We inspected the n425–NiV-G complex in the PDB (8XPY), identified loop residues away from the interaction surface, and introduced 11 conservative mutations: preferentially Ser→Thr, Gln→Asn, and Arg→Lys, to generate a minimally perturbed benchmark variant that meets the competition’s >10-mutation criterion. This control design was intentionally not very novel, as we were genuinely curious to see whether this minimally altered sequence would still achieve a high score as an internal benchmark