Genex Ally Birdman – #BLTR-EN057
You can return 1 face-up monster you control to the hand; Special Summon this card from your hand, but banish it when it leaves the field, also it gains 500 ATK if the returned monster was WIND on the field.
Date Reviewed: August 1st, 2024
Rating: 3.88
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is awful. 3 is average. 5 is excellent.
Reviews Below:
King of
Lullaby
Hello Pojo Fans,
Genex Ally Birdman is our Throwback Thursday choice this week and was a tech choice since its release back in 2011.
Birdman had a lot of things going for him: 1400ATK for a Level 3 back then was pretty darn good, Tuner status gave him abundance of plays to be involved in, and his effect made him a force in many decks. Special Summon ability by bouncing a face-up monster you control back to the hand. Sure, you lose Birdman when he leaves the field, but that wasn’t the point. You can steal a monster, bounce it to Special Summon Birdman and not have to worry about that monster being a problem for you. That was the least of what his effect could do.
Birdman was used to bounce easily Special Summoned monsters back to the hand so you could re-summon them and activate their effect(s) once again. Used in Hyperion Decks, you could easily bounce Master Hyperion back to just re-summon the same turn and use his effect. Monarchs had not only a way to reuse their effect off a Tribute Summon, Birdman gave them the tribute fodder to do so. Karakuri liked using Birdman because he was an easy way to get to their Synchro Summoning and was a Machine-Type to boot. Geargia liked Birdman because he recycled Geargiano Mk-II back to the hand for another summon and Mk-II wasn’t a hard once per turn. In Genex, Birdman could do what he does best: bounce something to re-summon and then be used for a Synchro Summon. The list is almost endless of the monsters that get effects off Normal/Special Summons or have a “once per turn” effect that can be used multiple times if you were to get another copy onto the field, Birdman was an enabler of all of this.
Birdman was nice tech when the game was fast, but not as fast as it is today. He was a good monster to enable Synchro Summoning, could be used in any deck that used Synchros, or even any deck that wanted to get more effects out of their best monsters. Could it still see play? Of course, but it is a faster game now and its space in decks may be limited with archetypes getting better monsters or even a monster that can mimic Birdman to an extent.
Advanced- 3.5/5 Art- 3/5
Until Next Time,
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
Throwback Thursday brings us a card that has a ton of loops and ways to use Divine Wind of the Mist Valley: Genex Ally Birdman.
Birdman is a Level 3 DARK Machine Tuner with 1400 ATK and 400 DEF. Stats are fine, DARK Machine on a Level 3 Tuner is great. The only effect this has lets you return a monster you control to the hand to Special Summon it, but it’s banished when it leaves the field and it gains 500 ATK if you returned a WIND monster with this effect. The key part really is bouncing a monster to summon itself, helping abuse other non HOPT effects in the game if you can resummon those monsters. I still remember the FTK with Gallis the Star Beast and Koa’ki Meiru Doom. This also does trigger Divine Wind of the Mist Valley to summon WIND monsters from the Deck, even though this technically doesn’t have to return a WIND monster to the hand, but the synergy is there since this is technically supposed to help Mist Valley. Now at least, you can run it in Genex and put a monster back in the hand to trigger the effect of Repair Genex Controller, and this will be searchable during your combo with Genex Power Planner. Play 3 in Genex to restart Repair’s effect as often as possible. Otherwise, I’m sure some loops and combos are more consistent with this at 3 again.
Advanced Rating: 3.75/5
Art: 3.5/5 for the original, and 4.5/5 for the alternate art, nice to see him flying with his friend Mist Condor.
Mighty
Vee
I was kind of hoping for Genex Controller instead, but this will do! Genex Ally Birdman is this week’s Throwback Thursday card, a level 3 DARK Machine Tuner monster notably searchable with Genex Power Planner. Birdman has an unimpressive 1400 attack and 400 defense, which is to be expected for a Tuner, so I can’t judge too harshly. Birdman was limited to 1 many years ago and was only unlimited relatively recently, so with the new Genex support, was it a mistake?
Birdman’s claim to fame is its sole non-once per turn effect to return a face-up monster you control back to the hand (for cost, very important!) to Special Summon itself, at the cost of being banished if it leaves the field, though Birdman will also gain 500 attack if you returned a WIND monster. Nobody really cares about the attack boost– instead, we’re looking at the bounce effect, which again is not only once per turn, but bounces for cost, which means it cannot be negated by traditional means. One of the more popular Birdman loops was the Gallis FTK, using Gallis the Star Beast and Koa’ki Meiru Doom. With this setup, you can repeatedly summon Gallis and burn your opponent by bouncing back Gallis with Birdman, and Birdman itself won’t even hit the field since it’s negated by Gallis. The FTK is technically still possible, but in the era of Hand Traps and consistency, a 3 card FTK that easily gets shut down isn’t exactly a huge issue. Instead, Birdman’s new calling is as an excellent combo piece for Genex proper, since the bounce effect will trigger Repair Genex Controller to restart the loop. Banishing itself is actually pretty relevant here since it’s not unheard of to run out of Tuners in Genex combos, though fortunately you can recycle it with their new boss monster. Birdman is still a very strong card, but now that gimmicky loop FTKs are largely unviable, it remains a powerful tool in its own deck– the way things should be!
+Non-once per turn bounce still has ridiculous combo applications
+Helps restart Genex combo loops by adding back to hand
-Traditional FTK loops that use it are either banned, inconsistent, or too frail for the modern meta
-Banishing itself can be an issue
Advanced: 4.25/5
Art: 4/5 (Original) Birdman was one of the first Tuner monsters I ever had, and I remember playing him just because I thought he looked cool. If only I had know this humble bird robot thing was broken at the time.
4.25/5 (Alternate Art) The old art made him look a bit evil, so I like that this new one has Mist Condor– a nice shout-out to the attack boost too!
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