Er... put an instant or sorcery onto the battlefield? Are you sure?

I'm not entirely sure how to word it, but yeah . . . i think. Or play it without paying its mana cost? What wording should I use.

Hopefully, the wording is now a little better. Basically he fetches lightning bolts for you.

The wording works well now but is this guy really supposed to be common? Uncommon if not raregiven the cost/ability. Common version might do it once as an etb ability.

I wanted something reminiscent of the rebels/mercenaries. Hopefully him being a 0/1 makes up for it and I took haste off and make him a 3 cost.

Yeah, that wording works now (though "play" would be better as "cast"). Sadly it's still fundamentally not a common design. Repeatable searching just isn't common these days. I agree with Camruth that a oneoff version could be common.

I changed it to cast, and as much as I disliked doing it I made it an uncommon. Thanks for the suggestions.

If you think Volatile Sparkmage is too good to be a common, then what about Mnemonic Mage?

Mnemonic Mage is fine because it's ability is so expensive and because of where it looks for cards. If Volatile Sparkmage's ability looked in the graveyard instead of the library, it would be a lot less powerful, though with that change I would also suggest exiling the spell after it's cast that way.

I personally dislike anything which exiles my cards after I use them, which is why I never used things with Flashback or Unearth. But is it really that powerful? I mean it can get you a lightning bolt, or a flame slash, or a shock but . . . maybe I should bump the activation cost to ?

This card is pretty nuts with blue. Watching my opponent constantly walk into my toolbox of 1 casting cost counterspells would be pretty snarky. Tapped out? I dig for my Force Spike. Cast a sorcery? I'll get envelop, etc., etc.

It's funny. It's the 'do instants really need to be exiled from the graveyard' conversation that made me start thinking about this. The answer is: only in Type I, where cards like Yawgmoth's Will reign. Which brings up the question: If this card got printed, would people play it in Type I? Its a little slow and a little expensive for that format, but they play controlling expensive stuff often enough. What they definitely play a lot of, also, are 1 casting cost instants...

I suppose the thing to remember here is that open ended cards are never used for what the designer intended them for. While DrugsForRobots intended for this to cast Lightning Bolts, I think many players would be looking for combo pieces similar to Vampiric Tutor to match this up with.

Note that you can fetch Wheel of Fate, at which point even with it's like you're really spellshaping Wheel of Fortune.