Courtesy of Wizards of the Coast (WotC) and Caleb Durward, check out the new white creature from Zendikar Rising that can deal with problematic nonland permanents — Skyclave Apparition!
Normally white creatures only remove creatures from the battlefield (like Banisher Priest and Palace Jailer) or blink permanents temporarily (like Flickerwisp), but Skyclave Apparition does a bit more than that.
When Skyclave Apparition enters the battlefield, exile up to one nonland, nontoken permanent you don’t control with converted mana cost 4 or less.
Skyclave Apparition splits the difference between cards like Banisher Priest and Oblivion Ring types of removal by allowing it to hit anything other than lands and tokens, but limiting them to converted mana cost 4 or less. Most of the time when these types of creatures or enchantments leave the battlefield the opponent gets their card back, but this one feels more similar to something like Baffling End.
When Skyclave Apparition leaves the battlefield, the exiled card’s owner creates an X/X blue Illusion token, where X is the converted mana cost of the exiled card.
So even if the opponent deals with Skyclave Apparition, they don’t get their card back, but an Illusion token with no abilities. And unlike Baffling End where the opponent always gets a 3/3 Dinosaur in return, now the reward for removing the card varies. As a creature, however, Skyclave Apparition is a lot more likely to die, so the chance of getting something back in return is much higher.
While Skyclave Apparition isn’t a relevant creature type for the party mechanic, being a Kor Spirit allows it to slot into many Spirits decks from Modern, Pioneer, or Historic.
