Curfew

One blue mana buys an edict that bounces instead of kills, and the asymmetry hides in the verb "returns." Both players send a creature home, so the line reads as a clean trade, but the caster owns the timing and the opponent owns the choice of which creature to lose. Hold it until they tap out behind a single threat and that threat goes back to hand while you return a token or a spent attacker you were happy to recycle; flash it when a kill spell points at your best creature and you scoop it to safety while they have to answer the same call. Instant speed is what tilts a fair-looking effect onto one side of the table: you pick the window where the exchange profits you, and the opponent cannot decline to participate. The wording keeps it from being pure removal, though, because each player returns a creature they control, so a board full of chaff costs them nothing. The card only bites when its moment is aimed at a deck holding one creature it cannot afford to lose. That is the edict logic at work: you compel the action without aiming at the target, the same constraint that separates a sacrifice effect from a spot-removal spell. From a single line it does triple duty as protection, tempo, and a way to rebuy your own creature, a scalpel that nicks the opponent on every cut you choose to make.