Spectral Cloak

Conditional shroud, gated on tap state, is the design idea worth sitting with. Most protection auras of the era were static: a creature kept safe stayed safe, and whether it was attacking or blocking did not enter the equation. This one ties protection to a phase of the turn the controller cannot fully hide. Untapped, the creature is untargetable; tapped (attacking, activating, or hit by anything that taps it), it is naked to removal. The result is an aura that protects a mana sink or a defensive blocker beautifully and protects an attacker not at all, which is a strange and specific axis for a two-mana double-blue card to be drawn on. The shroud clause itself is also a quiet historical note: the original printing read "cannot be the target of spells or effects," and the wording was updated to shroud once the keyword existed to carry the concept. It belongs to a cluster of Legends-era auras experimenting with state-dependent abilities, most of which the game has not returned to; the design lever (a static effect that toggles with tap state) is rare enough that the card is more interesting as a design artifact than as a piece of protection.