Alpha 40

Deck Construction Rules

  • Cards per deck: At least 40. No sideboards are used. Your deck may contain:
    • Any number of copies of any basic lands and commons.
    • Up to 6 of each uncommon.
    • Up to 3 of each rare.
    • Up to 3 copies of each Moderated card (Berserk, Black Vise, Copper Tablet, Counterspell, Hurricane, Hypnotic Specter, Ice Storm, Icy Manipulator, Juggernaut, Lightning Bolt, Orcish Oriflamme, Psionic Blast, Stone Rain, Sinkhole, Swords to Plowshares).
    • Up to 1 Fast Mana card (Black Lotus, Mana Vault, Mox Emerald, Mox Jet, Mox Pearl, Mox Ruby, Mox Sapphire, Sol Ring).
    • Up to 1 Power card (Ancestral Recall, Fastbond, Time Vault, Time Walk, Timetwister, Wheel of Fortune).
    • Up to 1 Draw card (Ancestral Recall, Braingeyser, Howling Mine, Jayemdae Tome).
    • Up to 1 Destruction card (Armageddon, Balance, Chaos Orb, Nevinyrral’s Disk).
    • Up to 1 Charm (Crystal Rod, Iron Star, Ivory Cup, Soul Net, Throne of Bone, Wooden Sphere). If Ancestral Recall is in your deck, it counts as both your Power and Draw card, so you cannnot include more cards from those lists in your deck.
  • Allowed sets: Alpha.
  • Reprint rules: No reprints are allowed.

Rules

The game is played as when Alpha was released, which means:

  • No “errata” is applied. So, for example, Goblin Balloon Brigade gives flying to every Goblin, you can gain multiple life with Charms when they are triggered and Orcish Oriflamme costs 1R. For consistency, cards that say “during upkeep” are understood as “during your upkeep”. Here you can find all the card clarifications.
  • Whoever plays first draws a card at the beginning of their first turn.
  • If your initial hand is all lands or no lands, you can show it to your opponents and mulligan to seven cards.

Banned and Restricted Cards

  • Banned: Contract from Below, Darkpact, Demonic Attorney, Mind Twist
  • Restricted: Channel, Copy Artifact, Demonic Tutor, Disrupting Scepter, Earthquake, Fork, Mana Short, Regrowth, Stasis

July 2022 online league’s winning deck.

Media

You can find more information about this format on their Facebook Group and several relevant links in this spreadsheet.

Next Events

Check our Events Calendar to find out when is the next Alpha 40 tournament taking place.