This might be too similar to Ethereal Appearance. Thoughts?

That was intentional. Partly because I think we should give the spren tokens flying, because we don't have enough in the set currently.

That would be a bit too powerful and require both cards to be moved up in cost, but either way, they're too similar. Why do you want them to be the same cost and have the same token-generating effect? Could this be and return a permanent, and then we could make a rare that made Spren tokens for a vertical cycle?

Sure, though my point still remains regarding the flying.

It would require Appearance to be at least in cost, for sure, and this possibly . I'm not sure that's what we want for a color pair that is normally tempo-ish in limited.

What if we made some of them enter the battlefield tapped? That would push the cost back down.

That works, but it's a little complex at common. Let's put it on this one.

Okay.

What then should this look like? Return creature? Or still return permanent?