Pointed Discussion

hawk girl's long lost brother

The problem with many amplify creatures is that they are so expensive that you barely have creatures left in your hand by the time you could play them (see also Daru Stinger which is a bit more acceptable but also in the soldier tribe with mostly cheap creatures, Feral Throwback, Glowering Rogon...).

A good card, but not worth bottle necking your hand for.

Do Bird Soldier cards count as one, or two, here? So, if I revealed my three other Aven Warhawks, for example, would this card have three counters, or six?

The answer to your question is hidden within the card's text. Except without the "hidden" part.

When I play this it is rarely less than a 6/6. This is because I usually have a full hand of soldiers from bouncing Enlistment Officer a couple times. I think this card is underrated.

Overpriced. It should be four cmc at the MOST.

amplify takes all the fun out of tribals. It's like "Here you go, have this generic ability for your supposedly unique tribal." thanks. that makes it so fun to play now.

In a sense, Nib is correct. The answer is on the card. Here's the answer in a less dickish manner:

The line in the reminder text that says and/or means that cards that are both birds and soldiers add only one. The "and " part means cards that are birds and soldiers and the "or" part means cards that are either birds or soldiers. Either way, you get 1 counter per card, never 2. So this would have 3 +1/+1 counters and be a 5/5.

@divine_exodus: I'd say this is definitely balanced at its current mana cost, and maybe even a bit pushed considering the power level of cards at the time. Bird decks were mostly blue/white, so chances were that you were going to have at least some cards in hand before casting this. Compared to Serra Angel, which was rare at the time, casting this with 3 birds in your hand gives you a 5/5 flyer for .
Cards like this are only fairly rated compared to the cards that were available at the time. You could make a fair point and say that Serra Angel is more stable, but again, this card has more potential in the right deck.

Would have been a fine card for , similarly to Canopy Crawler.

For I'd rather pass. That one extra mana just makes such a difference with Amplify since you'll usually have one or even two less creatures in hand after turn four. You'll need at least three birds or soldiers in hand to put this above the curve, otherwise you just got a 4/4 for five and showed your opponent half your hand.