Limited Resources 427 - Alpha Set Review with Ben Seck
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ต.ค. 2024
- This week on Limited Resources Marshall and Luis welcome The Ben Seck back on the show to go deep on the best and most important Magic set of all time, Alpha. The guys walk you through the groundwork and innovation that Alpha laid out for the future of Magic, talk about how so much of it is still relevant today, and even look at some of the quirky mistakes that were made in Magic’s first set.
You don’t want to miss this one!
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There's a point that doesn't get made enough about Alpha: they knew what they were doing in terms of high secondary market prices. After some of the fad toys of the 80s (Star Wars, Cabbage Patch Kids, Transformers) a lot of toy companies in the 90s were working on purposeful collectibles. Magic happened at the same time as Marvel cards, Beanie Babies, every comic book coming out in limited foil-print cover versions, and too many collectible toys like Monster in my Pocket to count.
Think about this: Wizard of the Coast was this tiny company that could barely afford to print the game, and for the very first printing of the game, they took on the huge extra expense of printing on unique-to-their-product counterfeit-proof blue-core cardstock rather than what every other game card is printed on. It's been a game engineered for secondary sales since before day 1. They knew they were making Baseball Cards For Nerds, the early printings were distributed to sports cards stores as much as they were distributed to D&D stores (my local store was called Grand Slam).
I just never buy the version of the story you sometimes hear where it's implied that players being willing to spend a lot of money to get full collections of the best cards took them totally by surprise. I think aspects of how it happened took them by surprise, but in general, they got the result they designed for.
"The thimble is gas"
-Marshall
This was really interesting. I would love for you guys to do more set-reviews/breakdowns like this for old sets in the future. Urza's Saga set review!
This was one of the best episodes I’ve heard of this podcast. Great job
All of the artists that illustrated the first edition had at least one thing in common, they had nothing to use as a reference for what the game's "look and feel' was, it was up to each of them to offer possible views of a new fantasy realm. Keep up the good work, .
Looking at Ancestral Recall/Timetwister and then looking at Contract from Below is insane. Playing through Shandalar with 4 Contract from Below in your deck is a-maz-ing
Marshall! That woman isn't scared and running from the wall, she's the one animating it!
One notable exclusion is multicolor. The dual lands hint towards it, but it took until Legends until the golden frames showed up.
Sedge Troll also points towards it, although we see off-color activated abilities only rarely these days.
Me & my friends bought our cards up until ice age 15 years ago and have been playing with those up until this day. We've now mixed in the new sets. It's fun to have the possibility of seeing literally any card ever printed being played, even the brutal ones. We've just build our decks to deal with cards like Balance, Tsunami, etc, while playing 1vs1vs1vs1 by itself prevents any player being to decisive with their tricks on cards banned in most formats. A dumb thing we've done and only realized recently was keeping the instant/interrupt rule. It resulted in that you can't protect creatures through 'return to hand' instants of which we've seen quite a lot of cards in the 21st century. For the rest most old rules seem to mix in easily with the new cards.
Not Stasis, Ben! My first love in Magic. I did Stasis lock with Birds of Paradise and Instill Energy during Revised days (all available in Alpha). Also Stasis is the coolest art ever.
The "tapped artifacts don't work" rule only applied to Continuous and Poly Artifacts, not Mono Artifacts. Otherwise Mana Vault and Basalt Monolith would not be able to function.
Also, there were four types of Artifacts, Artifact Creatures you missed.
One thing about Ante, it was very flavorful for Black as a color. Like Dark Ritual (in name only really) and Sacrifice, it cemented black as the color to make deals and get bonuses for giving something up. Ante was something black piled in on as getting more cards out of ante games. I think ante is dumb, but I like the flavor the ante cards gave to black.
Please do more old sets!
The fantastic thing about when you were talking about Shivan Dragon is how you guys essentially pointed out how much of a crime it was that it was not reprinted in Iconic Masters... What truly is more "Iconic"?
All the one-dollar rares they actually printed... and one that's actually Iconic is left out. Maybe it would have been too expensive due to rights, but I really think the foils in Iconic should have had alternate art that used the original art for the card but with modern rules templating.
Gotta call Luis out on one thing. Animate Wall on a 0 power wall, like Wall of Stone, was great to use as a banding partner since it could soak so much dmg. It could single-handedly negate an defenders Righteousness combat trick.
you should absolutely do more of these old set reviews.
13:07 to skip the wait
I love TBS, he fits well in the group. You know you're OG when you call Verdant Force a modern design.
Also the last t1 stasis deck I played had 4 ivory tower as well as the howling mines, but also cards like "disempower". Just a sick deck.
Can we appreciate what a good guy Marshall is? He gives Ben an excited reaction for his "I visited Wizards in '97" story even though he already knew it. (Episode 424 signoff)
Loved the episode and remembering all these cards, keep up the good work. But I did think LSV's sign off to TBS was bordering on rude. They laughed it off, but I'd've been offended...
I haven't even begun to watch this and I already know that this is an amazing series. Please keep doing the older sets, I'm trying to break into modern/legacy/vintage/Commander and this is amazing. Thank you
I still think I like plague rats' text more than The Hive. I just love that it tells you where the Xs are.
My favorite card ever with the amazing Anson Maddox art.
Loved this episode! More old set breakdowns, more TBS!
Thanks for doing this. So much fun.
I started playing in ‘95 - remember most of these cards.
Playing wth the wrong rules: the first few times my friend and I (whom got into Magic with me at hte same time) played, we thought that both palyers untapped everything during every untap phase, not just their own.. so it was very much a race when we played, more so than normal
I remember being able to regularly go into a game store with 10 dollars and walk out with 30 dollars AND cards...things like that. It was nuts. Wish I'd been more on the ball and held on to stuff...but those cards paid for a lot of beer and rent...fwiw.
Mana burn did do a decent amount for game play. It forced combo players to make sure they were careful or they may just kill themselves (may just kill themselves anyway if they got unlucky with a time spiral) it made cards like Eladamri's vineyard good and it gave cards like mana drain an actual down side.
Amazing video. I've only been playing since rtr and it's really interesting to reflect on how the game has evolved.
hey guys, this was a REALLY interesting session you had.
i can only hope you have a plan to summarize the history further with followup sets and co.
This one should really be revisited. I feel like for example dark ritual would be very good in modern limited, compared to 5 years ago.
Love the graphics!
They need slideshows of cards for every vid to boost channel no one on youtube wants a vid of nothing give us card images ya mook
Haha I play Raging River in my EDh Chaos deck...so much fun :)
this was one of the first shows i listened to all of it! I usually listen to a little bit of some cause they are so long, but this episode was great! Keep up the good work!
I don't like TBS on Magic TV, but here he was decent. Also one of the coolest episodes recently.
Solid retrospective. Any chance you can take a hack at Legends or Arabian Nights?
How did people know what Counterspell did? All it says is "Counters target spell as it is being cast". The word "Counter" could mean so many different things.
Best episode ever. Do the Urza block next!
Marshal just casually shuffling about $2,500 worth of cards.
Do you not have one? LOL
I looked up how much Forcefield costs and my head exploded.
schwarzhund it's only because alpha. Look at any rate from the set and weep. Even commons no uncommons at low can be used high.. Because of all the buy outs
The trick is finding somebody willing to pay that amount of money for them through. (Pretty much only investors.)
He said he opened an ixalan pack irl for the sound effects so he probably just opened a simulated alpha pack online.
It's weird that they didn't use the new blocking rules to fix banding. They could've just made defending player (with banding) decide blocking order instead of having them divide damage as they liked. Would've been a good opportunity.
I guess the closest to the experience of near blind deck building you could get these days is playing Vintage Cube (when you don't know what's in it)
Do vids like this on every 90s set slideshow too
2:17:09 Brutal burn!
Fantastic episode, would love to see more content like this
I loved this episode! Can't wait for the one on Arabian and Legends ;-)
Im curious and hope someone can answer who played at the time. How long after magic's inception did stores start selling singles and how much did cards like the moxen, the duals and recall go for? Wondering if they were out of most people's price range even then
Dan Cook I don't know the exact time frame, but I've seen a copy of Duelist Magazine that had Black Lotus and Shivan Dragon at $25. In fact, the dragon was a few cents more expensive than the lotus
CabalT hahaha thats amazing. And lotus for $25. Holy hell
Once the power 9 got restricted, I've heard of Black Lotus at $6, Ancestral at $3, Shivan Dragon at $8
I bought lotus at $75 moxes at 30-40 . This was in early ' 95 I think. I saw the price go up each month and thought it's now or never. No I don't have those anymore, sold them to buy a car around 2003. I also had 27 beta dual lands..... cry
I think the biggest strike against Ante is that beginning players will be preyed on by the better players and they can never build up a collection because their opponent's better decks will always bleed them dry. I think Ante could easily kill a game like this.
its such a stupid concept rly. Who enforces ante? Who makes sure i dont say "fck u you dont get my shivan dragon" ? :D
And it's this gambling aspect that really could have prevented the games growth -- and given teachers an actual reason to keep it out of schools (instead of the dumb ones they actually quite often used).
Don't underestimate Phantasmal Terrain. A cheap deck with 6 PT, 6 Sea Serpent (Jeff Menges favorite art) 6 Power Sink, Phantasmal Monster, and Islands will absolutely win you games, nevermind if used in a Merfolk deck... also, in alpha you can have more than 4 of anything. I run 8 spiders and 6 giant growth.
Did you beat the 40 Lightning Bolt deck?
@ I easily could, since there's no mountains 😂🤣😂🤣
Why he don't specifies and of turn on firebreat? And shivan is until and of turn?
awesome podcast, very insightful, i loved every second of it :)
You might laugh but i recently played khm and i wondered if i can tap my blocker ;).
I'm surprised you havent done this already. I have no idea when you started doing this podcast, i imagined you would not only do current set reviews, but also work backwards through all the sets ever released. Granted I only know you guys as the set review guys and not the podcast guys.
Regardless i hope you review all the sets of magic's history.
I honesty miss mana burn. It balanced mana drain and would have made nykthos or karametra acolyte weaker
My playgroup still uses it. The Old Watch still stands. Though we took combat damage off the stack, shit was dumb
Would make my kruphix edh deck unplayable 😑
Good thing we don't play EDH!
Your own Cube set review? (or mtgo)
There's a secret line of text on black lotus, written with invisible ink. You can only see it when you play it with Channel. Has anyone ever read it?
i am so hype to finally listen to this!
Man...I want to go back in time and buy like, 100 boxes just so I can open boosters and get power 9's in them :D
Martin no store could sell you 100 boxes. They only got 5 or 10 each shipment, excrpt maybe a handful stores in new york or LA
There are likely investments available today that will return just as much, we just don't know what they are.
Nightmare scenario: Someone goes back in time to buy a bunch of Alpha/Beta because they think it will make them rich. It actually kills the game because the supply is cut off. Everything is worthless and nobody today remembers Magic.
I want to see a set where every card says "If opponent doesn't concede the game immediately".
Would be great if they could reprint the whole alpha set next year to celebrate magics 30 years
Gentlemen, dumb question, but what is the intro music?
Askold Vagt it's a piece by Bradley Rains. But based on previous info from Marshall, it was a commission, and isn't publicly available.
Sad. The tune is very sweet.
Love this out of the box idea 😊
Ps still think you should give some of the contents to a Patreon supporter! That would be epic.
I love, and miss, land destruction
I traded a Lotus for an Akron (sp?) Legionnaire. Makes me want to cry when I think of it...
How bold? Lightning bolt
i remember all the fucking cards ... i must have them somewhere in my cellar not the very rare ones but all the random cards i basicly own xD
Do kamigawa next.
Anthony Ramirez why would they jump all the way to some super generic, bland weeaboo modern block?
Terrible idea.
winter orb and stasis are frustrating but they are at least symmetrical, i think cards like gloom are the worst part of alpha, but alpha is still amazing
Wasnt Ante removed because of gambling laws?
didn't Luis say that going x-5 at a Pro tour isn't that bad?
hass von grundauf x-5 over the whole tournament. He didn't make day 2 sadly.
When Pokemon first started a friend of mine and I would play games where you got to take a card out of the loser's deck. I took all of his evolutions and left him with his base Pokemon eventually. Ante seems balanced.
More more more!
"...if you put this on a zero power wall, you're an idiot" - LSV
Sidenote: You better have gloves on!
Geez ninja Alpha Crack a Pack?! Sick.
wow, take that Dan Frazier
SPOILER 22:07 Totally punked lol!
Vid starts at 15 minutes
Word of Command is Brotha Lynch...
Chronatog + Stasis
In my playgroup we outlawed all color hate.
Stop giggling it was real in 94
You guys are 25y late...
...let's hope the new "Return to Dominaria" with R. Garfield captures some of that "Alpha" magic
Bad news...
It did, didn't it?
Shoe for life bb
Wish they'd bring back land destruction
Drinking game idea: drink every time Ben says 'actually'
It's always 222.
Goat cheez
Re: Strictly worse: Impale and Ravenous Chupacabra... are still annoying. You could make an argument that the power disparity between common and uncommon are necessary for limited, but I strongly doubt you can't do SOMETHING to Impale to make it not strictly worse (or nearly strictly worse, given Prowess). In particular, reprinting Befoul or
Daring Demolition or tacking on some minor bonus wouldn't make it any less the all things considered worse card, or less powerful. But it would make it different, and thus give you more to think about in limited, AND more to think about outside of limited.
The "Feel bad" of printing Impale over reprinting Daring Demolition is certainly more of a hindrance to the game than the the fact that Daring Demolition lets black kill the 3 limited playable ships in the other set. And it's not like you can't just design a slightly different card, or reprint any number of variants. Heck, a befoul variant that kills either unbasic lands or creatures without a +1/+1 counter would at least be interesting. Then again, just printing Impale with Cycling 2 or Scry 2 or something. Anything.
Note: Functionally better is not a "new" thing; Monopoly and Uno feature this. A Wild Draw 4 is functionally better than a Wild. The difference is that the game is balanced to have all these cards and there's no deck construction. Anyone who puts Impale in their deck is merely doing it wrong (out of ignorance or poverty), while someone who puts Daring Demolition in their deck is not (they're at least plausibly worried about vehicles).
No one who has access to both Daring Demolition and Ravenous Chupacabra chooses the former in the current metagame... but we can imagine a situation where powerful vehicles make DD > RC. Making Impale > RC, however, requires a far, far more unreasonable twisting of the metagame, and one that would never be for the better.
Spoilt by Throat Clearing
One card to remove from alpha? Farmstead of course. Although it is hilarious. WWWWW for delayhed 1 life gain? Sure.
worst art = celestial prism
get rid of Stasis and Winter Orb!!?? two of my favorite cards. get rid of Channel for goodness sake. anything but Stasis.
M10 was a horrible set for drafting.
I think you were WAAAY to nice to this set, probably due to nostalgia. This set is NOT very well designed. Knowledge today is so much better, cards are much better balanced and sets match better. Alpha was revolutionary in it's time, sure, but not a very well balanced set. Colour hosers are just bad for gameplay. Cards that are strictly better than others are also badly designed, one of the great strengths of magic in my opinion is that (almost) all cards are unique, it takes skill to evaluate which one's are actually great, and which one's are weak ( fx dual land being always better than a basic land, that is too obvious and bad design. but a black lotus is not always better than a basic land, and thus requires skill to evaluate). also, the alpha set has way too many too weak cards, and way too many superpowerful cards. Alpha was a masterpiece by it's time, but from today's standard, it is a very rough diamond. In 25 years of new sets, they have learned from all the mistakes of Alpha, step by step.
Just wanted to say that while I won't buy from CFB or go to their events and I think LSV is a lech, but hey, you had an awesome idea here with old set reviews and I enjoyed Marshall's coverage back when I watched the pro tour. I don't play magic anymore because of the company's politics.
zero_consequences You seem like a lot of fun buddy.
WotC's virtue signalling has gotten to the point of banning people for saying politically incorrect things on non-WotC platforms (feel free to ban people on your own platform) and LSV can't be liked by everybody.
It is not WotC's place to police places outside of their own platforms. If this occured on the old WotC forums or at a tournament, feel free to ban him. However, if someone can act decently at your event you shouldn't ban them. I don't agree with what Jeremy did, however, it was not WotC's place to intervene. It was either a job for the police or twitter to intervene.
The ban only occurred because Jeremy was already disliked by a certain part of the community. I don't hear WotC banning everyone ever shown to harass people online, it only occurred because a witch hunt occurred. This sets a bad precedent that if enough people demand someone to be banned they will be. I won't debate if WotC can ban anyone they want, but it is a bad idea for a company to bow to this kind of pressure.
It is. I, in general, dislike the discrimination against sex offenders in our society, especially how something like public urination is a considered a sexual offense in many jurisdictions but no distinction is made. Also, as I said before if someone can act decently on WotC platforms and at their events, they should be permitted to attend.
i think ante just simulated the concept of loot from classic RPG's