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.

For information on the notable cards, storyline, design and development, cycles, creature types, points of interest and outside links in this set, please see the Beta set.

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that all cards must appear unmarked without the use of protective sleeves, and the unique corners of Alpha cards originally made them marked cards in a deck not entirely comprised of Alpha cards.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.

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.

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)