This art is cool. The clouds face just looks weird.
yesnomu
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(2 votes)
Better than Wind Drake for most Limited purposes, and the Drake was already pretty efficient. I'd run it in a draft, no question. Obviously not great for Constructed, though.
krockgreen
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(3 votes)
1.8?? are you serious? must be nobody's ever drafted m11
Nickkom
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
definitely a solid draft card. Solid body, evasive, splashable creature is awesome.
uberwolf
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
gotta love the flavor of the "high flyer" though. :)
perfect example of one.
Troutz
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
This was one, if not THE best, creature at the common slot in M11 limited. Such a beater for just 3 mana. This card, Azure Drake, and Cloud Crusader were the reason UW Flyers was such a powerful archetype in M11 limited.
ErikLauer
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(8 votes)
Erik's Random card 6/30/2011
The design file had Wind Drake. Why the switch?
The set released before Magic 2011 was Rise of the Eldrazi. RoE had a very epic scale. While usually a core set is a bit slower than an expert set, it wasn't practical to aim for slower than RoE, so I decided we should aim for a faster set. I told the team I thought we could make the best drafting core set so far, and made that a goal from the beginning. I wanted to raise the bar on how well a core set could draft.
We upgraded a white three mana creature to Wild Griffin, and replaced Wind Drake with Cloud Elemental. We try not to have too many pairs like Wild Griffin and Wind Drake in the same set, but each was a change in the desired direction. Cloud Elemental is overall more aggressive than Wind Drake since it has a blocking restriction. This helped keep the pace up.
Another factor was Scroll Thief. I always enjoyed this type of card (OK, maybe not the time Brian Kibler used it to great effect defeating me in the finals of a Grand Prix). However there is the risk of players grinding out the game: if you are drawing extra cards, and can trade those cards for your opponent's creatures, you will reach the game state where you have something and they have nothing. It is a powerful strategy, but not a game that I want to play over and over. Cloud Elemental is worse at trading than Wind Drake, so doing that swap marginally reduces the frequency of the grind.
Was Magic 2011 the best drafting core set (excluding future sets)? While that is very subjective, it is my favorite core set to draft. We continue to learn how to make better sets; I view Magic 2011 as a stepping stone to better and better core sets.
Comments (8)
perfect example of one.
The design file had Wind Drake. Why the switch?
The set released before Magic 2011 was Rise of the Eldrazi. RoE had a very epic scale.
While usually a core set is a bit slower than an expert set, it wasn't practical to aim for slower than RoE, so I decided we should aim for a faster set. I told the team I thought we could make the best drafting core set so far, and made that a goal from the beginning. I wanted to raise the bar on how well a core set could draft.
We upgraded a white three mana creature to Wild Griffin, and replaced Wind Drake with Cloud Elemental. We try not to have too many pairs like Wild Griffin and Wind Drake in the same set, but each was a change in the desired direction. Cloud Elemental is overall more aggressive than Wind Drake since it has a blocking restriction. This helped keep the pace up.
Another factor was Scroll Thief. I always enjoyed this type of card (OK, maybe not the time Brian Kibler used it to great effect defeating me in the finals of a Grand Prix). However there is the risk of players grinding out the game: if you are drawing extra cards, and can trade those cards for your opponent's creatures, you will reach the game state where you have something and they have nothing. It is a powerful strategy, but not a game that I want to play over and over. Cloud Elemental is worse at trading than Wind Drake, so doing that swap marginally reduces the frequency of the grind.
Was Magic 2011 the best drafting core set (excluding future sets)? While that is very subjective, it is my favorite core set to draft. We continue to learn how to make better sets; I view Magic 2011 as a stepping stone to better and better core sets.