Hypnotic Grifter

Connive is usually printed as a rider on the stat line: the creature enters, connives once, done. This one instead bolts the ability onto a repeatable activation and taxes it hard, three generic every time, which is the whole balancing act. A cheap or free connive on a body this small (the way many connive creatures got it) would have been a genuine value engine; pricing each activation at three keeps it strictly a late-game outlet, something you reach for when you have surplus mana and nothing better to spend it on. What the three mana buys is choice. Discard a land and you smooth flooded draws; discard a nonland and the 1/2 grows toward an actual clock. The counter is a byproduct of digging, not the reason to activate: most turns you connive for the selection and take the growth when your worst card happens to be a spell. So a body that would otherwise sit inert becomes a mana sink that converts dead late-game mana into card filtering and, incrementally, a threat, all without asking the deck to build around it. The design idea is a template worth noting: hand a small body an activated connive and it does the flood-insurance job a whole new keyword might otherwise be printed to cover, using an existing mechanic priced to stay honest.