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Legality
| Format | Legality |
| 1v1 Commander | Legal |
| Alchemy | Legal |
| Archenemy | Legal |
| Arena | Legal |
| Block Constructed | Legal |
| Canadian Highlander | Legal |
| Casual | Legal |
| Commander / EDH | Legal |
| Commander: Rule 0 | Legal |
| Custom | Legal |
| Duel Commander | Legal |
| Gladiator | Legal |
| Highlander | Legal |
| Historic | Legal |
| Historic Brawl | Legal |
| Legacy | Legal |
| Leviathan | Legal |
| Limited | Legal |
| Modern | Legal |
| Modern Beyond Horizons | Legal |
| Oathbreaker | Legal |
| Pauper | Legal |
| Pauper Duel Commander | Legal |
| Pauper EDH | Legal |
| Pioneer | Legal |
| Planar Constructed | Legal |
| Planechase | Legal |
| Pre-release | Legal |
| Quest Magic | Legal |
| Standard | Legal |
| Standard Brawl | Legal |
| Tiny Leaders | Legal |
| Vanguard | Legal |
| Vintage | Legal |
Healer's Hawk
Creature — Bird
Flying (This can't be blocked except by creatures with flying or reach.)
Lifelink (Damage dealt by this also causes you to gain that much life.)
Cloudy2024 on
Tripwire
2 months ago
Nighthawk Scavenger,Mirri the Cursed or Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet would up the power level and are cheap(ish). Also Gifted Aetherborn would be a good addition and replacement for Healer's Hawk as it doesn't really fit with the vampire part of the deck anyway. overall an awesome deck and definitely deserves an upvote from me!
kamarupa on
Bird Flu (5-Color casual kitchen table deck)
2 months ago
aw, no Squadron Hawks? :(
I love the value of Healer's Hawk, too.
legendofa on Is the only problem with …
7 months ago
Life gain is a good stall tactic. The problem comes when people overemphasize the stalling, so they have life totals in the hundreds or thousands and no way to actually close out the game.
Another thing is that unless you're seeing a lot of burn or hyper-aggro decks, life gain like Revitalize just puts you back where you were. If a 2-power creature attacks you twice, and you use Revitalize, you've undone some of the damage but haven't done anything to address the cause of the damage. Pumping a Healer's Hawk also puts pressure on your opponent with a beefy flying attacker.
Incidental life gain, through lifelink or in addition to another ability, is pretty good. Soul Sisters is a well-established archetype, and cards like Felidar Sovereign exist for a reason. If a deck is built to do nothing but gain life without a clear win condition, though, it only delays a loss. Maybe something like a 300-card deck that spams Elixir of Immortality could win a few games, but that sounds like a one-trick slog for everyone that can be played around with one sideboard card.
Niko9 on Is the only problem with …
7 months ago
For a long time I had a combo lifegain deck that was kind of kitchen table soul sisters, and in that context I thought that it was a snowballey deck to play that was decent but never amazing, and I kind of figured that that's just how lifegain is in magic. But more recently I started playing more incidental lifegain, purely in 60 card, but I've had pretty interesting results.
The value of something like Revitalize can be kind of deceptive against an aggro or tempo deck. If I'm mitigating some of the early damage while also digging to a combo or a set up, that's extremely valuable. The way I see it a lot of the time is, my opponent attacked with some small creatures for a few turns and I gained the life back, so if I have a good late game plan, that lifegain buying me extra turns is kind of like having both extra ramp and extra draw.
Like, if Revitalize buys me one more turn in the game, it is kind of saying "1W- Draw 2 and add W to your mana pool" and that's an incredibly busted card.
Or something like Mire Triton that can not only delete the damage from early turn attacks but also deathtouch, that will almost always get you another turn down the road, and that's a whole new draw, land, and untap.
I don't know, and maybe it's just me, but I feel like I'm recently seeing a lot more potential in lifegain, not as an end goal, but as a value engine, or at least an engine that gets me to more value.
And I realize this doesn't work 100% of the time. If you match up against something turbo combo, or any variant of control, lifegain is going to be a bad bang for the buck.
Maybe I'm just wondering if anyone else has had this experience where at the end of the game you say, wait, did putting a pump spell on Healer's Hawk early, did that actually get my whole deck on line in the late game?
DreadKhan on
Need help pls (too many cards)
2 years ago
If you're hoping to play vs fairly competitive decks in Modern, I wouldn't run many (ideally none) 5, 6 or 7 drops, even 4 drops are slow and can clog up your hand. In a format like Modern, you want to be doing things in the most efficient manner possible, meaning you want low to the ground spells. If you have more than 1 spell of MV > 4 in your opening hand, it's very hard to make that hand a keep! Also, effects that only gain you life are terrible in practice. Blockers are usually not helpful, they end up too small/ineffective, so I'd hesitate before running cards with Defender in Modern unless you have a big payoff for them. Bodies that aren't big for their MV that lack abilities other than life gain often fail to progress the game, keep in mind that Tarmogoyf has lost huge amounts of popularity, and that could be a 3/4 or better for 2 mana. I feel like Ondu War Cleric is not a very impactful card, the 2/2 body isn't very big and the ability does very little. Tine Shrike seems like a strange inclusion, it's not a bad card in the right deck I suppose, but in this one it's clunky at 4 mana and Infect doesn't 'stack' with regular damage, so you could get the opponent to 1 life, and be stuck with only Shrike and need to deal 10 more damage to kill them. Either run lots of infect or probably skip it. Auras are generally not good cards, it's too easy for your opponent to 2 for 1 you by removing the creature. 4 mana for an aura is not where you need to be in Modern. Angelic Gift is probably more fine, since it replaces itself and Flying is a useful ability to have.
Smite the Monstrous feels awful beyond words in a format where people run stuff like Path to Exile, Generous Gift and maybe Fateful Absence in mono-White, 4 mana to have situational removal that only can hit creatures feels pretty bad.
If you want a low to the ground option to trigger lifegain and deal damage, Healer's Hawk is a nice flying lifelink 1 drop.
If you find it hard to cut cards, I think Yorion, Sky Nomad is Modern legal still, and requires you to use an oversize deck of 80 cards, and it's a fairly beefy flyer you always have access to if you need it, which definitely isn't a bad thing.
Scarecrow1779 on
Mono-Colored Beginner Decks
2 years ago
Krikr I'm glad you like them! Whenever I show somebody these lists, I almost always tell them about the card kingdom rookie decks in the same breathe. Not everyone wants to go through the work of assembling lists, even if those lists would be better suited. I'm glad my lists had teaching strengths, though. I always enjoy how easy it is to teach the stack with my lists, but was never sure if anybody else felt the same.
Swapping out Lightning Bolt for Demon Bolt is interesting. I hesitate because of Demon Bolt being a more complex card and Lightning Bolt already having a lot of decision making associated with it, but the point of being slower is a good one. I had considered replacing Lightning Bolt with Searing Spear, but ultimately didn't do it because I didn't want to weaken the matchup against white. Having a cheap removal option is very important for taking out an enchanted Healer's Hawk before it gains white too much life. It's interesting that red was too powerful in your testing. IIRC, red's win rates for me were just a hair below 50% in most matchups. I never worried about it too much, though, because most of the people I have taught tend to not want to play with or against aggro. They're all destined to play value decks in EDH, I guess XD. Was there any particular matchup where you felt red was too strong, or was it across the board?
Sideboards are a really interesting option that I hadn't thought about before. I worry that by depending on new players evaluation, you're more likely to end up with one-sided games. However, I suppose making the learner's deck more powerful than the teacher's is actually the perfect way to show how much card choice matters. I've had times when I was teaching two people at once and they each had a beginner deck and we're playing against each other. In those cases, I could just have a suggested sideboard for each matchup that guides them to an evenly matched game 2.
Thanks for necro-ing the post! I always love talking about these little decks, and now you've got me excited to try sideboarding with them when I get a chance!
SithLord on
Birb Storm
2 years ago
There are very few birds to be found here. Odd, because this is a tribal bird theme deck. You aren't even running Maskwood Nexus or Arcane Adaptation
So here are some birds I found that would be fun to play:
Aven Brigadier !!!!!
Whippoorwill an exile for so little the cost
Storm Crow why isn't this here?
Spire Owl cheap, but nice
Sephara, Sky's Blade this hits the field by turn 4 for 1 white mana!
Ledger Shredder badass name and badass ability
Cartographer's Hawk a fun card that empties your deck of plains
Flurry of Wings and Settle the Wreckage There is so much fun to be had
Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker_ look at this scawwwwww _ Warden of Evos Isle not needed, but nice for making 5 mana birds cost less
Empyrean Eagle lord
Kangee, Sky Warden all it takes is one 1/1 bird token to scwwwaaa
Kangee, Aerie Keeper you can't run one bird and not have any feathers ay?
Shabraz, the Skyshark its a sharknado
Wingmate Roc the best wingman
High Sentinels of Arashin use your mana ramp to buff your army
Nimble Obstructionist _a tale's end _
Emeria Angel dude
Ouroboros_47 on
3 years ago
There's some quite good birds you could add if you still want to go mostly bird tribal. Healer's Hawk, Watcher of the Spheres, Aven Mindcensor, and Empyrean Eagle come to mind. Also Lofty Denial is great.
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