Powerful common cards have always existed in Magic, hiding in-between the flashier rares and mythics. Today we begin a history lesson on the most powerful commons ever printed and how these cards and their descendants shape the Pauper format as we know it today.

Limited Edition Alpha

Circles of Protection: While every other color in Magic's Limited Edition was equipped with two spells that gave a significant advantage to playing against a certain enemy color, White got 5 extra color hosers in the full cycle of Circles of Protection. Not only could White gain an advantage against its natural enemies, Black and Red, but White could even take a tactical defensive position against the other colors, including becoming the only color capable of hosing itself.

Today, the Circles of Protection stand out as sideboard staples for Pauper's control decks of the format, especially 5-color Tron.

Disenchant: Long-regarded as one of White's most powerful spells (before being color shifted to the Green spell Naturalize), Disenchant stood out as a powerful way to combat early Magic's most powerful permanents, enchantments and artifacts. Being able to blow up enemy Moxen, Jayemdae Tome, or Disrupting Scepter was big game in control mirrors.

Today, Pauper is more populated by Disenchant's spiritual descendants like Fragmentize, but being one of the only two colors to interact with the opponent's enchantments is still a major appeal to playing the color White in Pauper.

Blue Elemental Blast: Of Magic's Limited Edition ten enemy color hosers, two of them, the only two printed at common, stand out as significantly more powerful than the rest based on sheer efficiency: Blue Elemental Blast and Red Elemental Blast. Both of these are considered major color pie breaks today for their ability to outright destroy permanents, let alone for one mana.

Since neither of these cards has ever been reprinted at common on Magic Online, Blue and Red Elemental Blast are not legal in Pauper, except for tournaments that allow Paper-only printings. But their descendants, Pyroblast and Hydroblast are format all-stars to Pauper.

Prodigal Sorcerer: "Tim" and the Orcish Artillery were the first creatures ever printed to have direct damage as an activated ability. Both of these cards would be considered uncommons today by the standards of Magic's New World Order regulating complexity at common.

"Tims", or their descendants, Thornwind Faeries, still occasionally see Pauper sideboard play especially as a mirror breaker for Mono-Blue Delver.

Counterspell: Though Power Sink and Spell Blast were both printed at common in Magic's Limited Edition, the simplest counter of them all, Counterspell, was originally an uncommon. Later, thanks to Ice Age, this staple spell became a common and eligible for Pauper play.

Counterspell has long been a Pauper staple propping up Pauper's most consistent color, Blue.

Unsummon: While Limited Edition reserved outright creature destruction to Black, the original tempo spell, Unsummon, has long established itself for its sheer utility: clearing away a blocker, bouncing an opponent's creature in response to a pump spell, or saving one of your own.

Tempo is still an essential element of Pauper play, and Unsummon's spiritual descendants Vapor Snag and Snap have long established that it can be worth using a whole card to set or reset the tempo of your game.

Dark Ritual: Ba-roken. A card that only truly belongs in Eternal formats, it can be extremely hard for us to believe today that R & D once considered Dark Ritual a staple common appropriate to reprint in large set expansions.

Dark Ritual is a tricky one in Pauper because there are less cards worth throwing away a whole card to cast. Either this card is utterly broken or it's anemic; there isn't really any fair way to play Dark Ritual. The one Pauper deck that tries is Mono-Black Aggro, a deck that will gladly trade an extra card for 6 power on turn one.

Pestilence: A common so notorious that it could ruin Urza's Saga Limited (or few the lucky few, Beta Rochester Draft) Pestilence had no business ever being printed at common.

The Pauper deck that best utilizes Pestilence today is Monarch, a deck that combines life gain with incremental card advantage and sweepers, namely Pestilence.

Sinkhole: Recently, this was reprinted 23 years later in Eternal Masters as a RARE.

Can you imagine living in a world with two-mana land destruction?

Sinkhole is one of the most notorious paper commons never to be printed on Magic Online.

Terror: The original Black kill spell, it long held its reputation as the best Limited Black common.

While today's Doom Blade is a strict upgrade over Terror, the raw efficiency of the staple Black common removal spell was established in Magic's Limited Edition.

Drain Life: Black has always had a side to playing Black that encourages and incentivizes the player to play more Black. Drain Life as a card encourages a longer game since it allows the player to convert their resources between life, card advantage and time.

While Drain Life is the most flexible of the three spells(since it can be cast for any amount of X), the OG Drain Life has been mostly supplanted in Pauper by two of its descendants, Corrupt and Tendrils of Corruption, two cards that also scale with your swamps but come at a fixed rate.

Fireball and Disintegrate: Long relegated to uncommon and even the rare Blaze, the original X spells were easily the most powerful commons of Limited Edition.

The most commonly played X spell in Pauper is Rolling Thunder, a big finisher for the Tron deck that can double as mid-game sweeper.

Lightning Bolt: The Gold Standard saw its first printing in Limited Edition. Today it is the most played card in the Modern format.

Pauper also has a love affair with Lightning Bolt, coming in at its overall fourth most played card.

Red Elemental Blast: See Blue Elemental Blast

As the heir to the color hosing, color pie breaking Red counter and Blue permanent destruction, Pyroblast is the seventh overall most played card in Pauper and the main weapon against Blue.

Stone Rain: The original "Fun Police", Land destruction in Magic's Limited Edition was strong. In addition to the common Black Sinkhole and the uncommon Green Ice Storm that never made past ABU, Stone Rain was one of Magic's most printed and reprinted cards as a Core Set staple all the way until 9th Edition.

Land Destruction persists today in Pauper both as a niche strategy, particularly in Mono-Black, and also a sideboard weapon against big mana decks like Tron.

Fog: One of the most curious developmental changes we saw in Magic's newest Core Set 2019 was that the once staple Fog had been downgraded to Root Snare. While often thought of as fodder, Fog and its variants have proven to be a valuable tool in decks that try to stall its early turns such as the now notorious Nexus of Fate Standard deck.

Turbo Fog is also a thing in Pauper, or as it should more properly be called Turbo Mill. One of Fog's spiritual descendants, Moment's Peace has also recently become a main deck staple in Pauper Tron decks looking to stabilize its early turns until it cements control with a devastating amount of card and mana advantage. But original Fog also can see Pauper sideboard play for Green aggro mirrors, such as found in Stompy and Mono Green Infect.

Giant Growth: Once the subject of Magic's Core Set Survivor (it eventually lost to Giant Spider), Giant Growth is one of Magic's most reprinted cards and the only fairly balanced card out of the original Alpha "Boon" cycle. No card has ever been printed that surpasses its unconditional +3 / +3 boost for a single Green mana.

Pump spells still see plenty of play in Pauper. While Green Stompy seems to currently prefer Vines of Vastwood and Hunger of the Howlpack, Giant Growth is not too distant a memory to that deck and it still will see play in Green Infect.

Llanowar Elves: A surprise reprint in Dominaria, Alpha's Llanowar Elves has long been Green's best common and the backbone of Green ramp strategies wherever it has been legal.

Elves is a big player in the Pauper metagame and has a great history in Pauper, where Llanowar Elves fits neatly in with its functional clones Fyndhorn Elves and Elvish Mystic.

We'll be back next time to feature the most powerful commons and Pauper staples from Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends, and The Dark.