Last updated on November 7, 2025
Kastral, the Windcrested | Illustration by Jesper Ejsing
Birds are always here and there in Magic, as MTG sets need their flying creatures and planes usually have birds as a common creature type.
Legendary birds are another matter entirely, and fewer sets have treated birds with the respect they deserve. Enter Bloomburrow, and we have a Magic set that puts the bird creature type center stage, and with that comes new and powerful bird commanders!
Today, we’re gonna rank the best bird commanders you should have in mind when making an EDH deck around birds. Want to try some bird-typal decks? Here’s where you’ll get started.
What Are Bird Commanders in MTG?
Kangee, Sky Warden | Illustration by Dan Scott
Bird commanders are legendary creatures that can inspire you to build an EDH typal deck around birds. Most of these commanders are also birds themselves – birds tend to help other birds or have something in common with them – but we also have to factor in the color identity, since most birds are blue and/or white, and thus a red or black bird commander would miss many of the good birds available.
Seeing as bird typal is not very present in MTG, other characteristics like flying-matters or ETB/blink can be considered when they make sense.
Some commanders will make the list by sheer power, though, so I’ll definitely have to consider some brute-force bird commanders as well.
I’m not putting cards like Nadu, Winged Wisdom or Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle in the list because there’s not a single characteristic that’s bird-related to these commanders besides the creature type. And this list already has some stretches.
#19. Gwaihir the Windlord
Gwaihir the Windlord from Lord of the Rings gives you a tiny incentive to play birds, and that’s vigilance. It’s more of a Limited-focused bonus, and many of the vigilance-related payoffs are on ground creatures and in GW colors. Cards like Keensight Mentor or Solid Footing can further benefit your vigilant birds, as well as mechanics like convoke.
#18. Soraya the Falconer
Soraya the Falconer is a bird typal lord, seeing as the original “falcon” text has been errata'd to “birds.” And if you know how banding works, that ability can be useful sometimes. With Soraya around, we have some incentives to play white birds or token makers like Battle Screech. We can do much better than Soraya, but it would be fun to appear in a Commander pod with a weird Homelands legendary creature.
#17. Gwaihir, Greatest of the Eagles
Gwaihir, Greatest of the Eagles is a mixed bag. You want to have powerful creatures on the ground (not birds) for Gwaihir to give flying, and you want to get 3 life ideally from lifelink creatures or Food tokens. If you gain life consistently, your payoff is making 3/3 birds that will lift other creatures.
It’s not a bad white commander and can work with bird typal, but it’s more at home in a WB or GW deck that can benefit more from this card’s abilities.
#16. Bartz and Boko
At face value, Bartz and Boko appears to be a fairly solid bird commander. Affinity for birds is no joke, and that ETB effect can be strong in the right situation. However, being restricted to green really hurts this card's viability in the command zone. FIN brought us several powerful green birds, but not enough to make this guy particularly noteworthy.
#15. Tawnos, the Toymaker
As a Simic commander, Tawnos, the Toymaker, like Radagast, Wizard of Wilds, misses on the good white birds, but the incentive to play blue birds is here. For every bird you cast, you’ll create an artifact clone of it, regardless of that bird's mana value. You can make an interesting bird-typal deck with Tawnos, but you’ll nerf yourself by not playing good beasts and good white birds. And changelings count only once (bird or beast) for the copy ability.
#14. Radagast, Wizard of Wilds
Radagast, Wizard of Wilds wants us to cast spells with mana value 5 or greater so that we can create beasts and birds with ward .
I’ve checked and there are plenty of blue birds that cost 5 or more and fit a Radagast build and a birds-matter build – including a nice Owlbear that gives you a card back. Even if you aren’t willing to go to that extreme, just playing good, expensive green cards will already make you some birds. The sad part of this Simic commander () is that you’re missing on mono-white and Azorius cards, which are the best bird colors.
#13. Moira and Teshar
As an Orzhov commander, Moira and Teshar gives you access to black so that you can complement your white bird army with a few heavy-hitters like Maha, Its Feathers Night, Breena, the Demagogue, and Shaile, Dean of Radiance / Embrose, Dean of Shadow. The deck will take a more “value and reanimator” route than simply attacking with birds, this way you can have a more controlling bird-related deck.
#12. Morophon, the Boundless
No typal commander ranking can exclude Morophon, the Boundless, our favorite typal-flexible card, and with this 5-color commander you can put all birds from every color into one basket and fill it with bird-typal buffs and incentives. My only reservation with a bird Morophon deck is that birds are usually on the cheaper side, and your main idea isn’t to ramp into a 7-mana commander or fill your hand with birds to dump them later.
#11 Wan Shi Tong, Librarian
While this all-knowing owl doesn't actually benefit from playing any birds, it's too strong a card to leave out of the discussion. It has multiple ways of buffing itself, multiple ways to draw you cards (birds), and also punishes your opponents for searching their libraries.
Wan Shi Tong, Librarian is an undeniably high powered commander, but it also works well jamming in lower bracket decks that just want to cast as many Storm Crow equivalents as possible.
#10. Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
Probably the best (and most annoying… ) Bant card and one of the best stax commanders, Derevi, Empyrial Tactician is in the best bird colors (), and this Bant commander cares about creatures dealing combat damage to a player… which should happen quite a lot when you have a bunch of fliers.
Derevi allows you to take the deck in another direction entirely: Use green birds to produce mana like Birds of Paradise and Gilded Goose, while using Derevi’s ability to untap your mana producers and trigger another infamous green bird in Nadu, Winged Wisdom.
Bant colors also let you play Falco Spara, Pactweaver, and proliferate spells to take advantage of counters.
#9. Sephara, Sky's Blade
Sephara, Sky's Blade is a huge incentive to fill your deck with white birds. Cheating this massive 7/7 into play that will grant your other creatures indestructible is big. Sephara only cares about flying, so you can throw a couple spirits and angels into the mix too.
#8. Kangee, Sky Warden
Kangee, Sky Warden is a big bird with flying and vigilance that will attack as a 5/3 and block as a 3/5, and of course, it’ll mass-pump your other fliers if it’s in combat. All good birds fly, so this is a competent Azorius commander for your birds deck.
#7. Yorion, Sky Nomad
Besides being a bird, Yorion, Sky Nomad will work very well if your birds focus more on ETB triggers than on attacking. There are plenty of good birds with ETB abilities, and you can get more tokens or more +1/+1 counters thrown around. You’ll want to take a look at bird cards from Bloomburrow like Knightfisher, Plumecreed Mentor, or Salvation Swan if you’re willing to go down the blinking-birds road.
#6. Kangee, Aerie Keeper
Kangee, Aerie Keeper can be one of the greatest incentives to build around birds. Its kicker ability puts X feather counters on it, and all birds will get +X/+X equal to that amount.
We rarely have a lord that pumps your team that hard, and it works with proliferate effects – hello Thrummingbird.
You can even play nonbird support cards like Grateful Apparition or Norn's Choirmaster to maximize your feather counters and birds. And, as weird as it sounds, there’s also Aven Mimeomancer, a card that puts feather counters on other creatures too, including your bird commander.
#5. Errant and Giada
Errant and Giada give you a steady stream of card advantage by allowing you to cast fliers from the top of your library, which for a bird commander means birds, of course. And if you want to put some good flash creatures in your deck (Venser, Shaper Savant or Hullbreaker Horror come to mind), that’s okay too.
#4. Choco, Seeker of Paradise
All Final Fantasy lovers knew Chocobos would feature strongly in FIN, but no one could've guessed the set would bring us such an incredible bird commander: Choco, Seeker of Paradise.
Not only is it in an ideal color identity for birds, it also rewards you with a triggered ability that scales up the more birds you swing with. It has an incredible ramp ability stapled to it as well, which will just enable you to consistently get your birds onto the field. That landfall ability is a nice little bonus too.
#3. Akim, the Soaring Wind
Akim, the Soaring Wind is a token commander, and whenever you create tokens, you’ll create an additional 1/1 flying bird token.
There are many ways to take advantage of this Jeskai commander with cards like Intangible Virtue and anthem effects that buff fliers, birds or both. Some birds like Falcon Abomination and Aven Eternal create tokens, this way you’ll create many birds and have a big flock, not to mention the double effectiveness of a card like Battle Screech.
#2. Kastral, the Windcrested
Kastral, the Windcrested is the pushed bird commander from Bloomburrow. Here, you’re directly incentivized to play birds and make them attack your enemy, which is easy because most of them fly anyway. After that, there’s so much you can do, like pumping your whole team, drawing a card, cheating a bird into play from your hand, or even reanimating your best bird. Better yet, Kastral, the Windcrested‘s triggered ability can be triggered up to once per opponent each damage step.
You can play cards like Roaming Throne to double Kastral’s triggers, or play cards that grant first strike or double strike to get multiple triggers per turn.
#1. Zinnia, Valley's Voice
The face commander from the Family Matters Commander precon, Zinnia, Valley's Voice is a very fun bird commander. Your creature spells have offspring and you also benefit from any bird token with base power 1, such as the ones created by Battle Screech, Akim, the Soaring Wind, and Aether Channeler. Even if you buff them or put +1/+1 counters on them, the base power will stay the same.
Best Bird Commander Payoffs
With bird-related cards, some effects were always on the top of my head: fliers, ETB triggers, flying tokens, and dealing damage to a player. Battle Screech somehow fits most of these categories, but let’s analyze other options.
If you want to fill your deck with good ETB effects, here’s a few examples:
If you want to make bird tokens, there are some ways to get them on the battlefield and ways to benefit from them:
Some lands you could be interested in with flying/bird synergy:
Some generic flying incentives include:
Commanding Conclusion
Akim, the Soaring Wind | Illustration by Filip Burburan
Bird typal is not as supported a theme as elves, goblins, or zombies, but there’s some support nevertheless. As WotC aims to spread themes across multiple formats, we might be getting some more bird support in the years and Magic sets to come, either in supplemental Commander sets or in Standard ones. And who knows, we might be getting more legends like Kastral, the Windcrested and less like Nadu, Winged Wisdom.
What do you think of my bird commanders list? Tempted to build some of these? Let me know in the comments section below or over Draftsim Discord.
Stay safe folks, and keep soaring above your opponents’ defenses.
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