Swarm Guildmage

The two activations point in opposite directions, and that split is the whole tension of the design. The green mode is the cheap, defensive floor: two life for and a tap, a drip any board can spare that never touches your hand. The black mode is the expensive, offensive ceiling: a five-mana team pump for +1/+0 and menace, an evasion clause tuned for a go-wide attack that wants to slip past a lone chump blocker. This cycle of Guildmages is built as mana sinks, bodies you keep returning to once the top of your deck goes quiet, and most of them price their two abilities so the early and late game each get one. This one front-loads the gardener and back-loads the general: you tap for life while sitting behind a board, then graduate to the menace pump once the team is wide enough to close. The pump asks for a real commitment, though, because both modes tap the Elf: it cannot swing and pump the rest of the team in the same turn, so the 2/2 is a rear-guard engine rather than a beater. That is the honest cost of the ceiling. It is slow by intention, a value piece for a deck that plans to grind rather than burst, and the menace clause is the reward for a wide board that no longer needs the Shaman in the red zone.