Pointed Discussion

One of the few survivors from Alpha still in the base set, a decent beater for blue, however for one more mana in blue, and in the same set, you could get Mahamoti Djinn which is a 5/6 flyer...

This is certainly a nice printing of this card - such rich colors. I wish I had one of these but sadly didn't start playing until Revised.

This makes me wish I had more Alpha cards, this version just rocks!

Serra Sphinx is strictly better. This is still a classic card, but obsoleted by power creep.

Very cool. Best art on an air elemental card.

Pwned by power creep. Still a classic!

Good if you're making a Flying deck, but I'd go elsewhere otherwise.

I would just like to mention that, if sorted by collector's number, this is THE FIRST CARD on Gatherer.

People talking about "powercreep" affecting cards in the same set as freaking Black Lotus and Ancestral Recall. No. Wizards just decided creatures were cool and focused on them more in recent years, which is why they don't suck now.

If you look at the oher alpha cards, you can tell this thing was pretty good for the time. Sure random broken spells are good and all, but you need SOME sort of win condition, and this beat most of the things in the air at the time, and even traded with Serra Angel.

Serra Sphinx doesn't obsolete it because Serra Sphinx isn't ''normal''. Once a card has mulitple other more recent cards, at least one at a lower rarity, that all outclass it so that you see a clear "trend" in R&D that they just make better cards now, even at uncommon, then a card is "power-creep obsolote".

Serra Angel has Shepherd of the Lost to contend with, not just Baneslayer. Obviously any card might be worse than a newer Rare or Mythic- it's when Newer Commons and Uncommons beat older Uncommons and Rares that "Power-Creep" is fair to say.

But, Air Elemental in the first card Alphabetically in "Alpha". If Alpha had Collector's numbers, it might have been numbered "1". If this is indeed The First Card in Magic, a tribute is in order:

Our whole universe started in Richard's apartment suite,
When nearly 14 million cards ago an Expansion was released!
The cards we played were cool,
Planeswalkers- "Here, I Rule"!
Urza's Block Developed tools...hah! jk lolz
We built Caw-Blade, We built Affinity!
Black, Blue, White, Red and Green!
Lotii, Moxen, Time Machines!
It all started with the old Thran!

Granted it may not be the most exciting Alpha card, but it's still an icon, and has stood the test of time better than many of its contemporaries.

A classic! The art and the flavour text are so good that I used them to make some Elemental token for Call the Skybreaker. In a hybrid frame is quite nice!

Unlucky, quite obsoleted from newer cards, but not so many, and not by much.
Djinn of Wishes
Murder of Crows
Serra Sphinx
Conundrum Sphinx (not exactly strictly better, but almost)
Mistbind Clique (only in a Faerie deck...)
Sky Swallower (lol, I'm joking)
So I'd say that Air Elemental is quite in a good shape for a blue flying beating. The problem are the white creatures, that are far better than the blue ones, even if blue is the color of flying. I don't understand why!
White has:
Angel of Flight Alabaster
Archon of Justice
Baneslayer Angel
Battlegrace Angel
Indomitable Archangel
Serra Angel
Which are better than Air Elemental sometimes even 2 times (because the casting cost and abilities...). I understood that white is a color stronger on creatures than blue, but white should be good on little creatures, no totally non-sense like Iona, Shield of Emeria or Baneslayer Angel...

4/5

Leon was proud of the air elemental he had summoned, but after the other scientists made fun of him for thinking "air" was an element, he was forced to rename it the less cool-sounding "oxygen elemental". The scientists who had mocked him were found mysteriously suffocated.