End-of-round teal powers were introduced in Wingspan’s European Expansion. More were added with Wingspan Asia. In total, there are currently 36 teal-powered birds.
It’s important to remember that Wingspan teal powers trigger at the end of each round.
- Use “round end” bird powers.
- Score end-of-round goal.
- Remove all action cubes.
- Discard and replace all cards in the bird tray.
- Pass the first player token clockwise.
See Page 2 of the European Expansion rulebook for the order in which to resolve end of round game actions.
As a general rule, it’s important to remember that end-of-round teal powers do not trigger “once between turns” pink powers.
Some images taken from Wingsearch.
Ranking Teal Powered Wingspan Cards From Worst to Best
36. Cetti’s Warbler
To start off the list, let’s take a look at the Cetti’s Warbler. This bird’s particular power is limited by the number of round goals that specifically count birds, which aren’t many, and there are only four round goals that ever affect a game at one time.
If a teal power is situational/limited/restricted, the bird it’s attached to needs to have good general qualities to make it valuable when it’s just sitting there doing nothing. A four-point bird with a three-egg nest that costs two food is average at best. With the Historian bonus card, it becomes a decent play, scoring two more points. Although with Wingspan Asia, Historian is being phased out (see Wingspan Asia rulebook page 16).
It stands to reason that this power will increase in usefulness as more expansions are released, and more round goals that count birds are added to the game. One bad sign for this archetype is that Stonemaier Games has stated that it is getting harder to come up with new and balanced round goals, so the future doesn’t look especially bright. If we ever see powers that let us manipulate round goals, this teal power could theoretically become more useful. In general, there will be moments though where this bird can be used as a “surgical strike” to steal a much needed win on a round goal and that is a pretty satisfying feeling.
35. Eurasian Green Woodpecker
Eurasian Green Woodpecker suffers from the same problems as the Cetti’s Warbler above. It does play well with the Viticulturalist and Cartographer bonus cards though.
34. Black Stork
The general qualities of this bird are not good. You’ll need two other Wetlands bird with this in the middle of them to get the full use out of this power. That’s harder to pull off in round one due to the resources needed. Passive egg laying is good in general but if you’re trying to make this bird work, you’re probably in a pretty mediocre position.
33. Fire-Fronted Serin
Passive egg laying powers can be pretty effective under the right circumstances. You’ll probably get the most mileage out of this as the second or third drop in your Forest, since you will generally want to keep your Grasslands open for effective engine birds under most circumstance and getting a couple of bodies down in the Forest will help accelerate your food production. There is some interesting potential with cheap “Play Another Bird” (PAB) birds and the Serin, but those can be food and egg intensive plays. The Oceania and Asia PABs that offer discounts on played birds will be especially effective here.
32. Greylag Goose
Greylag Goose suffers from the same problems as Cetti’s Warbler and Eurasian Green Woodpecker. The only redeeming quality of this bird is that it’s worth seven points.
31. Bearded Reedling
You’re probably spending more than half of round one getting the food and birds to set this power up. This doesn’t feel like a good bird to start off your Wetlands card drawing ability. Ideally you want a brown power that draws cards or, in the absence of that, a decent point scoring body. Bearded Reedling has neither of these. It reminds me of Black-Bellied Whistling Duck in that it costs two food, is worth two points, and it has a big nest.
30. Dunnock
This bird is meant to be used as a direct counter-play to an opponent’s Grasslands strategy, which may not happen as often in the Oceania Expansion metagame. Its nest size is average at four, so it isn’t horrible at fulfilling its intended purpose, as it can only lay eggs on itself. Its other general qualities are lackluster. Make sure you spend those eggs to make room for more. Dunnock can act as a thorn in the side of a Power 4 engine with some work.
29. Hooded Crow
Hooded Crow is similar to Dunnock, it’s a lackluster bird that can act as a direct counter-play to your opponent’s Grasslands engine. If properly supported, it gives you passive card cycling that scales with your hand size, which is pretty good. It picks up two points from Omnivore Specialist and Bird Counter, but that still makes it an expensive five-point play. Its a poor man’s Ruff.
28. European Honey Buzzard
This Wingspan card provides an interesting way to passively generate extra worms for strategies that aren’t building into the forest. Worms are a more common food type, and you get to refresh the birdfeeder before checking. Under Omnivore Specialist, it becomes a decent play for six points at the cost of two food. It also plays well with Cartographer. It combos fairly well with “discard food to tuck birds” on this list: Common Starling, Common Swift, and Eurasian Collard Dove.
27. Eurasian Treecreeper
This bird gives you worms or wheat and you may cache them for points. This could be a good Forest drop if you have strong egg laying capability and you have the Forest birds to accommodate it. This gives a Grasslands engine a decent way to pick up some extra food by laying eggs on birds in the Forest. .
26. Eurasian Magpie
Here is another bird that’s primary use is as a counter-play to opposing Grasslands. Caching from the general supply is the optimal form of caching, and this bird does it. It caches a food type of your choice on any of your birds, and as a result of this, it combos fairly uniquely with Coal Tit and Eurasian Nuthatch. If you choose to cache wheat on those birds, you then have the option of spending it at any time. The Eurasian Magpies’ general qualities aren’t great, making it a reasonably weak play if you aren’t using its power.
25. House Crow
House Crow is a very flexible bird that looks a lot like a Hummingbird. It supports food spam strategies by caching excess food on birds in its habitat (row). You need five birds in a row to make full use of its power though and in this regard, its probably going to score less points than birds like Eurasian Collard Dove by comparison. Its a five point play for a single food under Omnivore Specialist, which is great.
24. Eurasian Collared Dove
This Dove interacts well with many quality bonus cards. It gets you 50% of the way to the first three points of Viticulturalist, Cartographer, Anatomist, and Prairie Manager. It also becomes a seven-point drop for two food under Bird Counter. It is a strong Grasslands drop for any hyper focused Forest engine that has excess food. If you manage to maximize its power, it will be worth 25 points by the end of the game (counting is feather points).
Spending food from your personal supply to fuel this power is generally suboptimal, as food in your supply can be spent to play birds, ideally scoring you up to three points per food spent. This bird’s power converts food to points at a 1:1 ratio. For all intents and purposes, this power behaves like a caching effect that draws from your personal supply. It shines when your opponents use a lot of shared resource effects, and you have more food than you can effectively utilize.
The Eurasian Collared-Dove has the best version of this power as it can use any food type. This is especially useful to score from food types that are typically slightly more difficult to utilize, such as fish and rats. It’s also a great way to convert unspent nectar at the end of the round.
With the Oceania Expansion board, there is a wider variety of options to convert food into points. Most notably, columns one, three, four, and five in the Grasslands convert excess food into eggs. This lessens the impact of this archetype of bird. Eggs are the best resource, so converting food and cards into eggs is the preferred conversion option. That being said, this particular teal power converts food into points passively, ignoring the expenditure of action cubes.
23. Common Starling
Similar to Eurasian Collared-Dove in overall impact. It becomes a five-point drop for one food with the Bird Counter bonus card. Even without the Bird Counter bonus card, it efficiently uses one food, scoring three points from it. A four egg nest makes it a decent egg bank while waiting to use its power.
22. House Sparrow
Another card similar to Eurasian Collared-Dove is the House Sparrow. Its power is restricted to seeds, so it is less useful in that regard. Where House Sparrow shines is its general qualities. You get a six-point bird with a five egg nest for the cost of two food. This pushes the boundaries of what you can get for the cost of two food. That being said, larger nest sizes are more challenging to take advantage of in the Oceania metagame. The Bird Counter bonus card makes this an even better point bomb, putting it on par with Wild Turkey for total point value and nest size.
21. Carrion Crow
Carrion Crow is a direct counter-play to predator-heavy games. You can even choose yourself as the Crow’s target, which makes it even better, as you can control how effective it is by playing more predators. Even if a player only has one predator on the board all game, Carrion Crow yields seven points for two food by the end of the game (if played in round one) – nine points under Omnivore Specialist. The fact that it caches from the general supply is key to its usefulness.
20. Griffon Vulture
A vulture done right! It’s the same power as Carrion Crow but on the Vulture chassis (zero food cost, low point value). If anyone, including yourself, has even a couple of predators, this becomes a fantastic value at zero food.
19. Common Goldeneye
Passive Egg laying is a premium ability in the Oceania metagame. Unfortunately for the Common Goldeneye, you have to wait until end-of-round to collect its eggs, so it can’t contribute to your egg acceleration in round one. Going into each subsequent round, however, it can give you the egg production needed to get more birds on the board and compensate for underdeveloped Grasslands. As long as you support it with the right nests, that is. Note that this bird only lays eggs on itself, not other birds; I’ve seen several people make this mistake.
18. Common Teal
This is a pseudo-Ruff power. This could be a good Wetlands drop if you have strong egg laying capability and you have the Wetland birds to accommodate it. Common Teal can be that first Wetland bird. Drawing extra cards is always good. Tucking ineffective cards for points is also really good. It should be noted that you can tuck two cards from your hand even if you drew zero cards from the first part of this power.
17. Oriental Magpie-Robin
The Grasslands version of Eurasian Treecreeper. This bird is probably the best of the birds with this type of power since it checks eggs in your Grasslands and we all know how good egg spamming Grasslands engines are. You’re going to want to drop this in your Forest so you keep space open for stronger engine birds. This is also a great way for a Grasslands engine to pick up some extra food.
16. Common Swift
This bird’s best quality is that it’s five points for a single food right out of the gate. Bird counter and Food Web Expert each make it seven. If you manage to discard some excess worms and tuck a few points by the end of the game, that’s just icing on the cake. It makes a great companion for the European Honey Buzzard and anything else that is picking up a lot of worms.
15. Lesser Whitethroat
Optimizing this teal power takes some micromanagement, but the payoff is frequently worth it. Extensive play in the competitive European Expansion metagame has demonstrated that this bird isn’t played often and it is rarely utilized to maximum effect. You have to play your whole game thinking about how to get the most out of this power, so if you don’t see this bird early, it may not get played at all.
It’s realistic to approach fifteen points scored through eggs if played in round one (although you’re probably spending most of these eggs in order to keep the power going). Its worth zero points and only has a two-egg nest, so it’s worthless unless you get some mileage out of its power.
It qualifies for seven bonus cards which is a respectable number. This bird’s power pairs very well with Oologist. Its a great feeling to drop five eggs at the end of round four and max out that bonus. Passive egg-laying, especially of this calibur, is a massive game-changer in the Oceania Expansion metagame.
14. Black Redstart
The Black Redstart has the same power as Lesser Whitethroat. A four-egg star nest makes it a pretty good egg bank while it waits to use its power; however, this makes it cost one more food. It has a much better interaction with bonus cards than its counterpart, qualifying for twelve total.
13. Philippine Eagle
Based on the math, you can bet on getting a single bonus card by the end of the game. As a six point rodent eating predator that only costs two rats and gets you a bonus card, its pretty good. You’re going to have those games where you have a lot of luck and destroy your opponent with this. Be prepared to have it happen to you as well.
12. Oriental Bay-Owl
There’s a lot of potential with this card. We’ve all had those Falconer/Rodentologist (F&R) games where we play predators that we wouldn’t have played otherwise, just for the extra points. Oriental Bay-Owl supports that F&R strategy even more by giving those dull dice rolling and tucking powers more chances to shine. It even qualifies for F&R itself, which is great.
11. Yellowhammer
The Yellowhammer’s power takes some micromanagement, but the payoff is usually worth it. Using it effectively is probably one of the more nuanced skills in Wingspan.
It essentially gives you up to a net of three free action cubes (to play birds; you spend an action to play the Yellowhammer to begin with), which is the game’s most valuable resource. There aren’t any discounts associated with this, so you’re still on the hook for all that food and those eggs. Anything that costs zero food, such as Vultures, the “play on top” predators, or the “tuck to play” predators make an amazing combo with this bird’s power.
Dropping a California Condor at the end of the fourth round is also a great chance to pick up a choice bonus card when you don’t have any food left. If you can make effective use of this power early, it can give you a substantial advantage over your opponents. Yellowhammer is a bad play if you aren’t going to effectively use its power, as its general qualities are bad.
10. White Wagtail
White Wagtail has the same power and general qualities as Yellowhammer and Moltoni’s Warbler. It can hold a decent amount of eggs (five), making it a good egg bank while waiting to use its power. Its interactions with bonus cards aren’t significant, but it does pick up two points from the Food Web Expert bonus card. The double worm cost can be annoying in the early stages of the game.
9. Moltoni’s Warbler
Moltoni’s Warbler has the same power and similar general qualities as Yellowhammer but gets the nod here due to its slightly better interactions with bonus cards. Historian, Viticulturalist, and Prairie Manager being better options than what Yellowhammer gets to work with. Having two different types of food in its cost also makes it easier to get onto the board early.
8. Gray Wagtail
Gray Wagtail has a lot of potential to generate critical resources for many different board states. It behaves like Yellowhammer and the birds like it, in that you need to take all four action types once in a round in order to trigger the power. It also combos really well with Yellowhammer, since you could pick up that critical food needed to play an extra bird. This bird’s general qualities are solid. Flexible habitat placement attached to a three point bird with a four egg nest. It picks up two more points from Food Web Expert as well.
7. Black-Naped Oriole
This expensive bird has a lot of potential to generate critical resources for many different board states. It behaves like Yellowhammer and the birds like it, in that you need to take all four action types once in a round in order to trigger the power. It also combos really well with Yellowhammer. By activating the Oriole first, you could pick up the food or eggs needed to play a bird off the Yellowhammer’s power. You may even draw a really good card off the Oriole that changes your plan. The fact that the Oriole is worth five points itself is just icing on the cake.
6. Sri Lanka Blue-Magpie
This nine point bomb has a lot of potential for big points. It directly supports an aggressive food spam strategy by letting you cache one food on each of your birds at the end of every round. Read that again. EVERY bird on your board. This is a rare instance of a high point value bird having a really good power on top of it. Its no wonder that this Magpie is making waves in the Asia metagame. With time, this bird may move up this list.
5. Twite
Twite is cut from the same cloth as Ruff. This is the same bird as Brambling except its restricted to the Grasslands instead of the Forest and food cost that is slightly harder to pay in the early game. It has a bit less point scoring potential than Ruff but it doesn’t require cards in hand to function. Its also restricted to drawing cards from the deck. This pairs very well with Yellowhammer, Moltoni’s Warbler, and White Wagtail by potentially giving you better cards to play at round end. As a tucking bird it picks up two points from Bird Counter.
4. Brambling
Brambling is cut from the same cloth as Ruff. It has a bit less point scoring potential but it doesn’t require cards in hand to function. Its also restricted to drawing cards from the deck. This pairs very well with Yellowhammer, Moltoni’s Warbler, and White Wagtail by potentially giving you better cards to play at round end. As a tucking bird it picks up two points from Bird Counter.
3. Ruddy Shellduck
This is a great power that’s all about card quality. Over the first three rounds, you’re going to be able to look at fifteen cards and keep the best three and still have the time to do something about them. At the end of round four, you’re just picking up that point. At the end of four rounds, this is a seven point bird with a five egg nest, which is pretty good.
Similar yet different compared to Mandarin, the key difference is that you don’t have to hand out a card to your opponent each round. This bumps up the food cost to two wheat plus one wild, which makes it harder to play in round one and may hold it back a bit. As far as food costs go, I see an interesting similar relationship between Ruddy Shelduck/Mandarin and Snow Bunting/European Goldfinch. As a tucking bird it picks up two points from Bird Counter.
2. Mandarin Duck
This is a great power that’s all about card quality. Over the first three rounds, you’re going to be able to look at fifteen cards and keep the best three and still have the time to do something about them. At the end of round four, you’re just picking up that point. At the end of four rounds, this is a seven point bird with a five egg nest, which is pretty good. The draw back is that you are going to have to give four cards to your opponent, which will be the worst cards of the bunch, obviously. As a tucking bird it picks up two points from Bird Counter.
1. Ruff
Admittedly, in the past I underestimated the impact that this bird could have in the metagame (I had Ruff toward the middle of the pack on the previous version of this list). Tuck/Draw “card cycling” effects are clearly among the best effects in the game. Who cares if you need cards in hand to make them work properly?
Turning dead cards into potentially great cards and points is amazing (especially if you can snipe a good card from tray when you are out of actions). This bird serves as a great passive card cycler in an underdeveloped habitat for an engine with excess cards and if managed properly, it will score twelve extra points. It plays well with Omnivore Specialist and Bird Counter, picking up two points each. There’s nothing more to say about this very solid card. See more on Ruff here: The Power of Tucking Cards in Wingspan
Wingspan Teal Powers: What’s Your Favorite?
That’s our Ranking of the 36 Wingspan Teal Power cards.
Drop a comment below and let us know what your favorite teal-powered card is! Don’t forgot to see how we rank Wingspan’s Pink Powered birds.
Nice list, I agree with the general power ranking, passive eggs are excellent in OE where you want to play more birds but can’t lay as many eggs. Easily the most powerful round 1 teal power.
More often than not I find that the whitethroat’s combination of food cost and ability to go in the forest allows me to get 2-3 eggs on round 1 instead of just 1 with redstart, and forest is kinda just a more useful habitat to build up early.
I’ve always been a fan of the way eurasian hobby and common swift seem to slot together like jigsaw pieces, not necessarily particularly good but it definitely makes you feel good and like you know what you’re doing.
The food discarding powers seem underrated tho, I’ve played them often in all kinda of engines because of their flexibility. In tucking engine it means you’re essentially converting your food producing bird into a point machine whereas playing birds would often not be worth it (especially engines with no net card gain), wood duck / galah engines also typically end up with extra food because of the new OE board and the collared dove essentially dove you more activations. Those birds also enable eurasian nutcracker engines to be not complete garbage. And they also pair surprisingly well with yellowhammer type birds where taking loads of food can sometimes be a wasted turn in round 4.
Kinda just has a ton of flexibility because the collared dove’s five points means you don’t actually need to play it particularly early for it to be worth it.
The house finch is much more restricted since seed usually shares a side with nectar. It at least combines well with maned duck and takes advantage of an opponent’s galah.
Great insights, thanks for sharing. As always, strong situational awareness is necessary when playing, as plays that might normally be “bad” might have a moment to shine and actually score you a good chunk of points. A good example that I think you can appreciate is Horned Lark. Teal powers add some complexity to Wingspan and I think that’s a good thing.
I play Wingspan with all three decks (basic, EE&OE) NOT mixed together. I segregate & shuffle each pile before laying them in respective card holders & face-up tray. I could stack the tray with EE cards from the deck at each reset, but we don’t. We just replace them with cards from their respective deck when required.
When playing with all three separate decks, I find a distinct advantage in having an option to draw more or less cards from any of the decks to help my particular power situation. I tested this game play over a number of games with segregated decks vs playing with totally mixed together stacks & have kept data on the outcomes of each. I’ve attained my peronal highest scores in the last 5 consecutive games when successfully attempting to “juice” my hand with early teal & later yellow birds. I filled all my habitats yesterday for the first time. My score was 140, good for me, still learning this games nuances. I drew & played 2 blues early on & then played 4 yellow birds later, all which I was able to capitalize on during the game. Maybe I’ve been lucky, but I really feel this 3-stack way of playing all expansions separate is paying off.