The best villains (and villainous plans) are ones that are relatable. And by that I mean ideally the reader would be able to understand why the villain is doing what they are. One of the ways I've used for doing this is asking myself "But, why?" repeatedly until it either a) becomes something interesting or b) is exposed as the boring 1-dimensional sham that it is. Doing this can give you an idea for whether what you are proposing is going to give you interesting material to work with.

To use a slightly silly example - take a villain (we'll call them Bob) with an Ice-o-Matic (Patent pending) doomsday machine that can plunge the world into the next ice age in a matter of moments. (I'm sure most people are going to agree that would be a Bad ThingTM, and that any passing heroes would likely be interested in stopping it). So your villain has their plan, and it provides a suitable level of threat. But why?

Why does the villain want to do this, after all what does the Bob get out of it?

Money? No-one who can afford an Ice-o-Matic is short of a bob or two, you can't exactly pick them up for ten bucks at WalMart.

Power? Maybe, but since any use of the Ice-o-Matic is likely to have pretty severe consequences for Bob too. And since money often brings significant power with it (and Bob has money - see above) there's going to be easier ways for Bob to get power than bluffing (probably) with an Ice-o-Matic.

Revenge? Someone with the resources to build/acquire an Ice-o-Matic can probably find a way to take their revenge on the person or persons they wish without destroying everything, including themselves.

Oh dear.. it's not looking good for Bob and his Ice-o-Matic! Certainly holding-the-world-to-ransom type plans aren't really clicking here and the revenge option doesn't feel all that believable either.

Let's have a look at your example..

kidnapping and using the descendent of an ancient species to network with an artifact that would only work with people with the right magical DNA. Villain’s plan was to use that to reach their level of magical ability.

Sure, it's not massively original - but that's not a reason to dismiss it. Star Wars wasn't particularly original and that did okay. So how does it fair under the "But why?" test? I'm going to go with Steve this time... and I'm going to fill out some possible answers off the top of my head.

Steve kidnaps the descendant of an ancient species.

But why? - Because only these people have the DNA to make Steve's ancient artifact work.

But why? What does this ancient artifact do? - Because using this artifact will grant Steve magical ability to match the ancient species' powers

But why? Presumably lots and lots of people don't have magical powers, why does Steve care so much? - Because these powers will let Steve raise his late wife from the dead.

But why? Why does Steve have to do this himself? If there's people out there with the necessary powers to raise the freaking dead why isn't this just a public service? - Because raising someone involves sacrificing 2 more.

OK so Steve's actions feel sort of relatable, I'm not saying I'd personally go in for kidnapping and then multiple murder to get someone back from the grave, but if I'm being completely honest I could see how someone might. Any reader who has been through intense grief at the untimely loss of a loved one is probably going to read about Steve's plight and have some empathy for him. But killing two innocents to get said loved one back puts you in the "villain" bracket most of the time.

Do we have any interesting material to create a story with? Well there's the obvious conflict - stop Steve before his mad-with-grief plans result in innocent deaths. There's also some mileage in having a hero potentially examine that decision themselves - do they have someone they would give anything to get back?

You can have multiple acts to the story and multiple victories and losses for the protagonist:

Act 1 - Oh no our beloved family member Sam is missing!

Act 2 - We know now that Sam has been kidnapped by Steve! Must Rescue Sam!

Act 3 - We got to Sam, but not in time! Steve has POWER now and is going to do the ritual and kill people!

Will our hero(es) pick themselves up from the loss of Sam and stop Steve from killing more innocents? Will they choose to use the power/ritual themselves to save Sam?

Yep.. looks to me as if we've got something that would work - obviously I'm not aware of your world building etc but just taking that basic idea for a villain and their plan gave natural springboards for situations to put characters in and see how they respond. Ways you can naturally build them up, make their motivations natural, and that is what matters here - not whether their evil plot is new or one that's been told a million times. If it gives you a framework to tell an interesting story about interesting characters that's what counts.

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