Alpha

Limited Edition Alpha, or more commonly Alpha, is the first release of Limited Edition, the first Core Set of Magic: The Gathering. 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.

Set details

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that all cards must appear unmarked without the use of protective sleeves, and the unique corners of Alpha cards originally made them marked cards in a deck not entirely comprised of Alpha cards. This initially made them less desirable and thus less valuable than Beta and even Unlimited cards.

Due to the printing process, it is possible to get land cards in a rare, uncommon, or common card slot. The chance is approximately 3.31% for rares, 21.5% for uncommons and 38.02% for commons. This is because they put lands on all three printed sheets.

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 . 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.

Design & development

Magic: The Gathering received its "The Gathering" subtitle for two reasons. First, "Magic" was thought to be too generic a name to copyright. Second, it left open the possibility for future expansions to have other subtitles, such as "Magic: Arabian Nights."

The names of many cards were initially very generic, such as "Angel" instead of Serra Angel and "Skeletons" instead of Drudge Skeletons. Adding these descriptors created more flavor on the cards and allowed other types of angels, skeletons, and everything else to appear in future expansions.

The rarity of many cards was based on the idea that players would have a limited set of cards in a particular area, such that there would only be a few copies of Mox Sapphire or Black Lotus in a particular area, thus naturally restricting the power of these cards. The rapid popularity of the game created a much larger community of players than initially considered, allowing players to amass large collections of these powerful cards.

The rule limiting only four copies of all cards except basic lands in decks did not exist in the earliest rules but was rapidly adopted from tournament play.

Under the original rules, players with life less than 1 were not considered to have lost until the end of the current phase, giving that player a chance to find a solution.

Ante was an optional part of the original game of Magic that remained a part of the game until after the Homelands expansion.

There were originally three types of artifacts: mono artifacts, poly artifacts, and continuous artifacts. Mono artifacts have activated abilities that can only be used once and tap the artifact with its use. These now have errata adding "T" to the activation cost. Poly artifacts have activated abilities that do not have "T" as part of the activation cost and can be used multiple times. Continuous artifacts have a continuous effect that does not require activation. Continuous artifacts were also understood to be "turned off" when tapped, and newer versions of some of these original artifacts now have this restriction printed on them. These three types were removed following the Antiquities expansion and before the Revised Edition.

Interrupts were similar to instants, only "faster." This meant that when an interrupt was played, only other interrupts could be played in response. The timing rules of interrupts caused some other cards (such as Red Elemental Blast) to be interrupts for them to work properly under these rules.

Wall was the only creature type with a rule associated with it: Walls have defender. This rule remained a part of the game until the Champions of Kamigawa expansion.

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 too numerous to be listed here.

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.

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 (later changed to Human), Cleric, Clone (later changed to Shapeshifter), Cockatrice, Demon, Djinn, Doppelganger (later changed to Shapeshifter), Dragon, Dwarf, Elemental, Elf, Enchantress (later changed to Human Druid), Faerie, Force (later changed to Elemental), Fungusaur (later changed to Fungus Lizard), Gaea's Liege (later changed to Avatar), Gargoyle, Ghoul (later changed to Zombie), Giant, Goblin, Goblin King (later changed to Goblin Lord), Hero (later changed to Human Soldier), Hydra, Imp, Knight, Lion (later changed to Cat), Lord, Lord of Atlantis (later changed to Merfolk Lord), Mammoth (later changed to Elephant), Mana Bird (later changed to Bird), Merfolk, Minotaur, Nightmare, Nymph (later changed to Dryad), Ogre, Orc, Paladin (later changed to Knight), Pegasus, Phantasm (later changed to Illusion), 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.

Points of interest

Each color, except red, has two Auras with enchant land.

• Ancestral Recall, one of the Power Nine, is considered by R&D to be the most powerful blue card ever created. It was originally called "Ancestral Memories."

• Ankh of Mishra uses the real-world Ankh symbol in its artwork.

• Armageddon was included in the beginner-oriented sets Portal and Portal Second Age and functionally reprinted as Ravages of War in the Portal Three Kingdoms set, yet it was removed from the Core Set after Sixth Edition for being too powerful.

• Basalt Monolith had errata for a while to prevent the mana it generated from being usable with itself because of an infinite mana combo with Power Artifact and an infinite damage-to-player combo with the original wording of Relic Bind, which also received errata to prevent this combo.

• Berserk was removed from the Core Set for being a "spoiler," or too good, after its addition to the first Restricted List in January 1994. Richard Garfield explained its absence from the Revised set in The Duelist Supplement thus: "Anything that multiplies is potentially abusive. Failure to have a Fog should not warrant 80 damage." Berserk was removed from the Restricted List in April 2003 because it has decreased in power as a result of the variety of cards now available in Vintage.

• Birds of Paradise was created because the bird in the artwork comissioned for Tropical Island was too prominant. It has always been available in Standard except for a brief time after Eighth Edition rotated out and before the Ravnica expansion rotated in.

• Braingeyser was on the first Restricted List in January 1994 and was removed from it in September 2004 for being expensive, slow, and worse than other cards in Vintage.

• Camouflage turned attacking creatures face-down, but when the Morph mechanic defined the characteristics of a face-down card the wording of Camouflage was changed to create a random assignment of blockers, which effectively emulated the original intent of the card.

• Castle is one of a few early cards that were later functionally changed, making it both better and easier to understand. The removed text prevented attacking creatures from gaining the bonus because of Vigilance.

• Celestial Prism is rather underpowered and is strictly worse than Mana Prism, Mana Cylix, Darksteel Ingot and Prismatic Lens.

• Channel is one of many cards that is overpowered because of its ability to trade one resource for another at a low cost, in this case life for mana.

• Chaos Orb was removed from the Core Set with the intention of it or a card like it returning one day. Richard Garfield said of its absence from Revised: "No, we didn't can the concept. There will always be weirdo cards like this floating around, but the same old one gets passé." The card was later added to the Banned List for being a "dexterity card," or a card that could be better based on a player's skill in using it, removing it from tournament play and from future sets. Chaos Orb was also the focus of an urban legend that said an early tournament was won by a player who tore his card into small pieces and scattered them over his opponent's cards.

• Circle of Protection: Black was left out of the Alpha set in part due to confusion surrounding its artwork. The contracted artist bailed at the last moment so the original Art Director, Jesper Myrfors, created its original artwork quickly on the computer.

• Circle of Protection: Red is the only Circle of Protection to appear in every Core Set (and even a few large expansions) until 10th Edition.

• Clockwork Beast was originally worded to remove a +1/+0 counter when declared as an attacker or blocker, although this was unclear. It was functionally changed in Fourth Edition to reflect how most players played the card. It also has the greatest combined power and toughness among artifact creatures in Beta and was played early on for having power greater than its converted mana cost and for the advantages of it being an artifact creature.

• Cockatrice was ironically generally worse than its uncommon comrade, Thicket Basilisk because having flying somewhat negated the Venom ability.

• Consecrate Land is the first card to use indestructibility, although that keyword would not be created until 2003.

• Conservator is strictly worse than Pearl Shard.

• Contract from Below, Darkpactk, Demonic Attorney,like all other ante cards, has been on the Banned List from its inception.

• Copy Artifact is unusual for its ability to be both an enchantment and an artifact when in play.

• Craw Wurm excites many players initially because it is usually the first creature of its size that new players come across. This makes it a good Timmy card.

• Dingus Egg was actually on the original Restricted List for its combo with Armageddon, Balance and other powerful land destruction spells.

• Disintegrate was one of two common red X-damage spells in Beta.

• Disrupting Scepter was considered a good card initially, as discard was a powerful strategy then.

• Dragon Whelp is one of only a few "actually good" cards in the original Sligh deck.

• Drain Life plays an important role in many Necropotence decks to recoup life lost to the Skull.

• Firebreathing and Jade Statue are the only non-creature cards in Beta with flavor text.

• Force of Nature has the greatest combined power and toughness among green creatures in Beta.

• Lord of the Pit has the greatest combined power and toughness among black creatures in Beta.

• Mahamoti Djinn has the greatest combined power and toughness among blue creatures in Beta.

• Personal Incarnation has the greatest combined power and toughness among white creatures in Beta.

• Shivan Dragon has the greatest combined power and toughness among red creatures in Beta.

Misprints

• Contract From Below — The artist's name, Shuler, was misspelled.
• Cyclopean Tomb — printed without a mana cost.
• Demonic Hordes — printed with an upkeep cost of literally "BBB" instead of three black mana symbols.
• Elvish Archers — printed with power/toughness 1/2 instead of 2/1.
• Force of Nature — printed with an upkeep cost of literally "GGGG" instead of four green mana symbols also the artist's name, Shuler, was misspelled.
• Orcish Artillery — printed with a mana cost of instead of .
• Orcish Oriflamme — printed with the mana cost instead of .
• Phantasmal Forces — printed with an upkeep cost of literally "U" instead of a blue mana symbol.
• Red Elemental Blast — printed as an instant instead of an interrupt.
• Unsummon — The card reads "Return creature to owner's hand; enchantments on creature are CARD ed. Unsummon cannot Template:... "

External links

• Alpha Product Page (old)
• Alpha product information page — Wizards of the Coast (new)
• Template:MTGref (transcription)