Alpha (Magic: The Gathering)

The name Alpha refers to the first print run of the original Magic: The Gathering Limited Edition, the first Magic: The Gathering card set. It premiered in a limited release at Origins Game Fair in 1993, with a general release that August. Its print run of 2.6 million cards sold out very quickly and was replaced by Limited Edition's Beta print run. Limited Edition cards have no expansion symbol, no copyright date, no trademark symbols, although they do list the art credits at the bottom of the card.

Set history

Originally the game should have had the name "Magic", but the name was too generic to be copyrighted and was thus changed to "Magic: The Gathering". The additional benefit was that each Magic expansion would have a different subtitle, such as "Magic: Arabian Nights" or "Magic: Ice Age". When it was decided that the backs of Magic should be identical regardless of the expansion, the name "Magic: The Gathering" would appear prominently on the back of every Magic card. "Magic: The Gathering" thus became the name of the entire game instead of "The Gathering" only being the subtitle referring to the first release.

As the names Alpha and Beta distinguish different print runs of the same set, Alpha and Beta contain the same cards. In the Alpha print run the cards Circle of Protection: Black and Volcanic Island were omitted by accident, though. Also a new illustration for each of the basic lands was included in the Beta print run. Finally a couple of mistakes on Alpha cards were corrected in Beta. Alpha cards are easily distinguishable from Beta cards as unlike all succeeding sets, cards from Alpha have steeply rounded corners. This was reportedly caused by the dullness of the dies being used to cut the cards. The dies were supposedly sharpened after the Alpha cards were produced and this resulted in the less rounded corners found on the Beta cards and all subsequent sets. This is, however, inaccurate. If it were true, variation in corners would be seen between sets, which is not the case. Official tournaments require Alpha cards to have opaque sleeves to prevent unfair gameplay, unless the deck contains nothing but Alpha cards.

Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited are known for having extremely powerful cards. The popularity of the game was not anticipated during development, so the powerful cards were left in the set. The original thinking was that "players... wouldn't be able to acquire many of the power rares, because supply would keep them actually rare."^[2]

The Alpha rulebook contains a fantasy tale called "Worzel's Story" by Richard Garfield which was removed for the Beta release. Alpha deck boxes also lack a UPC on the bottom.

Errors

Alpha contained numerous misprints and lacked a standardized wording for card text, which would not appear until 4th Edition. As a result, Alpha card texts have been known to be confusing to new players. The following cards had printing errors, most of which were fixed in the Beta release.

• Circle of Protection: Black was accidentally omitted from the set.^[3]
• Cyclopean Tomb had no casting cost, instead of a casting cost of 4.^[4]
• Death Ward incorrectly credited Dan Frazier as the artist. The right artist is Mark Poole.^[5][6]
• Elvish Archers had its power/toughness listed as 1/2 rather than 2/1.^[7]
• Force of Nature was printed with the letter G in its text box rather than the green mana symbol, and the artist's name was spelled incorrectly.^[8]
• Orcish Artillery had a casting cost of 1R rather than 1RR.^[9]
• Orcish Oriflamme had a casting cost of 1R rather than 3R.^[9]
• Phantasmal Forces was printed with the letter U in its text box rather than the blue mana symbol.^[8]
• Red Elemental Blast was printed as an instant rather than an interrupt (see this version), making half of its ability unplayable under the rules of the time.^[10]
• Sedge Troll incorrectly credited Jeff A. Menges as the artist. The right artist is Dan Frazier.^[5][11]
• Volcanic Island was accidentally omitted from the set.^[12]
• Artist Douglas Shuler is generally misspelled as "Douglas Schuler". The mistake was not fixed until Revised Edition.^[13]

Several Alpha cards have other minor mistakes, most of them relating to the font.^[5]

Mechanics

Being the first print run, Alpha has all of the original mechanics intrinsic to Magic, such as "tapping" cards to use their abilities. It also has a number of mechanics rarely seen in official sets since. The most notable is the Chaos Orb's "drop" mechanic, in which the card is dropped on the play area to determine which cards are destroyed.

Of the many mechanics introduced in Alpha, most still appear in new sets. An exception is banding, which was eliminated in Tempest, because the mechanic confused new players and required too much text to explain. When old mechanics were revisited in the Time Spiral block, banding was left out for this same reason.

Many Alpha cards had abilities that have since become keyword abilities. The ability "may only be blocked by black or artifact creatures" was keyworded to Fear in 8th Edition which was replaced by Intimidate with the release of Zendikar. The rule preventing Walls from attacking was removed in 9th Edition and all walls were given the keyword "Defender," which prevents them from attacking. Serra Angel's ability "doesn't tap to attack" was keyworded to Vigilance in Champions of Kamigawa. "May attack the turn it comes into play" has changed twice; it was first changed to "unaffected by summoning sickness" in Mirage and then was keyworded to Haste in Urza's Destiny.

The rules of Alpha included a provision for ante. Games would be started by each player removing a card at random from his or her deck. The winner of the game took both cards. There were also cards that interacted with the ante, such as Contract From Below. This aspect of the game continued until the Homelands set in 1995, but was dropped as the cards became collectible and valuable and the company did not want to be associated with gambling.^[14]

Notable cards

• The "Power Nine": Black Lotus,^[15] Mox Pearl, Mox Sapphire, Mox Jet, Mox Ruby, Mox Emerald, Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, and Timetwister. These are widely considered the most powerful cards in Alpha, and are among the most powerful in all of Magic.^[16] All of these cards are now restricted in tournament play; players may only include one copy of each in a deck.^[17] The color distribution of the Power Nine is heavily skewed; six of the cards are Artifacts, while the other three are Blue cards.^[16] See also Power Nine.
• The Dual Lands: Tundra, Underground Sea, Badlands, Taiga, Savannah, Scrubland, Bayou, Tropical Island and Plateau, Volcanic Island being absent. These lands provide two colors of mana with the benefit of possessing two basic land types, an uncommon trait on non-basic lands. All future dual lands would be printed with restrictions. They are now a defining part of the Legacy and Vintage formats, due in particular to their ability to be searched for by the various Fetchlands released many years later.^[18]
• The "Boons": Healing Salve, Ancestral Recall, Dark Ritual, Lightning Bolt, and Giant Growth. This was the first and most famous cycle in Magic.^[19] All of them provided an effect in the number three. The cards defined the core ability of each color, but they proved to be extremely disparate in power. Of the five, the blue, black and red boons were considered to be too powerful, while the white boon too weak. The green boon, Giant Growth, was considered most balanced and has appeared in every core set until the printing of Magic 2012.^[19][20] Many modern variations on the other cards have been printed, including Mending Hands, Concentrate, Cabal Ritual, and Shock. It is also worth noting that Healing Salve has been reprinted several times, and that Lightning Bolt was reprinted in Magic 2010 and Magic 2011.
• Chaos Orb: The first Magic card that required manual dexterity to play effectively. The only other such card not in Unglued or Unhinged was Falling Star, from Legends. These two cards are currently banned in all sanctioned tournament formats.^[17]

References

External links

• MagicTheGathering.com Official site for Magic: The Gathering
• Wizards of the Coast's official page on Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited
• Gatherer Alpha set list
• Transcription of the original Magic rulebook - wizards.com article