It was a rare printed at common
Cards downshifted to common for a supplemental set, or printed at common decades ago under different design rules, can be far above the format's power level. Most of the banlist is this.
Format reference
Pauper Banlist
The count on September 24, 2026: 76 cards are banned in Pauper.
Pauper is built entirely from commons. That one rule gives it a card pool stretching back to the beginning of Magic, decks that cost a fraction of any other format, and a surprisingly sharp competitive edge. The complete banlist follows.
Generated from Scryfall's legality data, so a new ban lands here without a rewrite.
Pauper's key facts
- Card pool
- Commons onlyAny card printed at common
- Rotation
- NoneSets never leave
- Deck size
- 60+Plus a 15-card sideboard
- Copy limit
- 4Basic lands unlimited
- Cards banned
- 76Updated automatically
The Pauper banned list
Pauper's banlist is longer than newcomers expect. Part of that is thirty years of commons that were never balanced against each other, and part of it is the cards no format allows: the Conspiracy draft-matters cards, ante cards, and novelty commons that were never meant for tournament play sit on this list alongside the real offenders.
- Aarakocra Sneak
- Adriana's Valor
- Aerialephant
- All That Glitters
- Arcum's Astrolabe
- Assemble the Rank and Vile
- Atog
- Basking Broodscale
- _____ Bird Gets the Worm
- Brago's Favor
- Carnival Carnivore
- Chatterstorm
- Chicken Troupe
- Cloud of Faeries
- Cloudpost
- Coming Attraction
- Command Performance
- Cranial Plating
- Cranial Ram
- Daze
- Deadbeat Attendant
- Deadly Dispute
- Disciple of the Vault
- Draconian Gate-Bot
- Empty the Warrens
- Fall from Favor
- Finishing Move
- Frantic Search
- Galvanic Relay
- Gitaxian Probe
- Glitterflitter
- _____ Goblin
- Grapeshot
- Gush
- High Tide
- Hired Heist
- Hymn to Tourach
- Immediate Action
- Incendiary Dissent
- Invigorate
- Kuldotha Rebirth
- Line Cutter
- Minotaur de Force
- Monastery Swiftspear
- Muzzio's Preparations
- Mystic Sanctuary
- "Name Sticker" Goblin
- Narcomoeba
- Natural Unity
- _____-o-saurus
- Peregrine Drake
- Petting Zookeeper
- Pradesh Gypsies
- Price of Progress
- Prize Wall
- Rad Rascal
- Ride Guide
- Robo-Piñata
- Seasoned Buttoneer
- Secrets of Paradise
- Seeker of Skybreak
- Sentinel Dispatch
- Sinkhole
- Sojourner's Companion
- Soul Swindler
- Step Right Up
- Stiltstrider
- Stirring Bard
- Stone-Throwing Devils
- Temporal Fissure
- Ticketomaton
- Treasure Cruise
- Underdark Explorer
- Vicious Battlerager
- Wizards of the _____
- Wolf in _____ Clothing
Built from Scryfall on 2026-09-24
How a common earns a ban
A commons-only format has an unusual failure mode: the cards that break it are rarely the ones that look strong.
It made one color do everything
Pauper's balance depends on each color having real weaknesses. A common that hands a color an answer it is not supposed to have tends to get removed rather than leaving the rest of the format unable to respond.
It turned the format into one deck
Because the pool is so large and so cheap, a dominant common gets adopted everywhere almost immediately. Pauper bans move faster than most formats for that reason.
What a legal Pauper deck needs
| Rule | Pauper | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum deck size | 60 cards | There is no upper limit, though decks almost always run exactly 60. |
| Sideboard | Exactly 15, or none | All or nothing: 15 cards, or no sideboard. |
| Copies of a card | 4 | Main deck and sideboard share the limit. Basic lands are exempt, as are the few cards that say otherwise. |
| Card pool | Cards printed at common | Legality follows the printing, not the card. If a card has ever appeared at common in a paper set, it is legal. |
| Rotation | None | Sets are added, never removed. |
ArcaneMetriX checks Pauper legality by printing, so a card that is only common in one set is correctly treated as legal, and one that never was is flagged as you add it.
Pauper questions, answered
What makes a card legal in Pauper?
Having been printed at common. Legality follows the printing rather than the card, so a card first printed at uncommon becomes Pauper-legal the moment any set prints it at common.
Does a card stop being Pauper legal if it is reprinted at a higher rarity?
No. Once a card has a common printing it stays legal, whatever rarity later printings use.
Is Pauper cheap to play?
It is the cheapest competitive constructed format by a wide margin, which is most of its appeal. The banlist exists partly to keep it that way, by removing commons whose price had climbed out of reach of the format's point.
Does Pauper rotate?
No. Pauper is non-rotating and draws on every set that has ever printed commons.
Build a Pauper deck on a budget
Pauper is the cheapest way into competitive Magic. Build a list in ArcaneMetriX, check it against the commons rule, and see what it costs before you buy anything.