Alpha
Alpha is an Other type spell and a member of the Greek Spells - all of which can be used to copy spell effects. Alpha usually copies the effect of the first spell in your wand. The spell that is copied does not have to have any charges remaining, and the copy is produced for just the mana cost of Alpha. Placing a Circle of Vigour or Black Hole with zero charges at the start of a wand, you can use Alpha later in the wand to produce as many copies as desired.
Tips
- Like Gamma and Omega, Alpha is very useful for copying valuable limited charge spells like Black Hole that aren't affected by the Unlimited Spells perk, effectively making them unlimited regardless.
Wand Builds
The classic use of Alpha, unlimited cast Black Hole.
Technicalities
This section uses terminology described in Expert Guide: Draw, and covers edge cases necessary to fully understand this spell, but not necessary to make use of it.
Alpha is often described as copying the 'first spell in the wand' - and this is usually true - but is a bit more complicated. Alpha looks in two places for the 'first spell', the discard, and then the hand. If a spell has been moved to the discard outside of the usual order (e.g. by Divide By) then Alpha may end up calling a different spell's action than expected.
Alpha will copy the action of Spark Bolt rather than Divide By 10. By the time Alpha is called Divide By 10 has already discarded Spark Bolt, making it Alpha's preference.
When the Black Hole has zero charges, this gives you two Spitter Bolts, then a Black Hole:
The first Alpha in this example will produce a copy of Triple Spell, but the second will instead copy the discarded zero charge Black Hole:
See Also
- Greek Spells
- Advanced Guide: Introduction to Greek Letter Spells, and its specific section on Alpha.
History
- Apr 8 2024:
- Changed the spawn probability on tier 6 from 0.1 to 0.2.
- Increased mana drain from 30 to 40.