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Falcon and Redwing

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Falcon and Redwing

At a glance

  • Commander: Falcon and Redwing
  • Colors: Mono-White
  • Archetype: Mono-white flyers tempo
  • Power tier: mid-high

Cards

Commander

Falcon and Redwing — Legendary Creature — Human Bird Hero (3/2)

Flying. Whenever Falcon and Redwing deal combat damage to a player, create that many 1/1 white Bird creature tokens with flying, then put a +1/+1 counter on Falcon and Redwing.

The scout paraphrase matches the printed card (commander_oracle_ok = true). The card is a self-snowballing flyer: every connection makes a number of 1/1 flying Birds equal to the combat damage dealt, then grows itself by a +1/+1 counter — so the next hit makes even more Birds. A single unanswered turn cycle goes 3 damage → 3 Birds + a counter → now a 4/3 making 4 Birds, and so on. The whole deck is built to (a) make sure the commander connects, and (b) turn the resulting air force lethal.

Gameplan

Mono-white evasive tempo. Deploy cheap flyers, ramp into the commander early, and protect it so it keeps connecting and exponentially building a Bird swarm. Ground-based pods simply cannot block the air. Once the board is wide in the sky, an anthem/overrun spell closes the game in one alpha strike.

Three phases:

  1. Setup (T1-3): mana rock + a one-drop flyer or two, land the commander on curve (T2 with a turn-1 rock).
  2. Snowball (T4-7): make the commander connect every turn using Skyblinder Staff / Mechanical Glider and cheap protection. Each hit widens the board for free while growing the general.
  3. Close: swing with the flyer swarm under an anthem (Inspired Charge, Ethereal Guidance, Angelic Blessing on the general) for lethal evasive damage.

Key synergy lines

  • Skyblinder Staff on the commander is the engine’s best friend: “can’t be blocked by creatures with flying” means even an opposing air defense can’t stop the trigger, and +1/+0 means one extra Bird per hit.
  • Mechanical Glider / Angelic Gift grant flying to a grounded body, and Angelic Gift replaces itself — turning a non-flyer into another evasive attacker and a card.
  • Pegasus Courser / Heavenly Qilin / Tah-Crop Elite push extra creatures into the air or pump the team mid-combat, converting the Bird tokens into real damage.
  • Cloudshift / Gods Willing / Blacksmith’s Skill / Loran’s Escape save the commander from removal AND can blank a blocker or a kill spell during the turn it matters, preserving the snowball.
  • Dawnglare Invoker (: Tap all creatures target player controls) is the inevitability button — tap down the biggest defender’s whole board, then the air force connects unopposed.

Role breakdown (with counts)

  • Lands — 36: 33 Plains + Secluded Steppe, Drifting Meadow, Desert of the True (all cycle late so flood is rare).
  • Ramp — 10: Sol Ring, Mind Stone, Everflowing Chalice, Guardian Idol, Prismatic Lens, Fractured Powerstone, Wayfarer’s Bauble, Renegade Map, Pilgrim’s Eye, Skittering Surveyor.
  • Card advantage — 9: Inspiring Overseer, Skyscanner, Sky Crier, Owlin Historian, Spirited Companion, Squadron Hawk, Thraben Inspector, Novice Inspector, Angelic Gift (Mind Stone also sacrifices for a card late).
  • Spot removal / interaction — 8: Pacifism, Journey to Nowhere (exile), Cooped Up (exile upgrade), Compulsory Rest, Last Breath (exile), Oppressive Rays, Piercing Rays (exile tapped), Unified Strike. Plus Mothrider Patrol taps a blocker each turn.
  • Mass / pseudo-wipe — 1: Dawnglare Invoker (mass tap = the white inevitability piece; mono-white has no true board wipe at common, so the plan leans on evasion + this tap-out lock instead).
  • Protection — 4: Gods Willing, Blacksmith’s Skill, Loran’s Escape, Family Reunion, Cloudshift (re-use ETBs / dodge removal).
  • Flyer payoffs / evasion grant — 2: Skyblinder Staff, Mechanical Glider.
  • Evasive bodies & enablers — ~16: the cheap flyer suite (Battlefield Raptor, Healer’s Hawk, Suntail Hawk, Rustwing Falcon, Kitesail Scout, Stormfront Pegasus, Lifecreed Duo, Aven Squire, Colorful Feiyi Sparrow, Stalwart Aven, Skyhunter Prowler, Skyhunter Skirmisher, Pegasus Courser, Seller of Songbirds, Heavenly Qilin, Aven Cloudchaser), plus Kor Skyfisher (re-buy ETBs), Veteran Armorer (toughness anthem).
  • Anthems / finishers — 7: Charge, Dauntless Unity, Inspired Charge, Ethereal Guidance, Marshaling Cry, Angelic Blessing, War Screecher.

Curve is heavily ⇐4 MV; the only expensive line is Dawnglare Invoker’s activation, used as a late-game finisher enabler.

Pilot notes

  • Prioritize a turn-1 mana rock so the commander can land turn 2-3 and start snowballing a turn early.
  • Hold a cheap protection spell (Gods Willing / Blacksmith’s Skill) when you expect removal — losing the general resets the snowball, so trade reactively, not eagerly.
  • Equip Skyblinder Staff to the commander the moment a flying blocker appears; otherwise put it on whichever flyer most needs to connect.
  • Save anthems for the alpha strike, not to win a single combat. With even 4-5 Birds out, one Inspired Charge / Angelic Blessing is often lethal.
  • Squadron Hawk fetches 3 copies in multiplayer? No — singleton, so it fetches nothing extra here; play it purely as an evasive body and ignore the search.
  • Dawnglare Invoker is your answer to a single overwhelming ground/flying wall: tap their whole board pre-combat and swing.

Weaknesses

  • Board wipes hurt a go-wide deck; mono-white commons can’t counter them. Mitigate by not overcommitting — the commander alone rebuilds the board through connections.
  • No true Wrath: if an opponent assembles a bigger flying wall, you rely on Dawnglare Invoker, removal auras, and Skyblinder Staff to push through.
  • Flying hate / mass -X/-0 to flyers (e.g., opposing One-Eyed Scarecrow effects) blunts the swarm; keep some anthems to play over the top.
  • Slower than dedicated combo; this is a mid-high tempo deck that wins through inevitability of the snowball, not a turn-4 kill.

Decklist

⬇ Download as .txt — paste into Moxfield, Archidekt, or MTG Arena.

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