Alpha
From MTG Salvation Wiki
| Limited Edition Alpha | ||
|---|---|---|
| Symbol | 
| |
| Design Team | Richard Garfield, with contributions from Charlie Cateeno, Skaff Elias, Don Felice, Tom Fontaine, Jim Lin, Joel Mick, Chris Page, Dave Pettey, Barry "Bit" Reich, Bill Rose, and Elliott Segal | |
| Development Team | Same as Design Team | |
| Release Date | July 1993 | |
| Mechanics | The entire game | |
| Keywords | Banding, First Strike, Flying, Landwalk, Protection, Regeneration, Trample | |
| Size | 295 (74 Common 95 Uncommon 116 Rare 10 Land) | |
| Expansion Code | LEA | |
| Magic: The Gathering Chronology | ||
| Limited Edition Alpha | Beta | |
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 mechanics and themes, notable cards, storyline, design and development, cycles, creature types, points of interest and outside links in this set, please see the Beta set.
Contents |
[edit] 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that all cards must appear unmarked without the use of protective sleeves, and the unique corners of Alpha cards originally made them marked cards in a deck not entirely comprised of Alpha cards.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 [1] [2]. 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.
[edit] Misprints
- Contract From Below — The artist's name, Shuler, was misspelled.
- Cyclopean Tomb — printed without a mana cost.[3]
- 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.[4]
- 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.[5]
- Orcish Artillery — printed with a mana cost of
instead of .[6]
- Orcish Oriflamme — printed with the mana cost instead of
.[6]
- Phantasmal Forces — printed with an upkeep cost of literally "U" instead of a blue mana symbol.[5]
- Red Elemental Blast — printed as an instant instead of an interrupt.[7] [8]
- Unsummon — The card reads "Return creature to owner's hand; enchantments on creature are CARD ed. Unsummon cannot … "
[edit] References
- ↑ "Alpha "Oops…" III", by "Magic Arcana", MTG.com, Wednesday, April 10, 2002.
- ↑ "Alpha "Oops…" V", by "Magic Arcana", MTG.com, Friday, July 12, 2002.
- ↑ "Alpha "Oops…" IV", by "Magic Arcana", MTG.com, Wednesday, May 15, 2002.
- ↑ "Alpha "Oops…" VII", by "Magic Arcana", MTG.com, Friday, October 4, 2002.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Alpha "Oops..."", by "Magic Arcana", MTG.com, Friday, February 1, 2002.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Alpha "Oops..." II", by "Magic Arcana", MTG.com, Monday, February 25, 2002.
- ↑ "Alpha "Oops…" VI", by "Magic Arcana", MTG.com, Thursday, September 12, 2002 .
- ↑ "Alpha Red Elemental Blast", by "Magic Arcana", MTG.com, Tuesday, March 30, 2004.
[edit] External links
- Alpha Product Page (old)
- Official Alpha Information Product Page — Magic: The Gathering (new)
- "The Original Magic Rulebook", by John Carter, MTG.com, Saturday, December 25, 2004. (transcription)
