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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. ==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 the same cards. In the ''Alpha'' print run the cards and were omitted by accident. Additionally, a new illustration for each of the basic lands was included in the ''Beta'' print run. 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.〔(Official Tournament Rules )〕 ''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. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Limited Edition (Magic: The Gathering)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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