It's important you look at the full image I linked to for this card to understand the visual cue I'm using.

Basically, this card is both instant and sorcery at all times, but you can only cast it as a sorcery because sorcery is what I'm calling a "virtual type" in order to best apply the Recycle ability.

Perhaps an official rules entry would read something like this: "This card’s types are both Instant and Sorcery in all zones. Its true type is Instant and its virtual type is Sorcery. A card can only be cast as its true type."

Sound ok? Would this work? I'd like very much not to use reminder text on this card. It's my hope that the faded card type will be enough to signify that you should cast it as the bold card type.

That's very confusing. Just fading one of the card types does not make it clear that this is an instant that counts as a sorcery.

My advice: If it's a sorcery, make it a sorcery. Otherwise I expect to be able to cast it with flash.

Get rid of the confusing keyword and make it explicit rules text "At the beginning of your upkeep you may reveal an instant or sorcery, if you do..."

I had a keyword reminisce in my first custom cardset, Sienira's Facets, that worked a bit like Recycle. It returned cards from your graveyard that shared a card type with the card that has reminisce. So black got it on creatures (Dealer in Despair), white got it on artifact creatures (Lofty Guardian) and enchantments (Enforced Deference), green got it on enchantment creatures (Skywarper Mass), blue got it on instants (Surprise Stomp), red got it on sorceries (Soil's Revenge), and there was an artifact enchantment that gave it to everything (Nostalgia Portrait). This was a cardset where I did a lot of playing with card types (Reality Sculptor, Twist the Form, Statue of Eternity...)

I spent a while trying to find a way to unite instants and sorceries. But I didn't think there was a sensible way to have a card count as both an instant and a sorcery, unless "instant" is eliminated by errata and turned into a supertype "Flash". And I still don't.

I don't think the faded type is going to work well. Many players won't notice it's faded at all; or if you crank up the fading, other players won't be able to read it at all. And including a brainbending new rules twist like this on a common, without reminder text, I fear is a definite no-no.

Sorry. I can really understand the desire to make this work, but I don't think this is the way to do it.

Or just use recycle as a reminder word with no expanded meaning, like some cards do; allowing each card to do something thematically linked but not having to have identical rules text for it.

"Ability word" is the term for what V's talking about, as in Battalion on Boros Mastiff, Hellbent on Demon's Jester, Heroic on Favored Hoplite, and Bloodrush on Slaughterhorn. The Bloodrush case is the most relevant here. In order to keep the effects memorable, every single bloodrush card - from Rubblebelt Maaka and Skinbrand Goblin up to the splashy rares Rubblehulk, Skarrg Goliath, and Wrecking Ogre - granted the target attacking creature precisely the power, toughness and abilities of the bloodrush creature. The only bloodrush creature to deviate from this pattern even slightly is Pyrewild Shaman, and that still follows the part of the pattern we're talking about here (it just has extra text to get it back).

The same is true of bestow. Rules-wise, there's no reason why Hopeful Eidolon couldn't be, say, a 2/1 first strike that bestows to grant the enchanted creature +1/+2 and lifelink. But every bestow creature grants precisely the power, toughness and abilities that the standalone creature would have, even on rares like Celestial Archon and Nighthowler. And for an obvious reason: not only does it make flavour sense, but it vastly eases the cognitive and mnemonic load.

So I don't think the ability word solution is a good approach here, because if this card said

> Recycle - At the beginning of your upkeep, you may exile an instant or sorcery card from your hand. If you do, return ~ from your graveyard to your hand.

then the bit I've bolded wouldn't actually be in bold in the rules text, which is a problem because that would mean every individual card with recycle would make people carefully have to read the ability word text.