Greetings once again from your friendly correspondent here in New England. First off, a quick apology to everyone, readers, esteemed editor, et al., for this very delayed installment; I came down with my first flu of the season (already!) and it was an ungodly bastard. It was one of those where you are out of work for days, your muscles and joints ache, and you cannot get warm without putting on so many layers that your whole body gets drenched in sweat.

Then, just when I thought I was finally over it, it came back in the form of bronchitis, so now I have been on antibiotics for a week and counting. A truly joyous time.

My health issues notwithstanding, I thought that before I started today's article, I would take a brief moment to catch you all up with how things were going in the other aspects of my life.

Several months ago, I mentioned that I had proposed to my girlfriend, and that we were now engaged. Since then, we have successfully completed all of the major details that are involved in the planning of a wedding. We have time, date, location, food, DJ, and flowers all decided. We do not have to worry about transportation, and things are progressing in the arrangement of a minister. The only thing that has cropped up in terms of any minor complications is a photographer.

We originally had the bride's father planned as the photographer - because, conveniently enough, it was his job until about a year ago when he retired. Unfortunately, his eyesight is going quickly, and since he is technically a member of the wedding party, we are currently searching for a possible replacement. Other than this hitch, however, things are going along well, praise be.

And just on the off chance that my life was not yet complicated or busy enough, I found out that my car's life expectancy could be measured in days, due to a very important (and, naturally, expensive) converter slowly dying on me. So I found myself this past week going through all of the wonderful bureaucratic red tape processes that are involved in the procurement, registration, and inspection of a new vehicle, and watching my car insurance rates double. The resultant new bills basically forced me to have to completely re-prioritize my fiscal existence.

No prerelease tournament for me this time around. Ah well.

So enough about me; you're here to read a Magic article. Here we go, then.

Over the last couple of weeks, much to my happiness, there have been a couple of articles that have been talking about white decks. This is due largely to the release of Judgment, but it is nice to see that it is having an affect on the tournament scene as well as the casual or multiplayer arena; it seems like it has been a while since there was a viable white archetype floating around.

Two of the articles in particular caught my attention - one by Duarte Fernandes, and another one by Sam Zitin. You will want to read both of them, at least for the decklists, in order to appreciate the rest of this article. Both decks mentioned in these articles deal with the same cards and themes, and are considered bird decks. I thought that this would be a good topic for this week, particularly because in my multiplayer group, we have had no less than three separate bird decks show up as well. So I will be listing and comparing the bunch of them here, and giving my multiplayer viewpoint on the lot of them.

While Duarte's deck is meant for the tournament scene, there are still aspects of his deck and insights that need to be examined.

Duarte mentions the three methods that make the deck work: Get an early Soulcatcher's Aerie, get fast birds on the table and send them to their doom on purpose, and get more birds after that. That's the basis for success. As I show you the different decks, you will see that we have different methods of accomplishing the three points.

With regards to Duarte's deck itself, it is a very nice compact setup. I was going to question the number of Quiet Speculations that he has in the deck as being one too many, because he only has a total of five cards in the deck that have the flashback ability... But it occurred to me that, after using the first to get the Prismatic Strands and the Battle Screeches, then he would be able to use the other two to discard to the Careful Studies.

If it wasn't for the fact that he has the Speculations in there, I would have also questioned only having one Prismatic Strands in the deck. I would have thought that he would get rid of that altogether in exchange for one more Soulcatcher's Aerie, or another Careful Study, since he presumably would cheerfully discard one of the Glorys to it as well.

I am also wondering about the two Deep Analysis. While I can obviously understand the power of card drawing, I would have thought that between the Quiet Speculations thinning out one's deck somewhat, and the three Careful Studies, that these two might want to be used for something else. While they are not the most expensive of the cards in the deck, they are on the high end, and to use them a second time means the loss of life. While I have learned that life in duels is another resource to be utilized, in the late game you might not have the luxury of spending more life to get the cards necessary. Unless you are a gambler, or if you are going to die anyway if you don't do it.

Moving on to Sam's version of the bird deck, you notice immediately that there are distinct similarities between the two. They both have Suntail Hawks, Screeches, Aeries, and Skycloud Expanses.

After that, the changes begin.

I can understand Sam's reasoning for wanting to go with a mono-white deck; the odds for mana-screw are lessened, you get added simplicity, and considering that you are going with white weenie, some aggressive boosts would help.

Removing all of the blue cards is straightforward enough, and the removal of the Lieutenant Kirtars, but those are the only parts where I agree with him.

The first part that I come into conflict with him on is the decision to replace the Benevolent Bodyguards with Mother of Runes. The Mothers are unquestionably superior to the Bodyguards, with their only disadvantage being that they can't protect anyone on the first turn that they come in on.

And in that last sentence are the two arguments against the use of the Mothers.

Unless Sam's group is different from mine, Mothers tend to have bloody short life expectancies. Their low toughness and their power kind of dictate that they die quickly and easily upon appearing. If you keep them alive, yes, they can be a help... But all too often I find myself having to choose between saving another creature and letting the Mother die, or saving her by using her power on herself. The fact that they have summoning sickness is the other problem, obviously.

It is also possible to use the Benevolent Bodyguard as a blocker and still sacrifice him to save another blocking creature of yours by surprise. This holds true with the Mother as well, but I think that the surprise is lessened somehow, by how recognizable the Mother's ability is.

While the use of Mothers is arguable, I definitely disagree with Sam's decision to remove the Soulcatchers. These birds are still cheap, and they get a +1/+1 counter on them whenever a flying creature is put into any graveyard from play. This means that when everyone's flying creatures die, yours gets more powerful.

Sam is correct when he says that in multiplayer games, people tend to pay attention to the fatties or the ones that are capable of becoming fatties by doing nothing other than surviving. My counterargument to this is that regardless of whether you end up using Bodyguards or Mothers, in addition to whatever four cards you decide on, Sam is also adding a total of three Glories to the deck. With a total of seven cards geared towards protecting your creatures from colors, I would think that the odds of a Soulcatcher surviving would be increased.

The above color protection argument is also the one that I would use that the four cards Sam should have gotten rid of instead of the Soulcatchers are the Mystic Familiars. Yes, they are still cheap flyers... But they don't do anything else unless threshold is reached. And again, why have creatures specifically geared towards protection from one if you are going to have so many ways of giving it protection from any color anyway? It strikes me as redundant. I would rather protect a card that has the potential to become larger than a 2/2 than one that, without outside help, will not get bigger than that.

The additions of the Crusades are the only other addition that I want to dispute. Crusades are wonderful for white weenie, don't get me wrong... But I think that there is a better option.

Ironically, I am in dispute with myself as to what to replace the Crusades with. I can understand the Ferrett's quick commentary on having creature removal - but rather than go that route, which certainly has points in its favor, I am going to intentionally stay with the possibilities available for pumping my creatures.

I am admittedly relying heavily on the protection aspect of this deck.

My initial reaction was to put in Divine Sacraments, since they do the same job as Crusades, but the creatures have the potential to get a lot bigger across the board if threshold is reached, and this is a situation where threshold is worth it. But then, I thought about the fact that both Crusade and Divine Sacrament help out all white creatures. Do I really want to take the chance of helping out some other person at the table for free... Particularly when my average creature is so damn small, and the odds dictate that it would be smaller than whatever my opponent might have across from me?

I think I would finally have to fall back upon Glorious Anthem. This way, I don't have to be concerned about threshold, and I am only helping out myself again.

The inclusion of the Glories are easy; really a no-brainer. One of the best damn white cards to come out in quite some time. The fact that this was the actual prerelease card surprised and pleased me a lot - and as an aside, the Spectre that they have for the prerelease of Onslaught does not look too bad, either.

Sam hit upon a beautiful addition with Welkin Hawk. This card is a must-have for this type of deck. This card allows you to perfectly follow one of Duarte's rules, where you need to sacrifice some birds early and then follow them up with more birds. This card is suited for that express purpose - and as proof for how well Sam called this one, wait until you read the three deck lists to come.

I have to admit that Sam's decision to include Armageddon has thrown me for a loop. I have no idea how I should feel about this card in this deck. I do not know if it will definitively help or hinder the controller, and is the only card that I have to remain neutral on. I would very much like to know what the direct results of the use of this card for this deck in the casual or multiplayer format ended up being, however.

Amongst my own group, we actually had our own bird decks set up before the articles appeared on StarCity.... But, as you will read, we had very similar thought patterns both amongst ourselves, and with the other two. You will also see the individual differences that give each deck it's own personal touch.

The Black Mage was the first to seriously put forward this type of deck in our group. Not having a penchant for naming his decks, he goes simply with"The Bird Deck." Truly the height of originality, I know.

The Bird Deck
9 Forests
8 Plains
3 Krosan Verge
1 Dust Bowl
4 Battle Screech
2 Wrath of God
2 Rout
1 Serra's Blessing
3 Soulcatcher's Aeries
4 Sterling Grove
4 Ray of Revelation
3 Lieutenant Kirtar
4 Suntail Hawk
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Commander Eesha
2 Soulcatchers
4 Welkin Hawk
3 Phantom Flock

So first of all we have the fact that he is dual-colored. He has chosen to go white and green, unlike the standard combo of white and blue. What advantages does green get him?

To start off with - and most importantly - he has the four Sterling Groves. These are to ensure that when he plays his Aeries and his Serra's Blessing, that opponents are going to have go through extra effort to get rid of the enchantments that are so important to this deck. It is a significant investment, putting in four of the Groves to protect the others like that, but considering how much truly does hinge around the Aeries getting out there and staying, it is understandable... Even though I don't necessarily agree with it.

Green also allows him to play the Birds of Paradise, which in turn increase his mana production to get out the higher casting-cost stuff, of which he has significantly more of than in the decks we have previously looked at. Until I actually remembered what the casting costs of some of these cards were, I was initially against including the Birds of Paradise - because unless they get pumped, attacking with them is pointless. In retrospect, I appreciate them a little more. And, lest we forget, the Rays of Revelation can be flashed back for the cost of a green mana, effectively doubling the enchantment removal that he has in the deck. He is sacrificing any ability of getting rid of artifacts - but in our games, the enchantments are unilaterally more dangerous than the artifacts.

And the use of the Rays is also the first mention of anything resembling enchantment or artifact removal in the decks so far; although to be fair, in a dueling deck, enchantment removal might be less important, and in Sam's deck for casual and multiplayer, there are so many factors involved that something has to give somewhere.

We also have Krosan Verges, which are straightforward enough. The Dustbowl is because of the prodigious use of Mazes of Ith in our games. Notice that Welkin Hawk, Soulcatcher, Suntail Hawk, the Aeries, and Screeches all remain in place.

Commander Eesha is a new, and welcome addition, however; there's nothing like a creature that can be a perpetual blocker or beatstick; just watch out for outside sources of damage. Four toughness is on the higher end, fortunately, so the opponents will have to put forth a little effort to get this thing out of the way.

And Lieutenant Kirtar is back in again... In increased numbers, yet. While I can understand his being put in, I am still with the Ferrett and Sam on this one; too situational. Not to mention that he has the added disadvantage, sometimes overlooked, of always having to be unique on the table at any given point in the game. While he serves as a stop-gap measure, I think I have to go with creature removal in the form of spells this time around.

The Phantom Flocks, while expensive, serve as admirable blockers for the larger stuff that might be encountered in the course of our games. Their inability to be killed when taking damage works wonders against larger beasts (or massive direct damage) is one that has come to be greatly appreciated by our group over the months since Judgment first appeared.

The single greatest change from the previous decks is the addition of the Routs and Wraths. Their purpose is twofold; first, unless you have an Aerie out and operating from the start, birds in general are very small, paltry creatures that would usually take one hit and die. The Routs and Wraths serve to get rid of all of the larger creatures that everybody else is playing faster than your birds are growing... And if the Aerie is out, your birds also all die to serve the cause of any birds that show up in the future. Again, these spells are expensive, but the Birds of Paradise serve to speed things up for you.

When the Blue Mage saw what his brother had done, he decided to create his own bird deck. I asked him for his decklist for this article, which he gave to me, on the condition that I mention to the readers that this deck does not truly represent his deck building skills; he considers it to be the silliest deck that he currently has.

Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, I would like to introduce to the readers his version. Not being burdened with a sense of humility, the Blue Mage came up with:

The Better Bird Deck (Yes, that is what he calls it)
4 Plains
3 Islands
1 Skyshroud Expanse
2 Dust Bowls
4 Coastal Tower
4 Adarkar Wastes
2 Tundra
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Black Lotus
2 Recall
3 Coastal Piracy
2 Enlightened Tutor
4 Battle Screech
4 Wrath of God
4 Soulcatcher's Aerie
1 Skyshroud Aven
4 Stormscape Familiar
1 Skyshroud Falcon
3 Cloudchaser Aven
4 Suntail Hawk
4 Welkin Hawk
2 Lieutenant Kirtar

As you can see, there are definitive patterns in terms of which cards people deem important for a deck like this. This is one of the more straightforward decks, with only two things that I wanted to particularly point out.

The first was the double duty that the Cloudchaser Avens do, in both supplying birds, and being able to get rid of enchantments when successfully cast. This opens up the amount of spells that the Blue Mage has available if he so desires. The second point was that we finally have gone back to using a method of moving through the deck faster to get what you want or need - in this case, through the use of the Enlightened Tutors to go and get the all-important Aeries.

You probably noticed that he has some rather expensive cards available as sources of mana; this gets basically boiled down to the fact that he has them, so he might as well use them, regardless of what the deck happens to be about. And the Black Lotus is particularly understandable; I would intentionally find room for that thing in all of my decks, too.

So that finally leads us around to my deck. You might think that with all of the other decks for comparison, mine would be the most streamlined and efficient, right?

HA!

Eesha's Aviary
6 Islands
14 Plains
2 Rhystic Study
2 Glorious Anthem
4 Battle Screech
2 Land Tax
1 Feldon's Cane
1 Moat
1 Teferi's Moat
2 Soulcatcher's Aerie
2 Congregate
4 Disenchant
1 Commander Eesha
3 Glory
4 Skyshroud Falcon
4 Stormscape Familiar
4 Suntail Hawk
4 Welkin Hawk
4 Sage Owl

Okay, first of all, I don't own four Aeries; I am trying to correct that. The numbers of Glories in the deck are hopefully to offset that particular deficiency. The Land Taxes are to ensure that I can get my hands on the blue mana that I will need for all of my blue stuff. Out of all of the decks, I think mine has the greatest ratio of actual birds in it - or at least of flying creatures in general.

So how to improve this? Well, first of all, I should contemplate whether I want to stay in dual-color mode, or change this whole shebang to mono-white, just like Sam did. What is the reason for my having blue in the deck in the first place?

The Rhystic Studies are for card-drawing, the Stormscape Familiars are to lower the cost of the white stuff, and the Sage Owls are for deck manipulation. There are a total of ten cards that I have to see if I can work around replacing. The answer here is, of course I can. We are dealing with white, after all, and I have a reputation (self-proclaimed, admittedly) of being a white mage, so I'm almost obligated to go this route. So let's look at what we have for blue, and what we can replace those cards with.

The Stormscape Familiars are the first to go, because with the Land Taxes staying, presumably I will be able to get the necessary amount of lands out to cast whatever I want, regardless of the cost. Let's replace them with the Soulcatchers. The Rhystic Studies are gone, to be replaced by the two missing Aeries that I need to eventually get my hands on. That leaves the four Sage Owls.

I can go one of two routes here with the Owls: I could find some other variety of bird to take their place; like Cloudchaser Eagle, the Aven equivalent, or something else. However, when looking at the ratio of cards, I find that I have twenty-four creatures versus twenty-one spells. What I could do is remove the Owls from the deck entirely, and replace them with some creature removal spells - like the Ferrett suggested in Sam's article. So in go four Swords to Plowshares. And while we are at it, I have to admit that the idea of having some Wrath effect to stave off the larger hordes of the opponents has some merit.

The Glorious Anthems are in there to try to boost the power of the birds due to the lack, again, of four Aeries; but with four, the Glorious Anthems can get removed in favor of two Routs. The Routs are more expensive, but this allows me to not cast them until I myself am being attacked. As should be obvious from my previous articles, if the opponents are pounding away at one another and leaving me out of it, who am I to argue? The Land Taxes, as I mentioned, should offset the casting costs of things, and if I utilize it often enough, it will also serve to thin out the deck so that I get the actual spells I need quicker. I hope.

For anyone who might be curious, I don't own two Enlightened Tutors; otherwise I might have found a way to get those in there, too.

That should about cover it, I think. I haven't got a bloody clue yet what I am going to write about next time, so I guess we are both going to have to wait and see. Until next time, take care.