Common

Common is one of the four rarities of Magic cards. Cards that are of the common rarity are often referred to as "commons." Commons are the most abundant cards and are considered to have the highest card impact in Limited play as a result.

Commons have been identified by a black-filled expansion symbol since the Exodus expansion, except in the Coldsnap expansion where it was denoted by a white symbol. In sets printed before Exodus rarity was not denoted on cards.

15-card booster packs usually contain 11 commons. Some of the earliest expansions; including Arabian Nights, Antiquities, The Dark, Fallen Empires, and Homelands; were packaged in 8-card booster packs that usually contain six commons. The Alliances and Chronicles expansions were sold in 12-card booster packs that usually contain 9 commons.

It is known that expansions through Alliances, excluding Ice Age, had some common and uncommon cards that were actually more prevalent than others. This was the result of some cards appearing more often than others on the printer's sheet of uncut cards. For example, Headless Horseman is a "C1" common, and Ghosts of the Damned is a "C2" common. This code represents the number of times the card appears on the common printer's sheet of uncut cards, making C2 commons twice as abundant as C1 commons.

Common cards from Fallen Empires featured Alternate Art.

Online Magic offers an unofficial format called Pauper deck challenge, a format that uses only common cards.

C1

C1 is a rarity abbreviation for a card appearing 1 time on a "common" print sheet. This is used on sets where common cards were printed more than once on a print sheet.

C2

C2 is a rarity abbreviation for a card appearing 2 times on a "common" print sheet. This is used on sets where common cards were printed more than once on a print sheet.