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Limited Edition Beta (or just Beta for short) was the second part, after revisions, of the first print run of the first The Gathering set. It was released only a few months after The Gathering)'s publication to correct some minor problems in the rules and to make up for the fact that the first run had completely sold out. Clarifications were made to the rulebook, and Richard Garfield's short fiction "Worzel's Tale" was removed to make room. Like Alpha it had no expansion symbol, and the text on the bottom left consisted of only the artist credit. However, people mistake the two sets to be different sets, although they are essentially the same.
Set history
Two cards accidentally omitted from Alpha were restored: Circle of Protection: Black and Volcanic Island. A third accidentally omitted art variant for each of the five basic land cards was also restored, bringing the set's card count to 302 (counting multiple illustrations of each card separately, as the game's publisher does). The few cards with printing errors were fixed.
Interestingly enough, Beta versions of cards are often worth more than their Alpha counterparts. Though Beta had a larger print run (7.3 million cards versus 2.6 million), it sold out as quickly as its predecessor. Also, the corners of Beta cards are rounded in the same fashion as later expansions, making them more desirable to players. Furthermore, many players believed that the basic set would always be in print (and such was the original intention of the designers), and thus acted accordingly with their cards, thinking they could always replace them. Many players now have their cards rated by third party institutions such as the PSA to make them more competitive to sell on the open market. Only Three Gem Mint Beta Black Lotus in the world has ever been given the highest PSA rank of 10. One was sold in a private auction for $70,000. This card was sold to the individual who also owns the original canvas artwork of the Black Lotus painted by Christopher Rush.
Sealed booster boxes of Alpha and Beta can be easily distinguished by the fact that Beta boxes have a UPC code. Alphas do not.
Notable cards
- The "Power Nine": Black Lotus, Mox Pearl, Mox Sapphire, Mox Jet, Mox Ruby, Mox Emerald, Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, and Timetwister. These are widely considered the most powerful cards in Beta, and indeed, in all of Magic. All of these cards are now "restricted" in tournament play, meaning that players may only include one copy of each in a deck. It is worth noting that the color distribution of the Power Nine is heavily skewed; six of the cards are Artifacts, while the other three are Blue cards. However, many other cards from Limited Edition are considered just as powerful as the Power Nine, if not more so, including Sol Ring and Contract from Below. *
- The "Boons": Healing Salve, Ancestral Recall, Dark Ritual, Lightning Bolt, and Giant Growth. This was the first and most famous cycle in Magic. The cards defined the core ability of each color, but they proved to be extremely disparate in power. Many modern, balanced variations on these cards have been printed, including Sacred Boon, Mending Hands, Brainstorm, Bog WitchConcentrate, Cabal Ritual, Incinerate, Shock, Strafe, Volcanic Hammer, .
- Chaos Orb: The first Magic card that required manual dexterity to play effectively. The only other such card not in Unglued or Unhinged was Falling Star, from The Gathering). These two cards are currently banned in all sanctioned tournament formats.
External links
"Beta (Magic: The Gathering)"