How is he "lesser"?

He suffers from a severe inferiority complex since he is not only the second, "younger" of he and his twin, Ugin, but also they are both smaller and weaker than their brothers and sisters who all spawned around the same time. He was constantly the lesser of two and smaller than most growing up and even didn't get to be the first planeswalker between he an Ugin. It made him into the weirdly petty and monomaniacal monster we know.

It's also never a great idea to replace the image built up of a villain with a particularly fragile and vulnerable depiction of them when they were younger as it tends to damage the association.

The Phantom Menace did Darth Vader absolutely no favors, for example.

Idk to me that made all the more impressive that he wins for the most part, seems lot more impressive than if he was born already smarter and more powerful than his siblings.

And to me he always felt like a huge narcissist and a lot of narcissist deep down act the way they do due to feeling inferior in certain aspect and need to idealized thier self-image.

I feel the opposite way.

He went from a lizard twerp to a virtual god so powerful that the only reason he didn't kill Arcades was simply to twist him into a tyrant.

He was born the lesser, but in the end he was so lovecraftian that he had to be stripped of his very name to be kept at bay.

Popping back to the primary topic, I have a particular soft spot for dragon mage even if the card is only so so.
A big part of that is I do appreciate the structural composition of the piece, even if it isn't appreciably dynamic in any way and it kind of reminds me of Darigaaz, the Igniter. Mostly, I like it because it's a dragon with a class, something I think they are way too reluctant to do much of. But we have seen angels and demons recently get a big push for that, so maybe dragons have a shot at it

Among the newer dragons, I also am really pleased Sprite dragon, again, for its twin creature types.

One dragon always stuck out to me in a positive way too, though the gimmick got a little co-opted by later appearances. rimescale dragon and the frost breath. Sure, Ojutai got that later, but they aren't as basically draconic as the snow dragon.

Also, frost dragons just feel better in period.

The spoiled art for Quandrix is really something, with gliding frog like wings and a weird skull. Easily the most alien dragon design so far.

Although i do not like that the new elders are in Strixhaven for no other reason than 'completing the cycle', i do love Swanland's art for all of them! Quandrix is indeed the most 'out there', but I also love Shadrix's 'silver-ish with inky streaks coming of the wings' look. I generally like Swanland's art though.

Swanland is a strong contended for being my favorite magic artist, certainly among the current ones. I'm sad he doesn't get to do a lot of pieces, but at least it seems like he gets to do high-profile cards whenever they do commission something from him, so I wouldn't be surprised if wotc is cutting corners and he charges more than they're willing to generally pay. Which is a shame, because I would rather have him make instants and sorceries rather than creatures and planeswalkers, he is to me the artist that best captures just how stupidly cool it would be to wield magic. There are other artists that produce art I enjoy more in isolation, but as game pieces, he's an integral part of Magic's aesthetic to me.

Having said that, I'm not too big on the two blue dragons, but at least the UG one looks pretty goofy even if the image bores me. The two white ones are stellar.