@sIKE:
So you never had any focus on your Falcons?
Yes and no. Several opponents seemed to have plans to shoot them down (Lash of Hellfire, Ivarium Longbow, Ring of Fire, Chain Lightning, Mage's Tower + Jet Stream, Gargoyle Sentry), but I was mostly able to break it up with Dissolve, Etherian Lifetree, falcon damage, or in one case extreme good luck. That said, I felt like no one dedicated to focus fire fast and hard enough. I was very surprised none of the Wizards used their Arcane Zap to shoot down birds, and none of the Warlocks seemed to have Flameblasts to trade with falcons. I feel like a good plan vs. swarm is to kill the creatures as quickly as they come out, but I think a lot of books lacked the tools, and possibly some pilots lacked experience playing against swarm. (One of the advantages of playing a book widely regarded as "not viable".)
Did you see any creatures? lots of small/few mid/Ranged (like the Crossbowman)
I saw few mid from several players, Ranged from just one, and never lots of small.
Did anyone use Guard to counterstrike your birds?
Frequently, but it doesn't help much. The pet and the beastmaster both have plenty of health to soak up a counterattack, so I usually just have them trigger the guard first to clear a path for the more fragile birds. Even if those two characters aren't available, each bird is usually able to soak a single hit since most guards hit for 3-4 dice and the falcons have 5 life. I had games where each bird took turns soaking 1 hit to set off a Guard. One of the huge advantages of Flying is being able to completely dictate the sequence of attack interactions.
@RingKichard:
When I used to run swarm Beastmaster, I ran into issues getting my Falcons picked off one by one, usually by Arcane Zap + Ranged Attack (usually Gorgon) + Wizard's Tower. How should I avoid this? Is Lifetree sufficient?
I think whether the ranged attacks or the falcons win has everything to do with tempo. Like, if I've summoned 2 falcons on turn 2 and 2 falcons on turn 3, they have enough attack between them to destroy a source of ranged attacks possibly in a single turn. On the other hand, a smaller force of falcons might be destroyed in detail if they are coming a few at a time due to a slower deployment schedule.
When facing a Wizard's Tower (presumably with Jet Stream), it's obviously crucial to stay away from the wall unless absolutely necessary. I'm also quite willing to burn extra mana on an attack spell to kill it early (usually Acid Ball to get rid of the armor, or Geyser because it's cheap). A lot of Wizards have just 1 Jet Stream in their book, and it going away when a tower dies is a big perk.
Gorgon is pretty expensive. Depending on the circumstances I'd consider Acid Ball + Birds to kill it, or even Banishing it if there were enough other threats that my birds needed to keep busy taking apart some other threat. I could also see it being worthwhile to Teleport/Force Push a Gorgon so birds were able to get to it without taking a hit on the way in due to its range of 2?
Lifetree can be very good or useless, depending on what spells and ranged attacks they are using. My general rule is that if I can make a falcons life total equal to the sum of some attacks + 1, I want to play it. For example, vs. a Wizard with Mage Zap, Etherian Lifetree makes a falcon go from 2 zaps on average (3 + 3 > 5) to 3 zaps on average (3 + 3 < 7). However, if a Wizard had an Ivarium Longbow, I'd want not to use the tree since (4 + 3 = 7) it's going to die in two shots either way (4 + 3 > 5). The math changes as your birds acquire injuries, of course.
If you knew your brother was bringing a book with Orb + Obelisk + Gargoyle, would you still want to play Aviary?
That's a good question. After playing Nick I was contemplating what I would do if an opponent cast Orb + Obelisk at the end of a turn, and then on the next turn played Mana Siphon. I think my Beastmaster plus pet can dish out enough damage to destroy those things in a reasonable span, but maybe with a Guard getting in the way it could get ugly. (Though I'm uncertain a Guard could survive long enough to get an action token if my swarm is sizeable.) My instinct is that unless the trap is laid perfectly the Aviary could overcome it, but if each piece is played and supported in the right order, I could see losing several birds to Upkeep effects to pay for movement.
I think an interesting line of counter play might be to keep around 10 mana banked so that the turn the Orb/Obelisk do get dropped the swarm can move and attack as normal?
I'm having a hard time imagining bringing three Suppression Cloaks. Is that common where you play?
Nope! Thankfully, I've never seen 3 Suppression Cloaks. However, vs. opponents from an unknown metagame, one must always consider the possibility. I thought against Nick the odds of 3 were low, given that so much of his book is designed to beat swarm anyway via stacking armor with the Veteran's Belt.
@Jon.Ambriz:
When doing the math on whether I wanted to play the Lair, I was definitely crediting it for getting my falcons 1 square closer to an opponent who was turtleing in the corner. The fact that a Falcon deployed T2 at B2 can attack a mage at A1 on T3 is great.
