Stillmoon Cavalier – MTG Throwback Thursday (2008)

David
Fanany
Player
since
1995

It would’ve been really cool to get a headless horseman (or even the Magic card Headless Horseman) in one of the Innistrad blocks. Legend of Sleepy Hollow is iconic enough to warrant a callback, and the concept also has connections to figures in Irish and German mythology who are harbingers of death. Even the Pathfinder RPG has a creature called a dullahan (the Irish term for a headless horseman), and game-wise it’s basically an unstoppable killing machine.

Speaking of which, Stillmoon Cavalier used to be a common sight when Eventide was legal in Standard. He doesn’t look quite as aggressively costed compared to some more recent creatures, but he was very hard for certain decks to remove, becomes very strong in the late game, and has a color-intensive mana cost for chroma. That was Eventide‘s precursor to the devotion mechanic – the Cavalier was commonly used alongside Light from Within. In tournament play, he’d only really get a look in Modern and the format is currently too fast for him, but he still brings those qualities I mentioned to any casual table.

Constructed: 2/5
Casual: 3/5
Limited: 4/5
Multiplayer: 3/5
EDH/Commander: 3/5

Stillmoon Cavalier is a bit of an interesting creature, a sort of hybrid between Coldsnap‘s White Shield Crusader and Stromgald Crusader for one more mana. Protection from black and white means it resists a fair bit of removal, first strike and/or flying gives it the ability to trade favorably with most creatures, and it even can pump itself with enough mana. The only real “downside” is that 1 toughness, which leaves it extremely susceptible to all sorts of burn spells. There are still a fair number of decks this can somewhat blank, though, and Stillmoon Cavalier is capable of carrying games if in a good position; being in two well-supported tribes with a flexible mana cost does help that somewhat. It can work in Modern to a point (though there are times where it is a liability, particularly given that 1 toughness), though it has trouble functioning on-curve when you can’t put mana into it.

Constructed: 3.25
Casual: 4
Limited: 4.25
Multiplayer: 3.25
Commander: 3.75