One thing uncommon often has is a large simple flier. This could have an ability as well, depending on cost.

I made this card as an illustration, it's not supposed to be definite, just a place for the question "how big can a stompy flier be at uncommon".

IIRC, wizards say "not better in limited than air elemental". So it probably can't be bigger than 4/4 flying. But it has to be splashy somehow in two colours. Can we justify a 4/X at 4 CMC? Or a 5 CMC at 4/3 with a nice ability?

What colour is best suited to this slot?

Why not "Aeran Angel?" Could have vigilance and be a gw Serra Angel.

Hm. Good point, Serra Angel is apparently OK for uncommon. I feel disappointed I didn't need to design something more new, but SA certainly fulfils the role.

I don't know if G/W Serra is a let down for some people. The message it sends is interesting, though.

Hmm... Trample, Flying, Vigilance? Too much? Maybe some cheap activations? Gain Vigilance, gain trample?

A letdown?

I'm trying to think of a pair of cards to point to, but really, none of them are as iconic to Serra, so it's probably not worth pulling them forward.

What I'm saying is that, I would assume, some people would see Serra's cost in two colors and say "Why didn't they give me something new? This casting cost is harder (an arguable claim, I admit) so why didn't I get something better for my money?

To be honest, though, I don't really think it bugs me that much. I might be defending shadow players.

I think "big stompy uncommon flier" was discussed at Cloudbeast of Burden, another place where we wondered how big an uncommon flier could be. Ah, looking back now, no, we wondered how big a common flier could be, and decided 5/5 would have to be uncommon or higher; didn't particularly discuss whether uncommon would max out at Serra Angel size or not.

Gatherer says there have been a small handful of uncommon fliers with 5 power: either conditional (Zanam Djinn, Stoic Ephemera, Phantasmal Dragon, Cloud Djinn) or expensive (Tresserhorn Skyknight, Qumulox, Archangel).

I'm trying to keep track of all the proposed gold uncommons over at Gold uncommon submissions.

Ah! I vaguely remembered something, but not where. It's interesting how different they were, that there we considered 5/5 at common, here I was worried about 4/4 at uncommon. Most of those uncommons are not recent, but some are. Maybe in a set with good flying, we can have 5/4 or 5/5 at the appropriate cost.

Maybe we should have a 2/4 double strike as our "air elemental but a bit better" and a more expensive more stompy creature like Cloudbeast of Burden?