Alley Evasion
A one-mana white instant that buys flexibility at the cost of ever being great at either thing it does. The first mode is a small combat trick, the kind of pump that swings a block or pushes a point or two of extra damage. The second is a bounce: pick up your own creature to save it from removal, reset an enters-the-battlefield trigger, or dodge a sweeper at instant speed. Neither half is exciting on its own, which is exactly the design logic. Modal tricks like this exist so the card is rarely a dead draw; you keep it in hand and let the board state decide whether you need the protection or the points. The bounce mode is the one that does the real work, since returning your own creature to hand is a fog against targeted removal and a way to recur a value body, while the pump is the cheap fallback when nothing needs saving. It is a card built for decks that want their one-mana white slot to do whatever the turn demands, accepting a low ceiling in exchange for almost never being stranded.
