Beetleform Mage
Creature — Human Insect Wizard
: This creature gets +2/+2 and gains flying until end of turn. Activate only once each turn.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- GU
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Dragon's Maze
- Price
- $0.04
- EDHREC rank
- #28982
Beetleform Mage gives you a 2/2 flying, trample beater that can reset itself back to a 1/1 wizard — the catch is that ability costs three mana and requires tapping, so you're spending a full turn doing nothing else. It's a niche role-player in dedicated spellslinger or morph-adjacent shells and a liability anywhere else.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Beetleform Mage is legal across nearly every format but sees essentially no competitive play in any of them. In Commander, the activated ability is too mana-intensive to matter in the mid-to-late game, and a 2/2 flyer doesn't move the needle in a 40-life multiplayer environment. In Pauper, where commons have to pull real weight, the three-mana tap cost puts it well behind other Simic threats at the same price point. Legacy, Modern, and Pioneer have long since passed it by — there's no shell where a 1/1 that slowly transforms into a 2/2 and back earns a slot.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.04 bulk tier
At $0.04, Beetleform Mage is pure bulk — you're paying for cardboard, not power. That price is stable for the same reason it's low: demand is essentially zero, and no foreseeable shift in any format changes that calculus.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.