Wingspan is a popular board game designed by Elizabeth Hargrave and published by Stonemaier Games in 2019. In Wingspan, players compete to attract the best birds to their wildlife preserves by collecting birds and placing them into habitats. Each bird has a unique ability that allows players to gain food, cards, or actions. Combining certain birds and their abilities is the key strategy in building a successful and high-scoring bird engine. But with 170 unique bird cards, what is the best combo?
How Do Card Combos Work in Wingspan?
In Wingspan, players make combos by playing birds into habitats that grant bonus effects when certain conditions are met. For example, the Grasslands habitat provides a bonus if you play a bird card with seeds on it. By combining birds with seed food icons into the Grasslands, players can trigger the habitat bonus more frequently.
Some birds also directly combo with each other. For example, the Blue Jay allows you to return 1 food from its habitat to the supply when activated. If you combo the Blue Jay with the Pyrrhuloxia, which requires 1 seed food when played, the Blue Jay can return the Pyrrhuloxia’s seed requirement back to the supply as a recurring combo.
Understanding how to combine bird effects together is crucial for executing a successful card combo strategy. The key is to identify synergies between bird abilities and habitats that allow you to compound bonuses and actions.
Card Draw Combos
One of the most powerful combos in Wingspan focuses on card draw effects. By chaining together multiple abilities that let you draw extra cards into your hand, you can rapidly cycle through the bird deck to amass a large and efficient engine. Here are some top card draw combos:
Western Meadowlark + Horned Lark/Vesper Sparrow
The Western Meadowlark allows you to draw a card when activated. By comboing with the Horned Lark or Vesper Sparrow, which are inexpensive brown power birds that can activate the Meadowlark multiple times in a round, you can draw many extra cards. This combo fuels subsequent turns by refilling your hand rapidly.
Tree Swallow + Purple Martin
Both the Tree Swallow and Purple Martin allow drawing a card when activated. By playing both, you can activate one then the other to draw 2 cards per round. This doubles up your card draw. Add in a Brown-Headed Cowbird to further combo activate and draw even more cards.
American Kestrel + Draw Activators
The American Kestrel is a powerful draw engine, allowing you to draw a card whenever you play a bird during the round. By comboing the Kestrel with activators like the Horned Lark, House Finch, and Western Meadowlark, you can draw a card from the Kestrel when playing the activator, then draw again by activating the ability afterward.
Painted Bunting + Wetland Area Control
The Painted Bunting provides a bonus end-of-round goal that rewards drawing cards. By comboing the Bunting with wetland area control provided by birds like the Pied-Billed Grebe and Sora, you can score points for drawing extra cards using the Bunting’s ability.
Food Production Combos
Another effective combo strategy focuses on generating large amounts of food. Food can be spent to play new birds, activate powerful one-time use bird abilities, or meet end of round goals. Here are impactful food-centric combos:
Brown-Headed Cowbird + Grassland Birds
The Brown-Headed Cowbird is a cheap activator that also produces 1 food in a Grassland when activated. By filling the Grassland habitat with birds that have grass as a food production icon, you can quickly produce food by activating the Cowbird each turn. Target birds like Red-Winged Blackbird, Savannah Sparrow, and Grasshopper Sparrow.
American Goldfinch + Thistle Birds
The American Goldfinch allows converting thistle seed food into 2 any food when activated. Filling your habitats with birds that produce thistle, like the Lesser Goldfinch, Pine Siskin, Evening Grosbeak, and House Finch lets you take advantage of the Goldfinch’s powerful conversion ability to generate lots of food options.
Chipping Sparrow + Forest Birds
The Chipping Sparrow is another conversion engine, allowing you to convert pine cone food produced in the Forest into seed food. Packing the Forest with pine cone producers like the Red-Breasted Nuthatch, White-Breasted Nuthatch, Clark’s Nutcracker, and Wild Turkey gives you a seed factory when comboed with the Sparrow.
Broad-Tailed Hummingbird + Nectar Birds
For late game combos, fill every habitat with as many nectar producing birds as you can, like the Rufous Hummingbird, Ruby-Throated Hummingbird, Anna’s Hummingbird, and Calliope Hummingbird. With the Broad-Tailed Hummingbird, you can convert all that nectar into 3 points per food, which can score huge end of round goals.
Activation Combos
Some powerful combos revolve around chaining together multiple bird activations during your turn to take advantage of tap effects. Here are some top examples:
Lesser Goldfinch + American Goldfinch
The Lesser Goldfinch allows you to activate another bird when played. By comboing with the American Goldfinch, you get to convert thistle into food right away. This combo also works by activating the Lesser Goldfinch with the American Goldfinch repeatedly to generate more food.
Orchard Oriole + Fruit Birds
The Orchard Oriole allows you to activate all birds in a habitat when played. By filling a habitat with fruit eating birds like the Cedar Waxwing, American Robin, and Bohemian Waxwing, the Oriole triggers fruit-based abilities like drawing cards or gaining food.
Bushtit + Pyrrhuloxia
The Bushtit can activate any birds in its left-right adjacent habitats when played. By placing the food-eating Pyrrhuloxia next to the Bushtit, you can immediately satisfy the Pyrrhuloxia’s food cost by activating it with the Bushtit’s ability.
Bullock’s Oriole + Nectar Birds
The Bullock’s Oriole activates all birds when played if you have nectar production. By filling habitats with nectar birds, the Oriole triggers abilities like card draw and food production from those birds.
End-Game Combos
The end game in Wingspan has several goals that reward specific strategies. Crafting combos to maximize these goals is crucial for victory. Some game-winning end-game combos include:
Western Meadowlark + Wetland Birds
The Western Meadowlark rewards having the most birds in wetlands at end game. Combo with wetland birds like herons, rails, grebes, and ducks to dominate the wetlands. Play cloning birds like the Brown-Headed Cowbird in the Wetlands as well for extra points.
Cinnamon Teal + Wetland Birds
The Cinnamon Teal rewards having birds with important conservation status. Many wetland birds are considered conservation priorities, especially shorebirds like oystercatchers, avocets, and plovers. Fill wetlands with these birds plus the Cinnamon Teal to score big conservation points.
Painted Bunting + Forest Birds
The Painted Bunting rewards card draw, so combo it with forest birds that produce card draw like the Red-Eyed Vireo, Scarlet Tanager, Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, Indigo Bunting, and Eastern Bluebird to draw a full hand each turn. Bonus if you get multiple Painted Buntings!
Killdeer + Grassland Ground Birds
The Killdeer rewards having ground birds like quail, turkeys, grouse, and sparrows in grasslands. Fill your grassland with these ground-loving specialists plus multiple Killdeers to dominate the grassland ground bird goal.
Conclusion
When assembling high-scoring combos in Wingspan, the key is to identify bird synergies through food types, habitat preferences, tap abilities, end-game goals, and card draw effects. Stacking multiple birds that interact through these mechanics together allows you to build powerful bird engines that multiply effects. Focus on chaining food production into engines like converting thistle to nectar, drawing bonus cards, and activating tap abilities through habitats like Forests and Wetlands. Having combos that achieve multiple end-game goals is also clutch for big points. Mastering these combo strategies will let you conquer the skies of Wingspan’s bird world!