Alpha deck boxes also lack a UPC on the bottom. The Alpha rulebook contains a fantasy tale called "Worzel's Story" by Richard Garfield which was removed for the Beta release. Players spending hundreds of dollars to acquire multiple copies of each of the powerful rares was not anticipated at the time, as the developers assumed players would stop at around 30-50 dollars. This was an intentional choice during development the thought was that "players (.) wouldn't be able to acquire many of the power rares, because supply would keep them actually rare". Īlpha, Beta, and Unlimited are known for having extremely powerful cards at the higher rarities. The Wizards of the Coast tournament rules require that a deck including Alpha cards have opaque card sleeves to prevent a player from being able to identify the difference between an Alpha and a non-Alpha card in their library, as the corners are different from all the printings that followed. This was reportedly caused by sharpening of the dies used to cut the Beta cards, which resulted in the less rounded corners. Alpha cards are easily distinguishable from Beta cards as unlike all succeeding sets, cards from Alpha have steeply rounded corners. Several mistakes on Alpha cards were corrected in Beta. According to Mark Rosewater, this was done so that the product could be advertised as having "over 300 cards". As well as including these two extra cards, the Beta print run included a new illustration for each of the five basic lands, taking the total card count from 295 to 302. However, in the Alpha print run the cards Circle of Protection: Black and Volcanic Island were omitted as the art was not completed in time for the Alpha print run. "Magic: The Gathering" thus became the name of the entire game instead of "The Gathering" only being the subtitle referring to the first release.Īs the names Alpha and Beta only distinguish different print runs of the same set, Alpha and Beta contain largely the same cards. When it was decided that the backs of Magic should be identical regardless of the expansion, the name "Magic: The Gathering" would appear prominently on the back of every Magic card. The original intent was that each Magic expansion would have a different subtitle while the first Magic set would be "The Gathering", future sets could be labeled as "Magic: Arabian Nights" or "Magic: Ice Age". However, the lawyers at Wizards of the Coast advised that the name was too generic to be trademarked, and was thus changed to "Magic: The Gathering". Originally, the designers and playtesters of the new card game intended the name would simply be "Magic". Set history Ĭard fronts of early Magic cards: Alpha on left, Beta on right. Limited Edition cards have no expansion symbol, no copyright date, and no trademark symbols the text on the bottom left consists only of an artist credit. Despite the set's print run being about three times as big as Alpha's, Beta sold out as quickly as its predecessor. The print run of Beta is given as 7.3 million or 7.8 million depending on the source. The Beta printing also included a revised rulebook with a number of clarifications, although creator Richard Garfield's short fiction "Worzel's Tale" was removed to make room. The printer accidentally used different corner rounding dies for the second run, resulting in Alpha cards being noticeably distinct in shape and appearance from Beta cards and all subsequent cards. Beta fixed a number of misprints and errors on cards. Although Alpha and Beta are referred to as different sets by some, officially they are the same set Wizards of the Coast had expected that people wouldn't necessarily be able to tell the two press runs apart. These two runs are known as Limited Edition Alpha and Limited Edition Beta, or just Alpha and Beta for short. The initial print run of 2.6 million cards sold out quickly, and a new printing run was released in October 1993. It premiered in a limited release at Origins Game Fair in 1993, with a general release that August. Magic: The Gathering Limited Edition is the first Magic: The Gathering card set. Banding, First Strike, Flying, Landwalk, Trample, Protectionģ02 cards (75 common, 95 uncommon, 117 rare, 15 basic land)
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