Timely Ward

Protection printed for a specific problem: the removal spell aimed at your general during another player's turn. Aura-based indestructibility is normally too slow to matter as a response, because you commit at sorcery speed and the answer lands when you have already passed priority. The conditional flash rewrites that vulnerability. When the target is a commander, this stops being a proactive commitment and becomes a reactive instant, held up like a counterspell and slammed on the stack in response to the kill spell. Everything rides on the commander clause: cast it on any other creature and it is a plain three-mana indestructibility Aura with no timing tricks, honest but unremarkable. Point it at your general and the same three mana buys a genuine combat trick and removal insurance in one. It answers targeted destruction and combat damage cleanly, though it leaves the door open to the exile, bounce, and sacrifice effects that indestructibility never covered. What makes the design notable is how narrowly it grants its flexibility. Rather than printing a universally flashable Aura, which would ripple across every format, it gates the instant-speed window behind a commander designation, a property that only carries weight in one format's rules. The protection is broad; the permission to cast it exactly when you need it is deliberately fenced off, available only when the creature under threat is a commander.