Alpha/Trivia

Alpha

 

Trivia

 

This page lists some points of interest for Alpha cards.

Artwork

• Ankh of Mishra uses the real-world ankh symbol in its artwork.
• Birds of Paradise was created because the bird in the artwork commissioned for Volcanic Island was too prominent. Mark Poole has told many players that it was a regular Island. Said bird has never resembled an actual bird of paradise in any printing, them being known for their dark plumage and corvid resemblance.
• 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.
• Twiddle used art that was originally commissioned for a land.

Colors

• Each color except red has two local enchantments (Auras) with enchant land. Red has none.
• Force of Nature has the greatest combined power and toughness among green creatures in Alpha.
• Lord of the Pit has the greatest combined power and toughness among black creatures in Alpha. Its art description simply was "Balrog".
• Mahamoti Djinn has the greatest combined power and toughness among blue creatures in Alpha.
• Personal Incarnation has the greatest combined power and toughness among white creatures in Alpha.
• Shivan Dragon has the greatest combined power and toughness among red creatures in Alpha.
• Clockwork Beast has the greatest combined power and toughness among colorless (artifact) creatures in Alpha.

Errata and templating

• 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.
• Blessing — the wording for the activated ability could be interpreted as allowing a player to target any creature, rather than limiting the effect to just the creature enchanted by Blessing. The wording was changed beginning with Revised Edition.
• 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 was later functionally changed so that attacking was no longer relevant to receiving the bonus. This made it easier to understand, and improved its effectiveness by allowing creatures with Vigilance to benefit.
• Clockwork Beast was originally worded to remove a counter as soon as it was declared as an attacker or blocker, although this was unclear. It was functionally changed in Fourth Edition to remove the counters after combat, reflecting how most players played the card.
• Jade Statue was not a creature in its normal state, but it was printed with a Power/Toughness to represent its ability.
• Island Sanctuary prevents all damage to you from creatures that don’t have flying or islandwalk, while the Beta version keeps them from attacking.
• If every card in Alpha was worded using modern templating, the only two cards that would remain unchanged would be Stream of Life and Time Walk.

Longevity

• Birds of Paradise was legal in Standard permanently from its original printing until Tenth Edition rotated out, except for a brief time after Eighth Edition rotated out and before the Ravnica expansion rotated in. It returned to Standard when it was re-printed in Magic 2010, but once again left the format when Magic 2012 rotated out.
• 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." However, it and other dexterity cards were later categorically banned. 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. This legend inspired the Unglued card Chaos Confetti.
• Circle of Protection: Red is the only Circle of Protection to appear in every core set (and even a few large expansions) until Tenth Edition.

Power level, bans, and restrictions

• Chaos Orb was later added to the Banned list for being a dexterity card, removing it from tournament play and from future sets. The ban was also motivated by the fact that its use made it optimal to place cards in ridiculous and confusing places, mixed with opponent's permanents.
• Clockwork Beast was played early on for having power greater than its converted mana cost and for the advantages of being an artifact creature.
• Cockatrice, a rare card, ironically has less use for its signature "stoning"/Venom ability than its uncommon comrade, Thicket Basilisk, due to to flying preventing many creatures from becoming blockers. It may even be worse in some situations, since flying reduces the effectiveness of the combo with Lure and other blocker-manipulation effects.
• Contract from Below, Darkpact and Demonic Attorney, like all other ante cards, have been on the Banned List from its inception.
• Dingus Egg was actually on the original Restricted List for its combo with Armageddon, Balance and other powerful land destruction spells.
• Disrupting Scepter was considered a good card initially, as discard was a powerful strategy at the time.
• 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" (Necropotence).

Other

• Circle of Protection: Black and Volcanic Island were both intended to be printed in Alpha, but did not appear until Beta due to aforementioned artwork issues. Both were parts of cycles, which were therefore incomplete in Alpha edition.
• Copy Artifact is unusual for its ability to be both an enchantment and an artifact when in play.
• Craw Wurm excited many players initially because it was usually the first creature of its size that new players come across. This makes it a good Timmy card, and well-recognized many years later. The only other common card in the set with such a high power/toughness is Sea Serpent, which has an obvious drawback ability.
• Firebreathing and Jade Statue are the only non-creature cards in Alpha with flavor text.
• The “Shivan” of Shivan Dragon came from a reference to Shiva of Hindu mythology.
• Over twenty percent of both the Alpha and Beta Magic print runs was sold in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a long way from Magic's Mid-Atlantic origins in Pennsylvania.
• Fireball is a sorcery widely considered the standard for "X-damage" spells, and was one of the first (among two) X-damage spells printed (the other being Disintegrate). It has been printed in eleven different sets: Alpha, Beta, Revised, Unlimited, 4th Edition, 5th Edition, Beatdown, Darksteel, Magic 2010, Magic 2011 and Magic 2012. Fireball is favored by many players for its ability to damage multiple targets.