Mercenary

Mercenary is a creature class. Mercenaries are individuals who sell their services in combat for money. Mercenaries have a reputation for being thuggish brutes or dangerously untrustworthy cads, though some are honorable.
==History==
The class debuted in Ice Age as "Mercenaries" on the card <c>Mercenaries</c>, with the creature type being heavily featured in Mercadian Masques and the remainder of the Masques block as black creatures. 
Some cards printed prior to Masques block have been amended by errata and are now Mercenaries. The type was used very rarely since then, with only five printed between 2003 and 2023. Mercenaries returned in the Universes Beyond: Fallout commander decks to represent the antagonist forces of Conrad Kellogg
Like many creatures with the Rebel creature type, Mercenaries from the Masques block have the ability to "recruit" or "hire" other Mercenaries (i.e., allowing a player to search their library and putting a Mercenary card from it onto the battlefield). Due to their generally unsavory and untrustworthy natures, however, Mercenaries can only recruit creatures weaker (that is, with a lower mana value) than they are.
Outlaws of Thunder Junction saw the first premier set Mercenaries since 2005's <c>Sellsword Brute</c>. They were batched as Outlaws and were spread across all five colors. A number of cards also created Mercenary tokens with the ability “{T}: Target creature you control gets +1/+0 until end of turn. Activate only as a sorcery.”
==Notable Mercenaries==
;Dominaria
*Adira Strongheart
*Jedit Ojanen
;Capenna
*Jolene
;Ravnica
*Rakdos
;Tarkir
*Vial Smasher
;Unknown
*Taii Wakeen
;Universes Beyond
;Fallout
*Conrad Kellogg
==Notable mercenary organizations==
*Cateran Guild
*Robaran Mercenaries
*The Assassins of the Ochran
==Tokens==
;Test cards
==Trivia==
*The black Mercadian Masques sorcery <c>Cateran Summons</c> allows its controller to search their library for a Mercenary card and put it into their hand.
*Some printings of feature the flavor word Hire a Mercenary, but the card creates a Shapeshifter token with changeling rather than a Mercenary.
==References==