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Get to Know The Creator of Magic: The Gathering & Alpha Testers in This Video


Image: Enter the Battlefield/ MTG Official FB Page

Over 25 years ago, Richard Garfield enlisted some help in playtesting the first ever Magic: The Gathering cards. This Enter the Battlefield episode explores the original Alpha playtesters including the first ever person who playtested with Garfield, Barry Reich. When Garfield was developing Magic, he was a graduate student in Mathematics who was trying to finish in Ph.D. After playtesting with Barry Reich, Garfield enlisted some people from the Computer Science department and Math and Physics grad students. 

Even Richard's Math professor Dennis Deturck got involved in playing the games that Garfield invented. The video also gives us a look at the first set of cards they used, and apparently, one of them thought that a Forest has the same power level as a Mox Emerald. Now, millions of players are playing Magic, and it's amazing to look back and see how much Magic has grown since Garfield and his Alpha playtesters helped develop the game.  

Watch the video below: 

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