Wingspan Asia Strategy | Passive Card Drawing Bombs 

I'm glad you find these videos useful. Did you know about my blog, Wingsplain.com? I have a lot more going on there.

Thanks for commenting! I didn't really do the best job in drawing comparisons to Bonelli's. As you know, teal powered birds want to be down in Round 1. Like brown powers, they want to be played early in order to get maximum activations. Bonelli "scales up" as you approach the end of the game and teal powers scale down, like brown powers. I should have called that out for the general audience but that's one of those things that is so obvious to people who play alot, like us, that its easy to gloss over. When seen in Round 1, strong consideration should be given to playing them and I think most people will try to make that happen, making these birds highly desirable in the first 50% of the game (which is what I was trying to explain in the video). Even when played in Round 2, there is considerable value to be gained. Especially if you have Bird Counter. They behave like the Power 4 in this regard, which also scale down as you approach game end. Something that I was going to cover was the food cost of the Shellduck. Looks like I forgot to throw that bit in there. I see a similar relationship between Shellduck and Mandarin as I see between Snow Bunting and Euro Goldfinch. In practice the Goldfinch has proven difficult to get down in Round 1 in my experience and Shellduck should have the same issues, although it will be less difficult thanks to having 1 wild in its food cost. Maybe I will have to do a part two that cleans this up a bit.

What I think is that the game needs MORE birds that are powerful. Wingspan does have a huge gap between the strongest 25% of cards and the weakest 25% of cards. Starting hands can determine the result of a game but in a casual environment, who really cares? Pick up and play the next game and you could have super powerful cards next time! Wingspan is probably at its best at three players in a casual environment. The game wasn't designed for competitive tournament play, by the designer's own words, and you can see it break down in those settings where all it takes is a bad starting hand or one whiffed bonus card and you're out. There really are some major design imbalances in relation to card powers. The Power 4 and the Big Eagles are probably too powerful and the dice rolling predators are too weak, although the presence of Falconer, Rodentologist, Griffon Vulture, Carrion Crow, and Oriental Bay Owl help to try raise them up. There are other weak cards that just don't make any design sense, such as Yellow Bittern, Core Set Migrating Birds, and the teal powered "Counts As Double" birds. If you draw too many of these birds your opponent will probably win even if they are only drawing "average" strength cards.