Cunning Geysermage

Two spells folded into one slot, priced so neither half feels like a tax. Cast it bare and you get a 3/2 for , a fine early beater that never rots in hand. Pay the kicker and you staple a bounce onto that same body: reset a blocker so your team gets through, race by sending their best threat back to hand, or clear a chump before a decisive attack. Because it is a creature spell, this all lands on your own main phase as proactive tempo, not a reactive answer held up in response; it costs the opponent no card, only a tempo hit and a recast. The "up to one other target creature" clause is the quiet part that keeps the kicker painless. Creature spells never target, so the spell itself cannot fizzle, but the enters-the-battlefield trigger does target, and "up to one" means you decline when the board holds nothing worth returning rather than get forced to bounce your own creature. That optionality is why welding tempo to a body works here: a dedicated bounce spell spends a card, this spends only mana, and only when you have the surplus. One slot flexes between curve-filler and disruption depending on how the game develops. The kicker does the whole job of pricing that flexibility, giving you a turn-three body that scales into a tempo swing the moment the mana arrives.