This is my favorite deck at home, and I'm very open to any suggestions for making it better.
The idea is to drop lots of cheap birds and swarm your opponent, easily flying over their creatures' heads and swooping in for quickly ramping damage. Derevi, Empyrial Tactician and Pride of the Clouds are the big hitters, the former for his ludicrously powerful triggered ability that works exponentially better with cheap flyers, and the latter, well, just look at him. Drop a Steel of the Godhead on that kitty and you likely just won.
Birds of Paradise
+
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
: Never worry about mana!
Bident of Thassa
+
Flurry of Wings
: Force your opponents to attack with everything, and throw a wall of blockers in their face. Flurry is some of my favorite token-gen, three mana for limitless birds, and it only gets better if you have a Soulcatchers' Aerie or two standing by. Speaking of Flurry,
Flurry of Wings
+
Pride of the Clouds
: Your opponents will hate that kitty every moment they can't get rid of him, and being able to double his size at the push of a button allows for massive endgame swings or casually blocking their largest creatures.
That being said, Pride of the Clouds and Derevi, Empyrial Tactician are absolute sinks for removal. That's where Retraction Helix comes into play. I believe it to be a solid protection spell in this deck type, especially considering your precious kitty and bird wizard are 2- and 3-drops respectively, so they're easily replanted. If that were the extent of the helix' usefulness, it wouldn't be in this deck. Buuuuut....
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
+
Retraction Helix
= one of the most satisfying tactical warheads you will ever drop on your opponent. Derevi's ability triggers separately for each creature, so for each resolution you have that window to insert another activation of Retraction Helix. Oh, I just hit you with x 1/1's? So what, you say? Well, say goodbye to x+1 of your Planeswalkers, power hitters, ugly victory-impeding enchantments and artifacts. Clean, precise, and utterly devastating to your opponents' board presence.
Squadron Hawk is amazing, so much so that I often run this deck at 61 cards. (I like to think of it as "1w: Reduce the minimum size of your deck to 57") The squadron gang works well with everyone in this deck; buffing your Pride, providing plentiful early triggers for Derevi and cheap fodder for your Aerie's, and a guaranteed boost to your Flurry.
Soulcatchers' Aerie
+
Thrummingbird
: Consistent and cheap bird-buffing, and you can drop a Steel of the Godhead if our opponents have the gall to play with flying or reach. Judge's Familiar provides a very handy floating Force Spike-type effect, but I often sacrifice him for the instant-speed buffage.
Aven Mimeomancer makes everybody stronger. That's +3 to Birds of Paradise, and +2 to everybody else except Derevi, with no reduction to their toughness.
-Sideboard-
Storm Herd
+
Windbrisk Heights
: Great way to cheat out a win swing real early, even earlier if Derevi is on the field since he allows you to untap Windbrisk the turn it comes out. But what if you didn't get anything useful to cheat out?
Keeper of the Nine Gales
allows you to return it to your hand and repeatedly scoop for the higher CMC drops. The risk of actually drawing the Storm Herd, (which you will never cast normally in this build) plus the less efficient utility of the Keeper compared to the aforementioned Derevi/Retraction Helix combo, makes this more of a casual option.
Keeper of the Nine Gales
+
Wingmate Roc
: Pretty straightforward, if you drop the Roc you can block with it and return it to your hand before your next turn with its own token, and just keep spitting out those 3/4's. If Derevi is on the field untapping your lands you can feasibly do this twice a turn.
Bower Passage: Lots'o dragon decks floating around nowadays.
