Alpha

Alpha
Casts a copy of the first spell in your wand
Type	Other
Mana Drain	40
Cast Delay	+0.25
Additional Information
Unlock	SPOILER: Defeat Ylialkemisti
ID	ALPHA
Spawning Behaviour
Spawn chance by Tier ⓘ	000 100 200 300 400 51/12520.10.08 61/41010.24 700 800 900 101/59.821.67

Greek Letter Spells

Alpha

Casts a copy of the first spell in your wand

Gamma

Casts a copy of the last spell in your wand

Mu

Every modifier-type spell in the current wand is applied to a projectile

Omega

Casts copies of every spell in your wand

Phi

Casts a copy of every projectile-type spell in the current wand

Sigma

Copies every static projectile -type spell in the wand when cast

Tau

Copies the two following spells in the wand when cast

Zeta

Copies a random spell in another wand you're holding

A group of spells designed to copy other spells and effects. Ignores both mana drain and charges of copied spells, and are unlocked by killing Ylialkemisti.

Alpha is an Other type spell that copies the effect of the first spell in your wand. This behaviour is particularly useful given the spell that is copied does not have to have any charges remaining, and the copy is produced for the cost of Alpha - 30 mana. Placing a Circle of Vigour or Black Hole with zero charges at the start of a wand, you can use Alpha subsequently 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.

Shuffle

no

Spells/Cast

1

Tinker

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.

Example 1:

#

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.

Shuffle

no

Spells/Cast

1

Tinker

Example 2:

#

This gives you two Spitter Bolts, then a Black Hole:

Shuffle

No

Spells/Cast

2

Tinker

Example 3:

#

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:

Shuffle

No

Spells/Cast

1

Tinker

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.