Nezumi Prowler

Ninjutsu buys a very specific window: the rat slides in after blockers are declared but before combat damage, replacing an unblocked attacker with a body that arrives tapped and already swinging. Everything the card wants to do depends on hitting that pre-damage sliver, because the enters trigger only lands its deathtouch-and-lifelink grant while there is still a combat to influence. The blunt play points the buff at the freshly landed 3/1 itself, turning an evasive hit into a chunk of gained life. The sharper play aims it at a creature already stuck in an unfavorable block, where deathtouch makes a single point lethal and lifelink refunds the trade. Free target choice is the design lever here, the difference between a clever swap and a dressed-up combat that had already resolved. The artifact type is a quiet wrinkle, leaving the rat exposed to artifact removal and open to synergies that count artifacts rather than creatures. Cushion is thin by design: a 3/1 folds to almost any point of damage the moment it stops being unblocked, the granted keywords lapse when the turn ends, and every reuse of ninjutsu demands another evasive attacker to bounce and reland. The engine keeps turning on one condition, that your board keeps generating creatures nobody can profitably block.