Limited Edition (Magic: The Gathering)
Magic: The Gathering Limited Edition is the first "" 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. Set history. 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  largely the same cards. However, in the "Alpha" print run the cards and were omitted as the art was not completed in time for the "Alpha" print run. 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. 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 sharpening of the dies used to cut the "Beta" cards, which resulted in the less rounded corners. 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. "Alpha", "Beta", and "Unlimited" are known for having extremely powerful cards at the higher rarities. 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". 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. The "Alpha" rulebook contains a fantasy tale called "Worzel's Story" by Richard Garfield which was removed for the "Beta" release. "Alpha" deck boxes also lack a UPC on the bottom. Mechanics. Being the first "Magic" set, "Limited Edition" has all  of the original mechanics intrinsic to "Magic", such as "" cards to use their abilities. Many of the original base keywords are "" and still used commonly in Magic design as of 2019, such as Flying, First Strike, and Trample. A few keywords have since been phased out of the game. The Banding ability was discontinued in the set "", released in 1997. According to the Wizards of the Coast designers, the Banding mechanic confused players and required too much text to explain. When old mechanics were revisited in the "" block, banding was left out for this same reason. Much later, regeneration and  landwalk (e.g. Forestwalk, Swampwalk) were discontinued. Landwalk was removed in 2015 with the release of "Magic Origins", and no more Regeneration cards have been created starting with the "Shadows over Innistrad" block in 2016. Many "Limited Edition" cards had abilities that have since become keyword abilities. The ability "may only be blocked by black or artifact creatures" was recast as the keyword Fear in "" which was replaced by Intimidate with the release of "Zendikar". A rule in "Limited Edition" that prevented Walls from attacking was removed in "" and all walls were given the new keyword "Defender", which prevents them from  attacking. 's ability "doesn't tap to attack" was recast as the keyword Vigilance in "Champions of Kamigawa". "May attack the turn it comes into play" has changed twice; it was first changed to "unaffected by summoning sickness" in "" and then replaced with the keyword Haste in "Urza's Destiny". The rules of "Limited Edition" included a provision for ante. Games would be started by each player removing a card at random from their deck. The winner of the game took both cards. There were also cards that interacted with the ante, such as . This aspect of the game continued  until the "Homelands" set in 1995, but was dropped as the cards became collectible and valuable and the company did not want to be associated with gambling. "Limited Edition" included a number of unique cards exploring mechanics rarely seen in later sets. is a card involving dexterity, in which the card is flipped onto the play area to determine cards destroyed by the Orb. Both manual dexterity cards such as Chaos Orb and ante cards are banned in all sanctioned "Magic" formats as of 2013. Notable cards. Errors in Alpha. "Alpha" contained numerous misprints and did not adhere to close  standardized wordings for similar effects seen in later sets and printings. The following cards had printing errors, most of which were fixed in the "Beta" release. Several "Alpha" cards have other minor mistakes, most of them relating to the font.