Alpha (Magic: The Gathering)
| Released | 5 August 1993 |
|---|---|
| Size | 295 cards (74 common 95 uncommon 116 rare 10 basic land) |
| Print run | 2,600,000 |
| Keywords | Banding, First Strike, Flying, Landwalk, Trample, Protection |
| Expansion code | LEA (LA) |
| Released | October 1993 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Size | 302 cards (75 common, 95 uncommon, 117 rare, 15 basic land) | ||
| Print run | 7,300,000 or 7,800,000 | ||
| Keywords | Banding, First Strike, Flying, Landwalk, Trample, Protection | ||
| Expansion code | LEB (LB) | ||
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Magic: The Gathering Limited Edition is the first Magic: The Gathering card set. It premiered in a limited release at Origins Game Fair in 1993, with a general release that August. The initial print run of 2.6 million cards sold out quickly, and a new printing run was released in October 1993. These two runs are known as Limited Edition Alpha and Limited Edition Beta, or just Alpha and Beta for short. 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. Beta fixed a number of misprints and errors on cards. 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. 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 print run of Beta is given as 7.3 million or 7.8 million depending on the source. Despite the set's print run being about three times as big as Alpha's, Beta sold out as quickly as its predecessor.
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.
Originally, the designers and playtesters of the new card game intended the name would simply be "Magic". 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". 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". 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. "Magic: The Gathering" thus became the name of the entire game instead of "The Gathering" only being the subtitle referring to the first release.
As the names Alpha and Beta only distinguish different print runs of the same set, Alpha and Beta contain the same cards. In the Alpha print run the cards Circle of Protection: Black and Volcanic Island were omitted by accident. Additionally, a new illustration for each of the basic lands was included in the Beta print run; according to Mark Rosewater, this was done so that the product could be advertised as having "over 300 cards". Several mistakes on Alpha cards were corrected in Beta. Alpha cards are easily distinguishable from Beta cards as unlike all succeeding sets, cards from Alpha have steeply rounded corners. This was reportedly caused by the dullness of the dies being used to cut the cards. The dies were supposedly sharpened after the Alpha cards were produced and this resulted in the less rounded corners found on the Beta cards and all subsequent sets. 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.
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