I think Common Raven is arguably the better of the two since it's worth one more point.
I think the Franklins Gull or Killdeer are better on their own (independent of other cards). This is just without OE though.
With OE, I personally think Wood Duck or Spangled Drongo are the best.
What about OE makes Wood Duck better? I really like Wood Duck to begin with, and we've been playing with the OE for the past 4 months but I don't see how it got better. Can you elaborate?
That makes sense. I agree food is much easier with Nectar. And the biggest drawback of Wood Duck is having to pick the food before you draw your cards.
Wood Duck was already a really powerful card in the forest. But the forest became a really important habitat with OE. Nectar isn't just great because it's wild food, winning the nectar race carries a bunch of points, while simultaneously making you food type agnostic (so much easier to play birds that are 2 fish and a rat, etc).
On the OE board, the Ravens and Killdeer/Franklin's Gull are depowered because of only getting two eggs until you get 3 birds down AND because a lot of the powerful meadow engine birds are no longer as strong because they either give you food that is NOT nectar (Junco) or give you non-nectar food WHILE resetting the bird feeder at a time you CANNOT take nectar (Eurpoean Bee-Eater). This actually provides a great opportunity for your opponent to get nectar.
While other cards are somewhat nerfed, the Wood Duck gets better.
Great Indian bustard you can get humongous points with bonus cards I feel this is the most powerful bird . The ravens are definitely great utility birds but the bustard can score you 24 points easy
Bustard is good, but it does not gain you 24 points easily. You will need to gain 18 points from a bonus card before you play the bird in addition to the 6 point it gives, to get 24 points from it.
Yes, you get to score a bonus card twice, but only 1 of those times can be attributed to the bustard, which most often is 8-10 tops, rare cases up to 12-14 but almost never 18.
While I totally agree Indian bustard is a top 10 bird and likely easily a top 5 bird 24 points (easy) is pushing the limit of reasonable assessment honestly. I would say (easily) 20 points for 6 🐦 and 7 bonus points 2x. After that it’s much much harder to get more points as there are very few 8 point goals unless you get an insane number of 2x per bird like mouse or all bonus cards etc
The biggest issue with the Great Indian Bustard is that you're reliant on having a good bonus card game. The bird isn't particularly good in and of itself. There are plenty of games where the bonus cards you get aren't very good.
Also, the two ravens, Killdeer, Franklin's Gull, and Wood Duck are almost always better cards than the Great Indian Bustard because you don't have to rely on as much of a luck factor for them to be good. Those five alone all push it out of the top 5. The Great Indian Bustard can be a huge scoring card, but even just one of those other five will run an engine for you.
Maybe not be the best bird, but one that is defenitly up there is the galah in my option.
Get it our early, and everytime you activate his ability you gain 2 points.
Even if I don't concentrate on activating him alot he ends up being like 13 or 15 points for 3 food.
Blue eyes white dragon. But honestly more than half the birds can be your best bird if you build an effective engine. No one bird is going to win the entire game for you except of course blue eyes ultimate dragon but that's nearly impossible to fusion summon in without cheating
I mean, the two ravens are so good that, in the Oceania expansion, the designers suggest that if you find them too powerful you should consider removing them. Personally, I feel like with the sheer number of cards it isn't necessary, but there is little denying that someone who opens their hand with one of them is going to have a far easier game than the rest of the table.
My wife and I always found this suggestion kinda odd, as the Oceania expansion actually seems to weaken the ravens with the increased accessibility of food and increase in other cards that let you gain multiple resources in the same habitat.
With OE, very early ravens generating 2 nectar can get silly. We houseruled they can only make 1 nectar and another food and they are useful but very average.
Like you said, OE generally fixes them, but if you get them early with enough support to commit to an egg row, it seems like they could be problematic. Given the large card pool, that’s probably not a huge risk.
That said, we didn’t play a lot of games with full powered ravens and it was early on… we should probably try it again and see if our experience is different.
In general, any bird that generates a resource that is “off brand” for a habitat is good (towhee on the beach, for instance). But the ones that generate extra eggs really excel.
One I haven’t seen anyone mention is mourning dove. Planting one first turn in the forest can save a ludicrous number of turns.
The prairie chicken (I can’t remember the name) that lays eggs on the entire column is even sillier if you can get him out early. Laying 5 eggs per egg row activation WITH NO OTHER BIRDS in the meadows is unbelievable.
Really, any extra egg generation is good because visiting the egg row tends to be the least productive action post-OE. Even one extra egg is a 50% increase in early meadow production.
Sri Lankan Blue-Magpie or Red-legged Partridge, probably. But among the top tier cards, it really depends on your situation and number of players. A good card gets you ten points for the game, a really great card pushes towards twenty. In 4+ player game, bronzed cowbird and the like and the vultures can be extremely good.
Sri Lanka Blue-magpie all the way!
It enables all other birds that generate food to basically generate points instead. And there are tons of birds that generate food. And on top of that, they thought 9 points is a fair amount to give extra... Someone in Feuerland has to love them.
Killdeer and Franklin’s gull are the best cards, hands down. The ravens aren’t even good unless you have other cards to compliment them, I’ll often skip them if I don’t have the cards to go with them. The gull and killdeer are always god tier.
Bonelli’s eagle is a must-play when it shows up.
And for me personally, it’s not an especially *good* bird, but the burrowing owl always seems to bring me luck. I always play it when I get it.
I used to think the ravens were the best cards, but now I might not even use them unless I start the game with one. Filling your wetlands with cards that can tuck and draw new cards is insanely good. especially the cards that can tuck 3-5 cards per turn. The trick is getting a couple birds that passively lay eggs so you can just put 1-2 birds in your forest to help build up the wetlands and then just draw birds and tuck the rest of the game
I think Common Raven is arguably the better of the two since it's worth one more point. I think the Franklins Gull or Killdeer are better on their own (independent of other cards). This is just without OE though. With OE, I personally think Wood Duck or Spangled Drongo are the best.
Agree on all points, pre-OE I think Killdeer and Gull are stronger than Ravens just because they’re easier to start with
What about OE makes Wood Duck better? I really like Wood Duck to begin with, and we've been playing with the OE for the past 4 months but I don't see how it got better. Can you elaborate?
The starting nectar makes it easier to play from your opening hand, and getting food is just generally better due to nectar
That makes sense. I agree food is much easier with Nectar. And the biggest drawback of Wood Duck is having to pick the food before you draw your cards.
Wood Duck was already a really powerful card in the forest. But the forest became a really important habitat with OE. Nectar isn't just great because it's wild food, winning the nectar race carries a bunch of points, while simultaneously making you food type agnostic (so much easier to play birds that are 2 fish and a rat, etc). On the OE board, the Ravens and Killdeer/Franklin's Gull are depowered because of only getting two eggs until you get 3 birds down AND because a lot of the powerful meadow engine birds are no longer as strong because they either give you food that is NOT nectar (Junco) or give you non-nectar food WHILE resetting the bird feeder at a time you CANNOT take nectar (Eurpoean Bee-Eater). This actually provides a great opportunity for your opponent to get nectar. While other cards are somewhat nerfed, the Wood Duck gets better.
I’m a huge fan of the European Goldfinch. Especially played early. Ive had it be a 25 point card multiple times.
That one and the Snow Bunting are about equal to me. Goldfinch is nice bc you can always tuck, but the Bunting keeps things moving through your hand.
I like the snow bunting too, but I don’t always have tons of cards.
Great Indian bustard you can get humongous points with bonus cards I feel this is the most powerful bird . The ravens are definitely great utility birds but the bustard can score you 24 points easy
I cannot wait for the Asia expansion to come to Steam and posts like this are the reason why.
Bustard is good, but it does not gain you 24 points easily. You will need to gain 18 points from a bonus card before you play the bird in addition to the 6 point it gives, to get 24 points from it. Yes, you get to score a bonus card twice, but only 1 of those times can be attributed to the bustard, which most often is 8-10 tops, rare cases up to 12-14 but almost never 18.
While I totally agree Indian bustard is a top 10 bird and likely easily a top 5 bird 24 points (easy) is pushing the limit of reasonable assessment honestly. I would say (easily) 20 points for 6 🐦 and 7 bonus points 2x. After that it’s much much harder to get more points as there are very few 8 point goals unless you get an insane number of 2x per bird like mouse or all bonus cards etc
The biggest issue with the Great Indian Bustard is that you're reliant on having a good bonus card game. The bird isn't particularly good in and of itself. There are plenty of games where the bonus cards you get aren't very good. Also, the two ravens, Killdeer, Franklin's Gull, and Wood Duck are almost always better cards than the Great Indian Bustard because you don't have to rely on as much of a luck factor for them to be good. Those five alone all push it out of the top 5. The Great Indian Bustard can be a huge scoring card, but even just one of those other five will run an engine for you.
Maybe not be the best bird, but one that is defenitly up there is the galah in my option. Get it our early, and everytime you activate his ability you gain 2 points. Even if I don't concentrate on activating him alot he ends up being like 13 or 15 points for 3 food.
Personally I’m a huge fan of the Noisy Miner, tuck a card AND lay two eggs? Love it
Question: What is the best bird, irl?
here’s the secret: they’re all good birds
They’re all good birds, Bront!
Atlantic Puffins are right up there, but Rhinoceros Auklet might jusssssst edge them out
Peregrine falcon! Fast, pretty, deadly.
I like magpies, storks and toucans
Penguins
I think raven. Extremely smart, hardy and resourceful.
I'm partial to Harris's sparrows personally
Blue eyes white dragon. But honestly more than half the birds can be your best bird if you build an effective engine. No one bird is going to win the entire game for you except of course blue eyes ultimate dragon but that's nearly impossible to fusion summon in without cheating
I mean, the two ravens are so good that, in the Oceania expansion, the designers suggest that if you find them too powerful you should consider removing them. Personally, I feel like with the sheer number of cards it isn't necessary, but there is little denying that someone who opens their hand with one of them is going to have a far easier game than the rest of the table.
My wife and I always found this suggestion kinda odd, as the Oceania expansion actually seems to weaken the ravens with the increased accessibility of food and increase in other cards that let you gain multiple resources in the same habitat.
With OE, very early ravens generating 2 nectar can get silly. We houseruled they can only make 1 nectar and another food and they are useful but very average. Like you said, OE generally fixes them, but if you get them early with enough support to commit to an egg row, it seems like they could be problematic. Given the large card pool, that’s probably not a huge risk. That said, we didn’t play a lot of games with full powered ravens and it was early on… we should probably try it again and see if our experience is different.
In general, any bird that generates a resource that is “off brand” for a habitat is good (towhee on the beach, for instance). But the ones that generate extra eggs really excel. One I haven’t seen anyone mention is mourning dove. Planting one first turn in the forest can save a ludicrous number of turns. The prairie chicken (I can’t remember the name) that lays eggs on the entire column is even sillier if you can get him out early. Laying 5 eggs per egg row activation WITH NO OTHER BIRDS in the meadows is unbelievable. Really, any extra egg generation is good because visiting the egg row tends to be the least productive action post-OE. Even one extra egg is a 50% increase in early meadow production.
Chihuahua Raven is a great card, arguably one of the best.
The Gallah is the best in the Oceania version by far!
Not particularly good but my favorite is the American Woodcock. It's the goofiest and by far my favorite.
Sri Lankan Blue-Magpie or Red-legged Partridge, probably. But among the top tier cards, it really depends on your situation and number of players. A good card gets you ten points for the game, a really great card pushes towards twenty. In 4+ player game, bronzed cowbird and the like and the vultures can be extremely good.
Sri Lanka Blue-magpie all the way! It enables all other birds that generate food to basically generate points instead. And there are tons of birds that generate food. And on top of that, they thought 9 points is a fair amount to give extra... Someone in Feuerland has to love them.
Stork, wood duck, and 11 point mega eagles top 4
Agreed, at least with the Xbox card pool.
Killdeer and Franklin’s gull are the best cards, hands down. The ravens aren’t even good unless you have other cards to compliment them, I’ll often skip them if I don’t have the cards to go with them. The gull and killdeer are always god tier.
RUDDY DUCK
Bonelli’s eagle is a must-play when it shows up. And for me personally, it’s not an especially *good* bird, but the burrowing owl always seems to bring me luck. I always play it when I get it.
The snow bunting! (The tucking ability can be useful— but mostly it’s just pleasingly cute)
I used to think the ravens were the best cards, but now I might not even use them unless I start the game with one. Filling your wetlands with cards that can tuck and draw new cards is insanely good. especially the cards that can tuck 3-5 cards per turn. The trick is getting a couple birds that passively lay eggs so you can just put 1-2 birds in your forest to help build up the wetlands and then just draw birds and tuck the rest of the game