10 Great Bird Cards for Choco, Seeker of Paradise

Final Fantasy preview season is well underway. This new set drops on June 13th, so it’s right around the corner. The set features a huge number of legendary creatures, and one of the most exciting ones that has been revealed so far is Choco, Seeker of Paradise. 

Chocobos are one of my favorite things about Final Fantasy. And, as a real-world bird enthusiast, I’ve made many Bird decks over the years, and Choco makes for a really interesting bird Commander. For one thing, it’s the first Bant legendary creature with a typal payoff for birds. And that’s important, because those three colors feature most of the game’s best birds.

Choco is also interesting because of its attack trigger which has a whole lot going on. It makes you want to play birds of course, but it also ramps your mana, loads your graveyard, and triggers landfall a whole bunch. Something Choco can itself take advantage of.

In this article, I’m going to take a look at 10 bird cards that work especially well alongside this legendary bird. While it’s pretty obvious you’re going to want great mana birds like Birds of Paradise and Gilded Goose in your Choco deck, this article focuses more on cards that have special additional synergy with Choco.

OTHER CHOCOBOS & FRIENDS

Perhaps most obviously, there are other cards in Final Fantasy that work great alongside our Bant Chocobo friend.

Choco isn’t the only Bird card in Final Fantasy who likes lands. We’ve also seen several other cards in the set that are a natural fit with it. Ambrosia Whiteheart and Sazh’s Chocobo both come with landfall, and Ambrosia can even bounce permanents for value. Sazh himself can also tutor up lands and Birds, and Traveling Chocobo lets you play lands and Birds off the top of your library, and it doubles landfall triggers too.

EMERIA ANGEL

While Emeria Angel doesn’t have the Bird type, it was the first card I thought of as an excellent fit alongside Choco. This is because it can generate Bird creature tokens when you trigger landfall. This means that Choco’s attack trigger is great at giving you a bunch of Bird tokens. It also means that all those extra Bird tokens will make your Commander’s attack trigger a lot more potent on future turns. Choco and Emeria Angel have the potential to snowball in a big way.

KASTRAL, THE WINDCRESTED

Kastral is a great Bird payoff with a powerful modal effect that triggers when you hit your opponent with one or more Birds.  So like Choco, it likes it when you can attack with Birds. It’s capable of buffing them all, which is likely to make them into better attackers, and it can draw you cards too.

However, the first mode is also going to be really good alongside Choco. This is because it can reanimate Birds. You’re going to have a lot of Birds in your graveyard too, especially because of Choco’s attack trigger. As with Emeria Angel, this can result in things really snowballing in your favor, as you get more and more Birds into play.

JACKDAW SAVIOR

While Jackdaw Savior doesn’t explicitly say “Bird” anywhere in its textbox, it does like creatures with flying. And, Choco notwithstanding, Birds in Magic tend to have flying. Like Kastral, Jackdaw Savior gives you a way to get Birds back from the graveyard that may have been milled by Choco’s trigger.

RESTLESS ANCHORAGE

I love me a good creature land, and Restless Anchorage is exactly what this deck wants. Because it’s a land, it can be put directly on the battlefield with Choco’s trigger, and because it’s a Bird when it turns into a creature it can help you dig deeper into your library too. That’s actually already something it does on it’s own too, thanks to the Map token it gives you.

SOULCATCHERS’ AERIE

Soulcatchers’ Aerie is a really great Bird payoff. It accumulates counters any time one of your Birds goes down, and buffs your Birds in play for each counter it has. This means it doesn’t do anything at first, but it very quickly turns into a massive buff for your entire board. Sometimes to maximize the number of cards you see when you attack with Choco, you’re going to have to attack with Birds that are going to die. Soulcatchers’ Aerie helps soften that blow in a big way.

SKYWAY ROBBER

Skyway Robber is another graveyard-loving Bird. In this case, it can Escape from your graveyard. That means you don’t have to feel bad about throwing it in your graveyard and choosing another Bird to put into your hand. It’s pretty easy to Escape in this deck too, and it’s got a great shot at giving you back some of the artifacts, instants, and sorceries that you’ve used or milled away.

FLURRY OF WINGS

Flurry of Wings can be used to make a whole lot of Birds at instant speed. While it is dependent on someone attacking with a bunch of creatures, it’s more flexible than it might seem at first. This is because you can use it to make tokens no matter who is doing the attacking. So, if you can attack with a bunch of stuff you can use it to basically double your birds. But it can be even more potent when you use it during an opponent’s turn, since you’ll get to attack with them alongside Choco after you untap.

KEEPER OF THE NINE GALES

Keeper of the Nine Gales gives you a powerful repeatable way to bounce permanents. In a pinch, you can even bounce your own permanent to save it or trigger landfall. While it doesn’t have major synergy with Choco beyond that, I do want to use this card to highlight the fact that you can have a bit of a “Bird toolbox,” in this deck.

In other words, because you’re going to see lots of cards and be able to grab Birds from among them, having nice utility birds like the Keeper is nice. There aren’t always situations where a repeatable bounce effect is what you need, but when it’s good, it tends to be really good.

MURMURATION

Have you ever wanted to win the game with a bunch of Storm Crows in play? Well – this might be the best deck for doing that. And if that’s not a reason to play Choco, Seeker of Paradise, I don’t know what is.

Murmuration offers a great buff to all of your Birds, too. Sometimes you’re in a spot where attacking with a lot of Birds just isn’t doable because you leave yourself open to a backswing. However, giving them Vigilance and a stats boost makes it so you don’t have to worry about that.

And, because this deck will get lots of lands in play and draw lots of extra Birds, getting one or more Storm Crows each turn isn’t going to be difficult.

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So, what do you think? Are there any Bird cards I left out that go great with Choco? Let me know over on X or Bluesky.