Gush
Now Gush is a card!!
At first glance to a new player, the card looks only okay. Draw two cards for 5 is not something terribly exciting. However, upon closer inspection, there is this great line of text, "You may return two Islands you control to their owner's hand rather than pay Gush's mana cost," and this is absolute nonsense. Notice that the card does not read anything about those Islands being untapped. This means that you can freely cast spells before Gush and simply return two already spent Islands to your hand. Essentially drawing two spells for 0 mana. You may play a land the turn and still only be down one land on the exchange, and the land will come in untapped, letting you cast more spell you just drew. But with great power, comes great......
Bannings! Gush is not legal in Modern, Legacy, and is restricted in Vintage. It is not likely to see a reprint in Standard. Sad day, but there is more life to this story for such a powerful card.
So why has Gush skyrocketed in price recently? It's still banned or restricted in all the competitive formats? Have you heard about Pauper? Let's talk about Pauper. Gush has risen in price largely due to the newfound hype in the Pauper format, which is a constructed format similar to modern, but with only commons. That's right Gush is a common!
I run my Gushs in a competitive Pauper deck, Izzet Blitz. This is a deck that tries to cast as many instant and sorcery spells in a single turn to win. Getting to cast Gush for free and draw cards is powerful, and feels good! Thankfully I picked up my playset at under $1 each, can't believe the price they fetch today.
Where do you play Gush? Are you just getting into Pauper? Have you been playing for awhile? Let me know in the comments!