I really hate the idea of obsolete cards. I like for every card to have some hypothetical use, no matter how small. It's especially bad when cards reprinted a kazillion times are obseleted. With that in mind, I created this cycle as a way to give some purpose for commonly reprinted, obsoleted cards.
Dread Taskmage 1B
Creature - Orc Mercenary Wizard (U)
When ~ enters the battlefield, you may choose a card named Terror you own from outside the game or in your graveyard, reveal that card, and put it into your hand.
2/1
Mender Taskmage W
Creature - Human Mercenary Wizard (U)
When ~ enters the battlefield, you may choose a card named Healing Salve you own from outside the game or in your graveyard, reveal that card, and put it into your hand.
2/1
Purifying Taskmage 1G
Creature - Elf Mercenary Wizard (U)
When ~ enters the battlefield, you may choose a card named Naturalize you own from outside the game or in your graveyard, reveal that card, and put it into your hand.
2/3
Spark Taskmage 1R
Creature - Goblin Mercenary Wizard (U)
When ~ enters the battlefield, you may choose a card named Shock you own from outside the game or in your graveyard, reveal that card, and put it into your hand.
2/1
Aether Taskmage 1U
Creature - Vedalken Mercenary Wizard (U)
When ~ enters the battlefield, you may choose a card named Unsummon you own from outside the game or in your graveyard, reveal that card, and put it into your hand.
2/2
I think the idea of "sideboard slots as a resource" is kinda interesting. At first these just fetched cards from outside the game, but then I changed it to cards in your graveyard too, so you only have to run one copy of the signature spell in your sideboard. I think these cards would be kind of interesting in Draft, too.
Another idea I had was choosing between 2-3 spells per creature. For example, the Black one could get Terror, Raise Dead, or Mind Rot. But that might be a bit too complex.
I made them all Mercenary Wizards, because that's what a Taskmage is...a wizard who just has one specialized skill, and does it for hire. Also it's a little bit of extra cross compatability with the equally janky Mercenary tribe from Masques Block.
Green one is an overpriced reclamation sage with +2 toughness... which could get its effect on the same turn you could cast the sage anyway. Grab fog or giant growth and we'll start talking.
Red one is more color intensive fire imp. Even with mana screw/storm/spell matters upside, I can't imagine getting too excited by this guy out of standard.
Blue is genuinely interesting as it can loop and is essentially a better aether adept.
Black one technically costs the same as Nekratal/ chupacabra but can be used on the same turn as Boneshredder, which is a sweet spot for cost that similar creatures haven't used.
The white one is my favorite, I think. Cost efficient dude that blanks a lightning bolt/survives a combat is pretty nice.
In spite of my criticisms, though, I could imagine this cycle popping up in a standard set some day.
Unsummon, shock, and terror are all standard maindeckable. Which I think is antithetical to what you wanted. While white is getting such an unplayable card that I doubt it would be played. Green is weak but not bad like white, the card it gets is too specific to make this guy a main deck card and there are almost certainly better sideboard options.
Healing Salve is so laughably bad that I think the creature would need the ability to let you cast it for free as long as it's on the battlefield to actually make you want to run it.
Unsummon, shock, and terror are all standard maindeckable. Which I think is antithetical to what you wanted. While white is getting such an unplayable card that I doubt it would be played. Green is weak but not bad like white, the card it gets is too specific to make this guy a main deck card and there are almost certainly better sideboard options.
I'm limited by my viewpoint of only playing Eternal formats (mostly Pauper/Legacy), where those three cards are pretty well obsoleted by Vapor Snag (largely), Burst Lightning , and Doom Blade.
Yeah, Naturalize already being a sideboard card does make the Green one an odd mana out. It probably should be reworked to Giant Growth or Fog. Which does kinda break the intent, since neither of those cards are too obsolete. Possibly I could make it Grizzly Bears, with the focus on him being a summoner Taskmage:
Beastcaller Taskmage G
Creature - Elf Mercenary Wizard (U)
When ~ enters the battlefield, you may choose a card named Grizzly Bears you own from outside the game or in your graveyard, reveal that card, and put it into your hand.
1/1
Obsolete is a fairly arbitrary metric if all it means is a basically better version exists.
If you make the actual mages better you can focus on making a barely playable card that tutors an unplayable card to your hand making both of them more reasonable. The base creature then has to be good enough that you wouldn't feel bad playing it.
This is a cool idea. It's very Time Spiral-ey, and a cute way of paying homage to magic's past cards. I could see several mega cycles of cards like this, similar to spellshapers.
Here's some ideas on a slightly different way of executing the concept.
Stomping Giant3RR
Creature - Giant
Trample
Whenever Stomping Giant attacks, if there's a card named Tremor in your graveyard, Stomping Giant deals 4 damage to any target.
5/4
Disciple of Dosan1GG
Creature - Human Monk
Vigilance
Disciple of Dosan has hexproof as long as there's a card named Dosan's Oldest Chant in your graveyard.
3/3
I live for cards like that, but I also firmly believe you should do more than just tutor for those cards - the same way not every tribe should get the same kind of tribal effects, you want to go with the theme and concept to find a mechanical execution that complements the creative aspect i. e. it's preferable to make a retroactive to a lot of Spellshaper-variants.
I like the idea you're going for, but not so much you card choices -- but as you said, you speak from the perspective of someone who doesn't play standard. In supplemental products of the e.g. Modern Horizons kind, sure! But in standard, many of these are still very, very good. Even the white card is not completely without its uses depending on the deck. Powerful cards that care about you having a beefy life total, or the act of getting there, might appreciate Healing Salve 5-8. I mean, it's no Chaplain's Blessing, but it's usable. It has a slight amount of flexibility.
Spark Taskmage is straight-up gross in a format without anything better than Shock at CMC1, and Aether Taskmage is extremely solid. (Also, even though I know that you're probably modeling it after Aether Adept, I can't help but think that, man, blue never got an actual "bear," did it? I'm not sure offhand that there's a 2/2 with a pure upside ability for 1U offhand.)
Purifying Taskmage... can green get away with 2/3 at 1G outside of rare, a place I don't feel these belong? I guess there's a first time for everything. But Naturalize is an extremely good, playable card. However, it does suffer from the fact that it gunks up the main deck a bit by being low on utility if the opponent isn't playing enchantments or artifacts, and running this in side feels like a thing that wouldn't happen that much. Yet I would not be surprised to see this get some play in a standard with it in. The replacement, Beastcaller Taskmage, is okay, I guess (I like it because I have an Ayula EDH so it's a chump blocker that buys me back a Grizzly Bears, but in that regard, it's probably a weak card for EDH).
Dread Taskmage is probably the one that scans best cost-wise and everything and is the one I like the most out of the original five (shout-outs to it being an orc, too -- good choice of alternate humanoid creature type here), but of course, regeneration is retired, so Terror would never be reprinted in Standard. However, its relative similarity to Nekrataal (loses first strike to gain a bit of flexibility on kill spell timing for the same total cost) is about the right power level for a card like this, I feel like.
I'm not 100% sold on the way you wanted to do this ("wish for this named card" does the job but is not the most inspiring thing on the planet), and sometimes the execution is off (note the comparisons to Aether Adept and Nekrataal -- a lot of these cards have comparable counterparts that you should also be wary of outstripping, unless maybe that is also part of the theme), but I like the idea of reviving old, seemingly "unusable" cards.
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Dread Taskmage
1B
Creature - Orc Mercenary Wizard (U)
When ~ enters the battlefield, you may choose a card named Terror you own from outside the game or in your graveyard, reveal that card, and put it into your hand.
2/1
Mender Taskmage
W
Creature - Human Mercenary Wizard (U)
When ~ enters the battlefield, you may choose a card named Healing Salve you own from outside the game or in your graveyard, reveal that card, and put it into your hand.
2/1
Purifying Taskmage
1G
Creature - Elf Mercenary Wizard (U)
When ~ enters the battlefield, you may choose a card named Naturalize you own from outside the game or in your graveyard, reveal that card, and put it into your hand.
2/3
Spark Taskmage
1R
Creature - Goblin Mercenary Wizard (U)
When ~ enters the battlefield, you may choose a card named Shock you own from outside the game or in your graveyard, reveal that card, and put it into your hand.
2/1
Aether Taskmage
1U
Creature - Vedalken Mercenary Wizard (U)
When ~ enters the battlefield, you may choose a card named Unsummon you own from outside the game or in your graveyard, reveal that card, and put it into your hand.
2/2
I think the idea of "sideboard slots as a resource" is kinda interesting. At first these just fetched cards from outside the game, but then I changed it to cards in your graveyard too, so you only have to run one copy of the signature spell in your sideboard. I think these cards would be kind of interesting in Draft, too.
Another idea I had was choosing between 2-3 spells per creature. For example, the Black one could get Terror, Raise Dead, or Mind Rot. But that might be a bit too complex.
I made them all Mercenary Wizards, because that's what a Taskmage is...a wizard who just has one specialized skill, and does it for hire. Also it's a little bit of extra cross compatability with the equally janky Mercenary tribe from Masques Block.
Red one is more color intensive fire imp. Even with mana screw/storm/spell matters upside, I can't imagine getting too excited by this guy out of standard.
Blue is genuinely interesting as it can loop and is essentially a better aether adept.
Black one technically costs the same as Nekratal/ chupacabra but can be used on the same turn as Boneshredder, which is a sweet spot for cost that similar creatures haven't used.
The white one is my favorite, I think. Cost efficient dude that blanks a lightning bolt/survives a combat is pretty nice.
In spite of my criticisms, though, I could imagine this cycle popping up in a standard set some day.
Healing Salve is so laughably bad that I think the creature would need the ability to let you cast it for free as long as it's on the battlefield to actually make you want to run it.
I'm limited by my viewpoint of only playing Eternal formats (mostly Pauper/Legacy), where those three cards are pretty well obsoleted by Vapor Snag (largely), Burst Lightning , and Doom Blade.
Yeah, Naturalize already being a sideboard card does make the Green one an odd mana out. It probably should be reworked to Giant Growth or Fog. Which does kinda break the intent, since neither of those cards are too obsolete. Possibly I could make it Grizzly Bears, with the focus on him being a summoner Taskmage:
Beastcaller Taskmage
G
Creature - Elf Mercenary Wizard (U)
When ~ enters the battlefield, you may choose a card named Grizzly Bears you own from outside the game or in your graveyard, reveal that card, and put it into your hand.
1/1
If you make the actual mages better you can focus on making a barely playable card that tutors an unplayable card to your hand making both of them more reasonable. The base creature then has to be good enough that you wouldn't feel bad playing it.
Here's some ideas on a slightly different way of executing the concept.
Stomping Giant 3RR
Creature - Giant
Trample
Whenever Stomping Giant attacks, if there's a card named Tremor in your graveyard, Stomping Giant deals 4 damage to any target.
5/4
Disciple of Dosan 1GG
Creature - Human Monk
Vigilance
Disciple of Dosan has hexproof as long as there's a card named Dosan's Oldest Chant in your graveyard.
3/3
Former threads dipping into this design space:
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
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Spark Taskmage is straight-up gross in a format without anything better than Shock at CMC1, and Aether Taskmage is extremely solid. (Also, even though I know that you're probably modeling it after Aether Adept, I can't help but think that, man, blue never got an actual "bear," did it? I'm not sure offhand that there's a 2/2 with a pure upside ability for 1U offhand.)
Purifying Taskmage... can green get away with 2/3 at 1G outside of rare, a place I don't feel these belong? I guess there's a first time for everything. But Naturalize is an extremely good, playable card. However, it does suffer from the fact that it gunks up the main deck a bit by being low on utility if the opponent isn't playing enchantments or artifacts, and running this in side feels like a thing that wouldn't happen that much. Yet I would not be surprised to see this get some play in a standard with it in. The replacement, Beastcaller Taskmage, is okay, I guess (I like it because I have an Ayula EDH so it's a chump blocker that buys me back a Grizzly Bears, but in that regard, it's probably a weak card for EDH).
Dread Taskmage is probably the one that scans best cost-wise and everything and is the one I like the most out of the original five (shout-outs to it being an orc, too -- good choice of alternate humanoid creature type here), but of course, regeneration is retired, so Terror would never be reprinted in Standard. However, its relative similarity to Nekrataal (loses first strike to gain a bit of flexibility on kill spell timing for the same total cost) is about the right power level for a card like this, I feel like.
I'm not 100% sold on the way you wanted to do this ("wish for this named card" does the job but is not the most inspiring thing on the planet), and sometimes the execution is off (note the comparisons to Aether Adept and Nekrataal -- a lot of these cards have comparable counterparts that you should also be wary of outstripping, unless maybe that is also part of the theme), but I like the idea of reviving old, seemingly "unusable" cards.