Difference Between Alpha Cards and Beta Cards

Alpha Cards vs Beta Cards

Alpha cards and Beta cards are two print runs of the very popular card game Magic: The Gathering. This card game is created by Whitman College Math professor, Richard Garfield. These two sets of cards do not contain any copyright date, expansion and trademark symbols.

Alpha cards

Alpha cards are the first printed set of the game which was released in Origins Game Fair Convention on 1993. There are 2.6 million copies of Alpha cards that were printed and sold out months after its release. The printed Alpha cards consist of various errors in its texts that can clutter the newbie players. Garfield also created a tale entitled “Worzel’s Story” which is included in the Alpha rulebook.

Beta cards

Beta cards also known as Limited Edition Beta is the second release of Magic: The Gathering. It has many revisions on the errors that were found out in the Alpha cards. Also, they released the Beta cards due to the very fact that the Alpha cards have been completely sold out and that’s why they printed 7.3 million cards to make sure that there are enough cards for everybody.

Difference between Alpha and Beta Cards

Even though the Alpha and Beta cards of the “Magic: The Gathering” game may have been the first set of cards in the game, they have some differences that enables you to distinguish which is which. In the Alpha rulebook, the Worzel’s story is included while in Beta it was already removed to make some room. Two cards have been added to the Beta (Circle of Protection: Black and Volcanic Island) which was accidentally removed from the Alpha set. Moreover, Alpha cards have steeped rounded corners compared to the Beta cards due to the dies used in cutting the cards.

Magic: The Gathering game may not be as popular as before due to the evolution of the internet computer games both online and offline, there are still many others who are still playing this game until now.