Raffine's Informant
Connive bundles two effects Magic usually prices apart: card filtering and a conditional bit of growth, both keyed to the enters trigger. The clever split is that the loot always happens but the counter does not. You draw and discard no matter what, so a dead land in hand becomes fuel for a better draw; the body only climbs to a 3/2 when you pitch a nonland. That gives the card two clean modes without a decision tree attached: flood-insurance when you're digging for action, and a genuine threat when you're happy to bin a spell you no longer need. Because it exchanges a card rather than netting one, the selection rides in on an attacker instead of eating a slot for a stand-alone filtering spell, unlike the many two-drops that loot once and leave nothing behind. This is plain smoothing built for white, historically the color made to pay a premium for touching its library: a modest body that improves the quality of your hand and occasionally outgrows its printed 2/1. Nothing showy, but the trigger poses a real question every time it resolves: is the card already in your hand worth keeping, or worth trading for the counter on the board?
