A natural variation on Skyknight Legionnaire or on Razorfoot Griffin. As discussed on Spin with the Attack, there's not room for both this and that at common, so I'm giving that the common slot for the moment. But if we want all the enemy-colour gold commons to be creatures, this will be a great submission for that slot.

There seem to be a lot of flying+ first strike creatures at common in multicolor.

Hmm, that's true. Viashino Scalewing, Loretower Warden, this. I note we've also got two flying+deathtouch - Follower of the Dark Cloud and Tel Koria Jailer - and two flying+vigilance - Essencecourt Sentinel and Aeran Elf. Those last two are similar enough that I feel one of them should change; I also agree one of the three first strikers should change as well.

Yeah, reducing the duplication in first strike (or other abilities) a little would be a good idea.

Okay. Trying to deal with the issue of duplication between the common flying creatures that was mentioned here. Here are the relevant lines from the skeleton:

­

And here's the list of common creature keywords (based on Mark Rosewater's article from a few years ago and updated from memory):

White: Double strike, First Strike, Flash, Flying, Protection, Vigilance, Lifelink
Blue: Flash, Flying, Islandwalk, Protection, Hexproof
Black: Deathtouch, Intimidate, Flying, Haste, Lifelink, Swampwalk, Regeneration
Red: Double strike, First Strike, Intimidate, Haste, Mountainwalk, Trample
Green: Deathtouch, Flash, Forestwalk, Regeneration, Trample, Hexproof, Vigilance, Reach

I think we leave out landwalk and intimidate because flying is already an evasion ability (perhaps except for one blue-black card? Or maybe save that for uncommon, like Phobian Phantasm.) Reach obviously gets left out. Double strike on a flyer I think is best left for uncommon and above (Skyhunter Skirmisher) - though we could perhaps have an enlighten ability to gain double strike UEOT? A similar thing was done at common with Springjack Knight.

So that leaves:

White: First Strike, Flash, Protection, Vigilance, Lifelink
Blue: Flash, Protection, Hexproof
Black: Deathtouch, Haste, Lifelink, Regeneration
Red: First Strike, Haste, Trample
Green: Deathtouch, Flash, Regeneration, Trample, Hexproof, Vigilance

There ought to be room for 15 sufficiently-distinct common gold flying creatures using that lot, even with the additional restrictions that the allied-colour ones all cost 2 or 6.

The current distribution, with the duplicates in bold and otherwise-problematic ones in italic:

­

ETB looting is problematic in UB because looting has basically moved to primary red. First strike and haste on the BR 2-drop isn't necessarily a problem but it is using up instances of both keywords, which is an additional constraint.

I'll see if I can rearrange things, and in particular consider lifelink, trample, flash and regeneration, to get 15 nice distinct flyers.

Then, of course, we'll still have the issue of making sure the uncommons are different enough from all these commons...

I think we should drop a keyword from Viashino Scalewing because it's got so much going on. With three first-strikers, that seems like the sensible choice.
We could have Aeran Intelligencer mill instead of looting, since that isn't represented by the creatures yet and is very .
Since we have two vigilance flying creatures, we could drop vigilance from Aeran Elf and make it cantrip. Wall of Omens and Wall of Blossoms tell me that can be good at that... though those are both uncommon.
­Loretower Warden could easily have hexproof instead of first strike, since we don't have a hexproof common creature yet.
Lifelink is already quasi-represented by Aeran Priest, but we have two instances of deathtouch and no real lifelink. Either deathtoucher could theoretically have lifelink, but as much as I like it how it is, i Think Follower of the Dark Cloud might be a better option. Of course, it would be a good candidate for a regenerator, too, in those colors.

@Alex That generally sounds good.

I'm not sure of the right approach with the multicoloured creatures, whether to try to choose an ability that fits in either colour (but there's not enough of them), or that each colour is clearly contributing, or for something that fits the "feel" of the colour pairing, or something else.

Or to try to have a 5-card cycle (or 10 card cycle??) with each colour contributing the same keyword or effect to each card it's in, but that's probably an uncommon cycle if anything.

If we're still having a problem, I think it's okay to replace French Vanilla with abilities that feel like French Vanilla: We see them so often, they might as well have keywords. You know, like how Vigilance used to be spelled out. So, for example, if the G/W one tapped to add mana, I don't think it would bother too many people.

jmg: Oh, certainly. We've already got looting in there; regeneration isn't technically a keyword ability; tapping for mana is a fine idea as well (if we can distance it a bit from Steward of Valeron).

OK. I propose:

• We make Aeran Elf a flying cantrip creature for . Cf Elvish Visionary as common, and Wall of Omens/Wall of Blossoms at uncommon; also Messenger Falcons at 4 mana. Should it be 1/1 or 1/2?
• We make Loretower Warden a 3/3 flash for with manacycling. Cf Faerie Invaders / Spire Monitor at common - manacycling adds a mana to the regular cost - bizarrely there's also Skyline Predator at uncommon. White has a fair few flash fliers as well.
• We make Follower of the Dark Cloud a 1/1 regenerator for . Cf Fog of Gnats and Living Airship at common, and Locust Swarm, Screeching Harpy and Yavimaya Gnats at uncommon. What should be the activation cost? I'd be inclined to say , but maybe Fog of Gnats suggests just ?

That gets rid of all the duplication, except for first strike still on this Tel Eria Guardian and also Viashino Scalewing. However a 1/1 haste first strike flier for seems a sufficiently different spot from a 2/2 first strike flier at , so I'm inclined to leave them both as they are.

We can save lifelink and trample for higher rarities and/or monocolour (Heavy Plant), and tapping for mana as well.

I like those suggestions, Alex. Flash on Loretower Warden is a good call. Somehow I missed including flash in my analysis. I vote for a regeneration cost of on Follower of the Dark Cloud, because we might as well try it first at its most effective possible cost and see if it's too much.

Applied fixes to Loretower Warden and Follower of the Dark Cloud as discussed. More discussion on Aeran Elf.