Kasmina, Enigmatic Mentor

A planeswalker that defends by taxation rather than reaction. Where most protection at this cost is a spell you hold up (a counter, a redirect, a hexproof aura), Kasmina folds the safeguard into a permanent that sits on the battlefield and simply raises the price of every targeted spell aimed at your creatures and planeswalkers, herself included. An opponent reaching for the walker with targeted removal or a burn spell has to pay the surcharge to do it. The tax is narrow by design, and knowing its blind spots is the whole skill of playing behind it: it only touches spells, and only spells that target. An edict aimed at the player, a wrath, a sacrifice effect, or an enters-the-battlefield exile like Oblivion Ring all slip past the wall, since none of those is a spell targeting your permanent. The minus is the maintenance plan, adding a 2/2 Wizard to the protected board while looting to keep the hand churning, and at five loyalty with a two-loyalty activation the walker builds and defends without exposing itself to immediate danger. There is no plus ability, and that absence is the tell: the tax is a standing effect you leave running turn after turn, not a resource you tick toward an ultimate. This is a defensive walker for a control shell that wants bodies and card flow, built to grind rather than race.