Magic: The Gathering's Birds Of Paradise Card Design Issues Explained
Birds of Paradise is one of Magic: The Gathering's more immediately recognizable cards, but it's also experienced its fair share of design issues. The history behind Birds of Paradise is fascinating and unexpected, and now that the deceptively powerful card isn't a nearly automatic inclusion into each Core Set design, it can be easy to overlook. Here's the full breakdown of MTG's Birds of Paradise and the design issues that surprisingly color its rich history.
For those unfamiliar with the card in question, Birds of Paradise can come across as unremarkable. A single green mana for a 0/1 flying creature isn't a particularly impressive rate. Even factoring in its ability to tap for any color of mana, to players without a decent understanding of the game mechanics, Birds of Paradise is another in a long line of MTG creatures called "mana dorks" - and one that doesn't stick out. As players become more acquainted with the various demands of Magic: The Gathering deckbuilding and play, however, they also begin to realize just how powerful the 0/1 bird truly is.
In fact, Birds of Paradise is so strong that it's no longer the ubiquitous presence in the game's Standard format it once was. Set design has shied away from including Birds of Paradise because it is so good at creating multi-color ramp strategies that it puts an immense amount of pressure on the rest of a given Standard format's card design. There's a lot more about MTG's Birds of Paradise, however, and its design issues stem from before the card even made it to print.
Setting aside the fact that the distinction between a mana-producing creature and a land is much greater than some might think, it's still fascinating that Birds of Paradise simply wasn't supposed to exist. At the very least, the card wasn't supposed to exist when it did, and certainly not with the art it had when it made its debut in Magic: The Gathering's Alpha set. Birds of Paradise's original art is from Mark Poole, an MTG artist who has become one of the game's most storied contributors. According to head Magic: The Gathering designer Mark Rosewater, Birds of Paradise was originally meant to be a land card - in fact, one of the game's most powerful, in the form of the original dual land Tropical Island.
As the story goes, Poole was commissioned to do the art for Tropical Island, but what he turned in was a piece that had too much focus on the bird in the foreground. Not wanting to waste good art, Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield designed an entirely new card to put the Poole piece to work, and the result is Birds of Paradise. That isn't the only origin story for Birds of Paradise, however, as multiple MTG fans on Reddit have reported that Poole himself has stated the Birds of Paradise art was originally intended for a basic Island design, instead.
Magic: The Gathering features something called the "color pie," essentially a breakdown of each color of mana's role and how it functions with and against the others. Certain colors of mana have identities - blue, for instance, is the home of most counterspells and instant speed disruption, while red is often the home of the most aggressive creatures in the game. The Flying keyword, especially on cheap creatures, has predominately been blue and white, but from the first set onward, Birds of Paradise has flown in the face of that common design philosophy.
Even in 2017, MTG's color pie officially considered Flying as "tertiary" for green, which means the ability is a rarity in that color and not present in every set. Except, of course, when it comes to the rule-breaking MTG design behind Birds of Paradise, which appeared in every Core Set before Core Set 2013 and constantly challenged what was "supposed to be" in a given color. As the game has evolved, MTG design has consistently pushed the boundaries for what is and isn't allowed within a given color of mana's design, but Birds of Paradise was doing it well before it was even a philosophy people were discussing online.
The biggest Birds of Paradise design issue, however, is one that wouldn't become obvious until years of Magic: The Gathering refinement, competitive play, and theorycrafting: The card is completely busted. Not in the way that Black Lotus or even more recent cards like Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath are; it's the subtle way all of the facets of Birds of Paradise's functionality blend together that make something simply too powerful for most Standard formats.
Birds of Paradise isn't a staple of Standard set design anymore because it does everything it's supposed to do too well. Most "mana dorks" have a 1/1 statline but are stuck to being "on the ground," the term that refers to MTG creatures without Flying. Birds of Paradise may be a 0/1, but its ability to fly means it can get boosts in power from either permanent +1/+1 counters or spells that temporarily make it stronger, and it's much more likely to connect with an opponent's life total due to its built-in evasion.
That's just a minor upside, however. The true power lies in Birds of Paradise's color-fixing, which comes at an unbelievably cheap cost. Magic: The Gathering design has come a long way since Alpha, and now players are expected to pay serious costs to dip into second, third, or even fourth colors. Birds of Paradise asks extremely little of its owner. For the low price of playing green mana sources in a deck, Birds of Paradise provides both instant and perfect color-fixing alongside acceleration in the form of mana ramp. It's a potent combination that can undo a lot of the little mistakes that go into separating a good and a great MTG player, too; keeping hands with Birds of Paradise makes manafixing hardly a consideration, provided it lives, and it can bail out deck designers who have been a little too greedy with their manabases.
Ultimately, Birds of Paradise's MTG design issues are a great study in all of the different facets that go into creating a card in Magic: The Gathering. In spite of all those issues, the card remains a favorite of many, with several different gorgeous art representations, iconic decks that have featured it, and a special place in Magic: The Gathering's history.