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Moxonomy

Defenestrate

Instant2 generic manaBlack mana

The clause that pays for this card is the exemption: a three-mana instant that kills almost anything, so long as it can't fly. Black's clean unconditional removal has always come at a premium (Murder priced destruction at the same slot with no strings), so the design here trades one small blind spot for a slightly friendlier cost profile. That blind spot is doing real work: fliers are the creatures black most wants to answer and least wants to block, and this spell politely declines to touch them. What's left is a piece of ground-control removal, an instant that snaps up the beefy attacker or the mana-hungry midrange threat but leaves the evasive finishers for something else. Black kill spells have long been built around a single carve-out (Doom Blade skipping black, Ultimate Price hitting only monocolored things, Go for the Throat sparing artifacts), each one a different answer to the question of how to make efficient removal cost less without making it universal. The flavor of the name is the whole gag: you are throwing the target out a window, which is a fate you cannot inflict on anything already airborne. It is a small, honest joke wrapped around a small, honest restriction, and both the pun and the design point at the same seam in the card.

Defenestrate (j25)
J25 · #420common
Pricing
Normal: $0.15
Foil:
Oracle Text

Rules text

Destroy target creature without flying.
Legalities

Format Status

Standard
N/A
Pioneer
Legal
Modern
Legal
Legacy
Legal
Vintage
Legal
Commander
Legal
Pauper
Legal
Brawl
Legal
Historic
Legal
Alchemy
N/A
Timeless
Legal
Standard Brawl
N/A
More formats
Old School
N/A
Premodern
N/A
PreDH
N/A
Pauper Commander
Legal
Oathbreaker
Legal
Gladiator
Legal
Penny Dreadful
Legal
Duel Commander
Legal
Future Standard
N/A
COMPETITIVEBRAWL
Legal
TLR
Legal
Printings elsewhere

Other printings

2 sets
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