tokens. It’ll constantly give you copies of any creature token, all while growing its own stats to make it harder to deal with.
There are plenty of amazing creature tokens in Magic, so having a way to populate them is great, especially since there’s no cost to do so. Nesting Dovehawk just needs to be on the battlefield when combat starts to populate, making its effect trivial to use, and even better if you can create extra triggers.
8Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
The Stax Queen
Commander players may recoil at the sight of Derevi, Empyrial Tactician, beingone of the best Stax commandersin the entire format. Derevi can completely ignore commander tax for the entire game, since it does not affect the ability to put itself onto the battlefield from the command zone.
Derevi’s ability can be done at instant speed as well, making it easier to hold up mana for interaction until you don’t need to anymore. Since Derevi makes it easy for you to untap your permanents, it makes it so you’re able to play permanents that prevent other permanents from untapping and making them only affect your opponents and not yourself.
7Kykar, Wind’s Fury
Sling Spells, Make Spirits
Kykar is a fantastic creature in decks playing a lot of noncreature spells. It’sa staple of storm decksand a common commander if you’re in Jeskai (blue/red/white). Its effect of sacrificing a Spirit for red mana is what makes it so good, making it very easy to ensure you always have spells to cast.
Kykar, Wind’s Fury is a decent attacker, but its triggered and activated abilities are the main attraction. It’s in great colors for spellslinger decks, as Jeskai is one of the best color combinations when it comes to storm.
6Aven Mindcensor
Cut Of Tutors
Aven Mindcensor is a fantastic Stax piece, as it completely shuts down the ability of your opponents tosearch their libraries efficiently. While a player could technically find the card they need, only being able to look at the top four makes that very unlikely.
Notably, Aven Mindcensor prevents any kind of searching. This includes fetchlands, so unless the land your opponent wants happens to be at the top of their library, they’ll lose out on having a land. It’s a great way to slow your opponents down, especially since there are a lot of decks that rely on needing to search their library to get their key cards.
5Ledger Shredder
Conniving Bird
Ledger Shredder is a cross-format staple that has found the most success in Pioneer Phoenix decks. It punishes your opponents from casting multiple spells a turn by getting a connive trigger, which draws you cards and gets you cards into your graveyard.
It’s easy to trigger it yourself as well, as Ledger Shredder is most commonly played in decks that run a lot of cantrips (one mana spells that replace themselves in the hand when cast by drawing). Thanks to its flying, Ledger Shredder can become hard to deal with once it starts amassing a lot of +1/+1 counters.
4Yorion, Sky Nomad
The Best Legal Companion
Companions are one of the most powerful mechanics, with Yorion, Sky Nomad being the best one still legal in most formats (with Modern being the only place it’s banned). Even though you lose the consistency of playing a minimum of 80 cards in your deck instead of 60, the effect is worth it.
Sometimes, it’s not even a downside. You have so many good cards to play in decks with Yorion that you can play it pod style, where you tutor out for whatever card you need for the given gamestate.
3Slickshot Show-Off
Plot A One-Turn Win
If you see someone plot Slickshot Show-Off and you don’t have removal or a way to block it, there’s a high chance you won’t see another turn. Slickshot Show-Off’s ability, whenmixed with burn spells, can do giant outbursts of damage, so much that it’s not uncommon to do double digits of damage with one attack.
Even if you don’t plot Slickshot Show-Off, you may attack with it right away to make it even better. It sees play in every format, being the staple of any aggro deck that plays red.
2Nadu, Winged Wisdom
The Quickest Snowball You’ll See
Nadu, Winged Wisdom turned heads on release when players saw the ability. The assumption that it would be amazing proved true, and Nadu quickly took over Modern and saw success in older formats, too.
Nadu is played with ways to target creatures with abilities for free, most commonly the Equipment Shuko since it can also betutored out with Urza’s Saga. It pairs well with Springheart Nantuko, which creates token creatures every time a land enters the battlefield. So you constantly have a source of creatures to target with abilities to easily draw through your whole deck.
1Birds Of Paradise
The Staple Mana Dork
Birds Of Paradise has been a part of Magic since the first set Alpha, and despite its age, it’s still one of, if not the best mana dork of all time. For one green mana, you get a creature that can tap for any color that can be used unconditionally.
“Bolt the Bird” was a saying created because of how much Birds of Paradise can do for a deck and required it to be removed as soon as possible. Despite its simplicity, its power is eternal and is still played across the formats it’s legal in to this day.
