Pointed Discussion

This guy's teeth are in really good condition, he must be fastidious about hygiene. How can he be a 4/4 when he's armed like princess peach?

Take special care of those ruby slippers, I want those most of all! Now FLY! FLY!!!!

Should be a Bird Ape. Seriously.

He's a 4/4 because he costs {6}{U}, for the same cost in monoblue you could get say, Goliath Sphinx or for {4}{U}{U} you could get Sphinx of Jwar Isle.

It's a friggin flying monkey. 5/5.

Wow. It's like they tacked on cycling at the last moment once they realized nobody would ever play this guy.

"Yeah, sorry about that. Let's just give you another card."

Compare with Air Elemental. They added + for less color weight and + for cycling ability. Makes sense, but translates into a bad card.

There's nothing notably avian about this thing, not even Aven.
Looks more like a Lion Chimera, or as noted multiple times by now, an Ape.

"Compare with Air Elemental. They added for less color weight and for cycling ability.
Makes sense, but translates into a bad card." -- TheWrathofShane

That's probably how it was, but they should still look at the result and consider if it ended up at a reasonable price. Especially when it goes from mid- to lategame cost, replacing one colored mana for two colorless usually translates into an overcosted card already. They could have easily gone for instead and this would still be mediocre.