Pointed Discussion

A card given restrictionsn with a wording made more complicate for flavor reasons.
I'm glad we'll likely never see such a thing these days again.
I like the idea of mounts (e.g. creatures which can be attached to others like equipment/auras), though...

Kinda like a licid in the way it's ability works (although it's only until end of turn).

Some sort of mount mechanic is probably inevitable.

I like the art and like the mount idea, perhaps it should be introduced in a new way like equipments did

This is asking to be mounted by a creature like Nova Chaser

Its...
...
...a seahorse...

I can't read it...!

And yet...no banding. Go figure.

This card is an interesting collision of flavor-based mechanics that get in the way of what the card really wants to do. First, it wants to carry a rider by giving it +1/+1 and flying. This sort of "mount/guard duty" mechanic is used on earlier cards like Wyluli Wolf and contemporaries like Kjeldoran Guard. Unfortunately, it can only carry a rider so large -- much like the Dwarven Warriors can only convey a creature of a certain size through their tunnels -- so power must be 2 or less. And, like some other guards, it uses basically the same mechanic that the proto-equipment -- such as Sandals of Abdallah, Flying Carpet, Tawnos's Weaponry and Runesword -- in that it is lost on the field/goes down with its user.

Rich with flavor. Choking on flavor. And that's eventually what lead them to favor simplicity over flavor. Chasm Drake is a newer card that goes for similar effects (minus the headaches), and Avacyn Restored's upcoming Soulbond mechanic offers something sort of similar with Wingcrafter. Personally, I wish they had done true equipment (using attachment the way auras do) earlier. Maybe then they would have made the leap to creatures that attach to other creatures, which seems like a cleaner way to do some of the things they've tried in the past.

too long to read, not important enough.
?/5.

Goes great with Daxos of Meletis