It is the last set to include the Power Nine. The Unlimited Editon or 2nd Editon was released on 1 December 1993. Also each basic land has only two different pieces of art whereas a third was added in Beta. There were no Volcanic Island and no Circle of Protection: Black in Alpha. In addition to some mistakes on Alpha cards, some Alpha cards simply don't exist. This means that there should at some point have been about 1,500 copies of each Alpha rare card and about 4,000 copies of each Beta rare card.

The total print run of the Limited Edition is known to be about 10,000,000 cards with about 2.6 million Alpha cards and 7.3 million Beta cards. They are black-borded and have no expansion symbol.Īlpha and Beta versions of a card are usually the most valuable versions of any given card and often command premiums that may seem extreme to a non-collector. In contrast Beta cards look just like normal Magic cards.

For that reason Alpha cards were for a long time banished from tournament play in decks that also included non-Alpha cards. This is no joke, it is indeed the cardboard that is cut differently. When you encounter an Alpha card for the first time you will be surprised to find out that Alpha cards have noticeably rounder corners than other Magic cards.

Both parts of the Limited 1st Edition have black borders which makes them very easily identifiable as they are the only black-bordered regular Magic cards without an expansion symbol.Īlpha and Beta cards are most easily told apart by the form of the cards. The smaller Alpha run had a bunch of mistakes which were corrected in the larger Beta run. The original Limited Edition was split in two different printings, though. It was released on 5 August 1993 at GenCon. This was the original Magic: The Gathering. This guide is meant to help you identify the correct edition of a card. The absence of an expansion symbol occasionally makes it hard for beginners to identify from which Core Set a card comes from. Before the 6th Edition these sets were release every two years with white borders and without an expansion symbol. Magic sets can be seperated into two types, expansion sets and Core Sets.

Mtg card sets symbols