Alpha

Alpha is the first release of Limited Edition, the first set of Magic. It includes 295 cards and was released at Origins in July 1993 with a small run of 2.6 million cards. It did not receive much exposure beyond the West Coast. Beta was released shortly after Alpha sold out.

Alpha contained a number of errors that were fixed in the second, or Beta release: Circle of Protection: Black and Volcanic Island were accidentally left out of the set entirely, Cyclopean Tomb was printed without a mana cost, Elvish Archers was printed with power/toughness 1/2 in stead of 2/1, Orcish Artillery was printed with a mana cost of 1R instead of 1RR, and Orcish Oriflamme was printed with the mana cost 1R instead of 3R. Additionally, only two versions of each basic land with unique artwork were included. Limited Edition was advertised as having "more than 300 cards," so a third version of each basic land was added in the Beta release in order to validate this claim.

Alpha cards can easily be distinguished from Beta and all other cards by their more rounded corners. Early tournament rules required that all cards must appear unmarked without the use of protective sleeves, and the unique corners of Alpha cards originally made them marked cards in a deck not entirely coposed of Alpha cards. This initially made them less desirable and thus less valuable than Beta and even Unlimited cards.

Mechanics and Themes

As the first edition of Magic, Alpha introduced many mechanics and themes. Keyworded abilities introduced in this set include Banding, First Strike, Flying, Landwalk, Protection, Regeneration and Trample. The Defender, Fear, Haste and Vigilance mechanics were also introduced without keywords but later received them. Most other game mechanics were also introduced in this set but are not listed here.

Notable Cards

Black Lotus is considered to be one of, if not the, most powerful card ever printed. It is definitely the most valuable.

Storyline

Alpha did not have a specific storyline, although the cards had a lot of flavor built into them based on the premise that players took on the role of a planeswalker who summoned creatures and cast spells in a duel against another planeswalker.

Design & Development

Ante was an optional part of the original game of Magic.

Cycles

'Alpha has many different relationships between its cards. These include typical cycles, vertical cycles and mirrored pairs.

Creature Types

Creature types were originally intended only to express flavor on creature cards, like flavor text. Thus, the intentional use of creature types to classify different races was not considered until around the design of the Fallen Empires expansion, despite cards like Lord of Atlantis that cared about a creature's race in this set.

The creature types introduced in this set are: Angel, Assassin (later changed to Human Assassin), Avatar, Basilisk, Bear, Bodyguard, Cleric, Clone (later changed to Shapeshifter), Cockatrice, Demon, Djinn, Doppelganger, Dragon, Dwarf, Elemental, Elf, Enchantress (later changed to Human Druid), Faerie, Force (later changed to Elemental), Fungusaur, Gaea's Liege (later changed to Avatar), Gargoyle, Ghoul, Giant, Goblin, Goblin King (later changed to Goblin Lord), Hero, Hydra, Imp, Knight, Lion (later changed to Cat), Lord, Lord of Atlantis (later changed to Merfolk Lord), Mammoth, Mana Bird (later changed to Bird), Merfolk, Minotaur, Nightmare, Nymph (later changed to Dryad), Ogre, Orc, Paladin (later changed to Knight), Pegasus, Phantasm, Rat, Roc, Serpent, Shade, Shadow (later changed to Spirit), Ship (later changed to Human Pirate), Skeleton, Specter, Spider, Treefolk, Troll, Unicorn, Vampire, Wall, Will-O'-the-Wisp (later changed to Spirit), Wizard (later changed to Human Wizard), Wolf, Wraith, Wurm and Zombie.

Outside Links

• Official product page