Greetings, Janksters!
Final Fantasy is upon us, and with it are a ton of new kindred mechanics, including those featuring birds. Now, I'm the kind of gamer who tried to make Kangee, Aerie Keeper work back in High School, so you can imagine my delight at being able to jam birds again in Standard. I was shocked at how well it went.
Chocobos, unlike most other birds, don't fly, which means they have to operate differently from the Azorius flyers decks we've seen from birds of the past. These birds are all about landfall, and they also give Bloomburrow's birds much-needed support.
The Start
One of the strongest cards in Final Fantasy has got to be Starting Town. This land opens up multi-colored strategies perfectly, and our deck is a three-color aggro deck, so it's a no-brainer include. If we're successful in getting it down on turn one alongside a Sazh's Chocobo, we can position ourselves to deliver an insanely strong opening because it gives us all our colors before we play our second land drop.
Leading off with just a 0/1 isn't much at first, but Sazh's Chocobo won't stay small for long.
Due to Starting Town's flexibility, we can play a Mockingbird where X=0 before hitting our land drop. This means we'll have a flying copy of Sazh's Chocobo that will see our turn two land drop enter the field. If that second land is a Fabled Passage, we're ending turn two with two 2/3, growing threats, one of which flies.
This is our nut draw, and while it’s not as explosive as the turn twos we see from mice decks or prowess decks, all the pieces are in place for a devastating midgame.
I'll be done gushing about Starting Town soon, but seriously, that card single-handedly lets us play three different one-drop creatures of different colors with minimal stress. Healer's Hawk is a bread-and-butter bird that's relatively unassuming, but if we're going to be successful, we need a critical mass of birds online as fast as we possibly can. This thing helps us keep our gameplan marching forward efficiently and filling the gaps in our mana curve.
Speaking of helping us smooth out our curve, The Goose Mother is a simple two-drop that can also be a late-game threat if the need arises. In particular deck, she's primarily here to be an early-game option, but you can do far worse if she pops off the top in a late-grindy match.
The Midgame Bombs
One of the strongest cards in this deck is Traveling Chocobo, and it will likely be a very expensive card moving forward given how well it fits into Commander landfall decks, so if you want one in paper, try to scoop it up soon. This three-drop makes all of the cards in our deck twice as good while also opening up the top of our deck so we don't even need to draw cards. It's also not legendary, so multiples play beautifully. If you can get two of these beauties online, your opponent is going to be feeling like their upper lip during allergy season, because that's a must-wipe situation.
Salvation Swan is a card I've wanted to like for some time, except its inability to support other flyers dramatically limits its application. Now that so many of our amazing birds are on the ground, however, this fits as a very powerful tool against midrange decks that are looking to pick off individual threats in order to survive.
Bloomburrow's bird draft archetype was all about flyers supporting non-flyers and it lacked the cohesion that the other creature types had. (Raccoons may not have been strong, but it was clear what they wanted you to do.) Chocobos help fill that gap perfectly, and I'm willing to give the swan another shot.
I also saw Plumecreed Mentor getting played in these decks, but I decided against it in my final list. Definitely worthy of consideration, though.
Closing the Game
Choco, Seeker of Paradise will no doubt be the commander every bird player, like myself, chooses to build in the wake of this set, but it's also strong enough to be the curve topper in a deck like this. At four mana, it can draw you extra cards and ramp you to the moon while also allowing additional land drops to trigger your landfall Chocobos. This card reads like a typical Commander-centric “win more” value engine, but trying to win fairly is a great way to get left behind these days, so I'll gladly win more with a unit like this.
Kastral was the previous best bird commander ever made and will absolutely be in the 99 of my Choco commander deck, but, again, it's also strong enough to fit what this deck is doing in Standard. At five mana, Kastral won't be easy to get to until you've already set up, but once they're live, your bird army will be able to grow incredibly fast by either giving every cheap creature counters or reanimating other powerful birds from your graveyard.
Like many birds in this deck, Kastral also triggers multiple times if you have Traveling Chocobo on the field, so the opportunity for a back-breaking value turn here is very real.
While I disagree with Wizards of the Coast for going with the safer name Bartz rather than the name used in FFV's original translation, Butz, Bartz and Boko is a fantastic card in this particular build. Affinity for Birds is a wild line of rules text, but when you're given this kind of a gift, you just have to take it. Because this card is itself a bird, you can play it off the top if a Traveling Chocobo is live, and it gets multiple triggers upon entering. If your board is set up, this is a two-drop Ravenous Chupacabra with four power that might kill multiple things. The ability to clear all possible blockers with this and pound in for lethal is very real and important for any aggro list trying to break through a stalled board state.
Conclusion
While my repetitions with this deck are limited so far, I have to say it feels like a very promising deck. The pieces are all narrow enough (aside from Traveling Chocobo) that I suspect the deck will be pretty cheap in paper, and the games are fast enough to pound out a fair number of wins on the MTGA ladder even on a time crunch.
If you've been looking for an excuse to play birds in Standard, I think the time has come. Thank you for reading, and happy brewing!
