MTG Salvation

Skyclave Apparition
1WW

Creature - Kor Spirit

When ~ enters the battlefield, exile up to one target nonland, nontoken permanent you don't control with converted mana cost 4 or less.
When ~ leaves the battlefield, the exiled card's owner creates an X/X blue illusion creature token, where X is the converted mana cost of the exiled card

2/2

Pretty interesting fiend hunter variant. Can't kill tokens or big creatures, but can kill any nonland permanent (including PW's!) and even if answered just gives them a vanilla creature. What do we think? It's no Palace Jailer obviously, but is this the 2nd best version of this effect in W?

I didn't notice that it could snipe noncreature permanents. I'm more interested than I was when I first read the card.

Oh and this is also worded the way old versions of this effect were, right? Meaning you can instant speed bounce/flicker/sac with the trigger on the stack and they'll never get their token or their card, right?

This does a good job of mitigating the weaknesses of the fiend hunter variants and is for sure the best one but I think it is still on the outside of smaller traditional cube lists.

Quote from asmallcat »

Oh and this is also worded the way old versions of this effect were, right? Meaning you can instant speed bounce/flicker/sac with the trigger on the stack and they'll never get their token or their card, right?

Yep, this is correct. I’m sorta surprised they didn’t use the Animate Dead intervening if of “when ~ enters the battlefield, if it’s on the battlefield” to more closely mirror modern functionality, but I’m not complaining.

I really like this card, but with a 465 card cube, this is on the outside looking in. I don't have room, but I wouldn't fault any cubist from running it. Palace Jailer is better; this is second best.

Cheers,
rant

I dislike when creatures are kor instead of human, but other than that minor nitpick this is great for my 720. Banisher Priest is the easy comparison, but the fact that (1) it gets rocks, enchantments, and walkers and (2) they never get it back make this so much better - a totally different league than Banisher Priest.

The issue I always have with Fiend Hunter effects (or just creature removal in general) is that plenty of decks simply don't play creatures, especially not on curve. Exiling Sneak Attack/Planeswalkers/Opposition/mana rocks/Animate Dead effects/Moat, and even moxen and other 3 drops is going to be so strong strapped onto a creature. Absolutely going to test this card, and although the double colored mana cost is a little rough, I can't imagine this won't stick.

Card seems decent enough. I don't think it's great, but it's a fine white 3-drop. Will test if I can find room, but most of my white 3cc creature cards go into decks where they play specific roles, so they're hard to remove for a generic goodstuff card.

If you return this thing to play, it can exile the X/X token, which has 0cmc. Some blinks that return instantly won't let you target it as you'll stack both abilities at once, but I'm looking at Sun Titan, Reveillark, Mimic Vat... MTGO cube still runs Parallax Wave, right? This is also excellent with that. Pretty much a better version of Generous Gift that exiles and gives you a 2/2 and makes the opponent wait for their x/x; the only edge you get from Gift is CMC5+, and, well, instant speed, yes. Exiles moxes with no drawback! Card seems absolutely stupid good to me.

Quote from Kryptnyt »

If you return this thing to play, it can exile the X/X token, which has 0cmc. Some blinks that return instantly won't let you target it as you'll stack both abilities at once, but I'm looking at Sun Titan, Reveillark, Mimic Vat... MTGO cube still runs Parallax Wave, right? This is also excellent with that. Pretty much a better version of Generous Gift that exiles and gives you a 2/2 and makes the opponent wait for their x/x; the only edge you get from Gift is CMC5+, and, well, instant speed, yes. Exiles moxes with no drawback! Card seems absolutely stupid good to me.

It cannot exile tokens

White has so many good options at 1WW that I'm not so sure I'd play this even at great size considering the triple downfall of being WW, limiting to 4cmc, and creating an illusion.

The option to hit a Journey to Nowhere or similar is pretty sweet though.

What's the verdict on this creature, since it's proven pretty decent in many formats, in an unpowered cube? I've been on the fence about including it but I'm not sure of its usefulness without (currently) running fast mana.

Quote from Goodking »

What's the verdict on this creature, since it's proven pretty decent in many formats, in an unpowered cube? I've been on the fence about including it but I'm not sure of its usefulness without (currently) running fast mana.

I consider it a 360 staple and it's probably one of white's top 5 or 10 creatures to be honest in powered cube.
Sniping a Mox, Sol Ring, Oko, Jace etc is so powerful and blink shenanigan can put it over the top.
It's not quite Palace Jailer level, but it's close. I think it's better than Blade Splicer, for example, which is also a really great white creature with lots of blink upsides.

In unpowered, it's a bit worse but still great, would definitely play it.

We've loved it, card is honestly unreal. I know the card has been ridiculous in Modern and Legacy, and I think it honestly might be even better in cube. It obviously only goes into aggro and midrange decks, and it's not good enough to make you go into white, but I think it's probably the best white 3 imo. I don't think anybody in my playgroup has ever sniped any power with it (although I'm sure that would be super filthy) and it's still great, so I don't think having power in your cube has any big effect on how good this card is.

If you haven't at least tried it, I think you should. The card literally always hits something important, usually on curve. Being hard removal for like 95% of cube nonland permanents is good enough as it is, being strapped to a cheap and tutor-able creature is just stupid. Its basically just Oblivion Ring attached to a 2/2 that you can curve into after your Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and before your Armageddon lol

It's already all that without any of the goofy Restoration Angel/Phantasmal Image/etc synergies to repeat the etb

Yeah, this card is nuts. It's my #2 White 3cmc creature after Brimaz.

Thanks for the input folks, convinced to give this a run out.

What they all said....good card is good.