The 31 Priciest and Most Expensive Commons in Magic Ranked

Last updated on March 26, 2026

Rhystic Study | Illustration by Terese Nielsen

What are the most expensive commons in MTG? The question isn’t so simple.

If you want the most expensive individual printing of a common card, you know those are mostly from Alpha. But if you want to know which commons are the most expensive regardless of reprints, or the most expensive cheapest-printed version commons around, I’ve got you covered.

Not to be too clickbaity, but I think this list will surprise you. Ready to find out?

Why Does It Matter What the Most Expensive Commons Are?

Cabal Ritual | Illustration by Kieran Yanner

As a ‘90s player, I have the giant white boxes full of Magic cards, and most of them are unplayable nostalgia pieces. The other day, as I was working on an Ashnod, Flesh Mechanist deck for EDH, I wanted a Culling the Weak, but my three copies already had homes in other decks. I was all set to buy another copy until I saw that the card is more than 15 bucks right now!

It got me thinking about pricey commons in MTG’s history and what it means when they aren’t reprinted. The poster child for this for a long time was Three Visits, which was around 80 bucks before it was reprinted in Battle for Baldur’s Gate. Now the nostalgia brought it back to around $80 for the original, and the reprint, upshifted to uncommon, is around $8. If your goal was just to get a copy for your ramp deck, a reprint is just what the doctor ordered.

If you’re sitting on a pile of old commons that happen to be worth a bit right now, you’d probably want to know what the most likely candidates for reprints are, assuming that WotC wants to reprint high-priced commons and uncommons.

Let’s get on with the show! I looked at every English language common with a current price for the cheapest-printed version (according to TCGplayer's market price on Scryfall) of more than the price of a Standard booster: $7. I exclude a few cards that count as commons though the Magic Online Masters Edition, whose paper versions are often uncommon or higher rarities, and I skipped a few Unfinity cards. On the whole, these are the most expensive commons with prices as of March 2026.

#31. Dust to Dust ($7.46)

Dust to Dust is great 2-card artifact removal!

#30. Shu Soldier-Farmers ($7.50)

Shu Soldier-Farmers is over costed, and ETB lifegain effects need flicker or airbending to be exciting.

#29. Utrom Monitor ($7.54)

Whoa, did that copyright of 2026 on Utrom Monitor surprise you? Where's the love for Memory Guardian? What's also a surprise is how often affinity and flying are printed on the same card. Just check out Refurbished Familiar, Valkyrie Aerial Unit, and Thought Monitor!

#28. Lesser Werewolf ($7.68)

Lesser Werewolf is a really strange combination of a reverse shade that acts like it has wither. It reads more like “Pay to destroy target creature with toughness 2 or less that blocked this creature”

If printed today, I see designers playing around with first strike, blight, or deathtouch, because this is too complicated for a common.

#27. Rat Colony ($7.83)

Rat Colony is one of the relentless cards which drives the demand for each copy of these cards at a ridiculous rate. This is one of the more tame cards, but a colony of rats is nothing to joke about.

#26. Three Visits ($7.88)

What separates Three Visits from Rampant Growth and Farseek is that the Forest enters untapped. Most reprints you find of this one are rarity shifted to uncommon.

#25. Pyroblast ($7.98)

A card for cEDH, it’s becoming more of a thing for the lower tiers of Commander, as well. Pyroblast is cheaper in a gold border version (not tournament legal), but all the black and white bordered versions are rather valuable.

#24. Broken Dam ($8.14)

Broken Dam at sorcery speed is rough, but the value is significant in the tapping space for decks like Hylda of the Icy Crown. At this price it really needs a reprint!

#23. Avoid Fate ($8.23)

These1-mana protection spells always have a home in certain cEDH builds. The most puzzling thing about Avoid Fate is that its Time Spiral Timeshifted representation is more expensive than the Legends printing.

#22. Helm of the Ghastlord ($8.25)

Helm of the Ghastlord celebrates color matters and wants to join almost any deck that has Ophidian Eye. Plus the helm is better in some cases.

#21. Seething Song ($8.50)

The arrow goes up on Seething Song’s price as cEDH gets more popular. Rituals. Rituals everywhere.

#20. Yellow Scarves Calvary ($8.58)

Someone really likes horsemanship, although you can't really find these cards in decklists, Yellow Scarves Cavalry included. Maybe it’s just speculation on old cards that have this drifting up toward $9.

#19. Mystic Remora ($9.48)

Mystic Remora is an incredible draw spell that is on par with cards that are far more expensive.

#18. Darkness ($9.64)

Hello, my old friend. A beautiful Fog in black, Darkness has only had a few reprints, the most recent of which was in Warhammer 40,000 Commander. The utility of fog effects is becoming more and more clear to people, I think.

#17. Ashnod's Altar ($9.89)

Ashnod's Altar is an infinite machine, or at worst, a valuable tool that lets you trigger death and disrupts removal and threaten effects. This incredible colorless card is super strong in the right hands.

#16. Zodiac Goat ($9.93)

I think Zodiac Goat, is framed on the desktops of MTG players born in ‘79, ‘91, ‘03, and '15 perhaps?

#15. Riding Red Hare ($10.54)

There are easier ways to make Voltron commanders unblockable than Riding Red Hare, so this price has to be from Red Hare fandom? We love cool horses. Especially real ones. Maybe folks are grabbing it for rabbit decks, not fully seeing how “hare” is used here?

#14. Zodiac Dog ($11.16)

The ‘70s, ‘82s, ‘94s, 06’s, and '18s are barking for Zodiac Dog.

#13. Cabal Ritual ($11.23)

A nerfed Dark Ritual is still a ritual, and Torment’s Cabal Ritual is heavily played in more competitive EDH decks. This card keeps moving up as sacrifice shenanigans keep getting more toys.

#12. Ophidian Eye ($12.38)

It seems impossible that this durdly thing I have like six of in my bulk box is rising in value. It’s especially surprising that it’s cEDH that’s doing it, given that Ophidian Eye costs 3 mana, but apparently this is good enough in some Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator or Niv-Mizzet, Parun decks.

#11. Pyretic Ritual ($13.03)

Pyretic Ritual is high in demand for storm decks, and it’s more top of mind given the influx for storm stuff after Ral, Monsoon Mage’s Modern Horizons 3 printing.

#10. Zodiac Snake ($13.28)

Zodiac creatures like Zodiac Snake feel like players just want them for fun to connect with their sign.

#9. Culling the Weak ($15.19)

A nerfed Dark Ritual is still a ritual, so it’s over $15 for Culling the Weak. Back in the day at tabletop, we used to play this incorrectly and did the phrase before the colon as often as you wanted to get the 4 mana multiple times for a stack of sacrificed creatures. That’s even more broken!

#8. False Defeat ($16.22)

The number of 4-mana spells in white that resurrect a creature, like Abuelo's Awakening, keeps increasing to the detriment of False Defeat’s price point.

#7. Zodiac Rabbit ($20.83)

Zodiac Rabbit is calling ‘75s, ‘87s, ‘99s, ‘11s, and '23s, and it has really jumped up the list past the other zodiac animals the past few years. I have no decent explanation for this move up past $20.

#6. Army of Allah ($24.36)

I’m sort of surprised that Army of Allah didn’t get wiped with various other cards like Jihad back in summer of 2020. That plus being an Arabian Nights common buffs the price on this past $20.

#5. Zodiac Rooster ($24.43)

Zodiac Rooster is cock-a-doodling ‘69s, ‘81s, ‘93s, ‘05s, and '17s.

#4. Lotus Petal ($36.33)

Not a lot of reprints for this cEDH staple from Tempest. You can tell how long an MTG content creator has been playing by how often they refer to Treasure tokens as Lotus Petal.

#3. Zodiac Rat ($50.02)

If you like the high prices of these zodiac commons, just take a look at the uncommons and the rare. Zodiac Rat for $50 is bad enough for folks from ‘72, ‘84, ’96, ‘08, and 2020. But Zodiac Dragon, at more than $400, is really tough for birth years ‘76, ‘88, ’00, ‘12, '24!

#2. Rhystic Study ($56.43)

Here is the EDH powerhouse! Rhystic Study is, along with Sol Ring, one of the iconic cards in Commander. Powerful and obnoxious, it has only gone up in value since it’s been reprinted in Jumpstart 2022 and in the Enchanting Tales slot in Wilds of Eldraine, now solidly over the $50 mark.

#1. Slashing Tiger ($60.74)

Slashing Tiger is a bit of a surprise as a Portal Three Kingdoms animal without Zodiac in its name. It would be pretty lacking in Limited today. This collector's item let's me bring up super bushido and is errata'd away from the unique tiger type, to the more docile cat type.

How Much are Common MTG Cards Worth?

Although most commons throughout MTG’s history are basically worthless as trade items, with pennies of value at most, the cards featured on this list are worth more than $7 a piece and a high point at $60.

There’s another way to think about the prices of commons though, and that’s with the prices of individual printings of cards. Most commons from MTG’s first set, Alpha, are worth quite a lot. At the top is an Alpha Lightning Bolt at $382. Another valuable set for commons is the 7th Edition, specifically the foils like 7th Edition foil Sleight of Hand. They’re some of the first foils in MTG, and also old border foils. The top 10 most valuable individual common MTG card prices, ranging between $300 to just under $100:

#9. Alpha Sinkhole

#8. Alpha Giant Growth

#7. Alpha Disenchant

#6. Alpha Red Elemental Blast

#5. Alpha Fireball

#4. Alpha Earthbind

#3. Alpha Llanowar Elves

#2. Alpha Dark Ritual

#1. Alpha Lightning Bolt

Wrap Up

Lotus Petal | Illustration by April Lee

There you go! Unless you have some Alpha or Portal Three Kingdoms cards stacked away in those boxes, your commons are probably true bulk.

If you’re like me, you’ve got a few cards on this list that you didn’t know were as valuable as they are! And with plenty of reprints every year, many of the cards on this list won’t retain this value level next year. Thanks to your interest in commons, you can't leave today without learning about the Pauper format which is all about commons, and thankfully not many of the format's highly-played cards made it to this ranking.

Let me know if I helped you spot a hidden gem in your card collection. Do you have a favorite expensive common? As always, the comments and our Draftsim Discord are open.

Until then, be sure to use sleeves!