Grading
Overall 9.5 GEM MINT
Centering 9.5
Corners 9.5
Edges 9.5
Surface 9
Therefore, to find a copy of BGS 9.5 overall or higher, a 9.5 grade needs to be found on the edges, surface and corners. The corners on alpha are notoriously difficult to find in 9.5 subgrade due to the cutting process and large radii. As a result, only 7 copies of BGS 9.5 and 1 copy of BGS 10 is in existence. A very difficult card to find outside of whale collections.
Reference this fantastic alpha population report table from Joel Mick.
Rarity & Collectability
The alpha Taiga is extremely low population in BGS 9.5 due to a print flaw on every copy of the card, pretty much automatically dinging the surface grade to 9 or below.
Impressions & Artwork
Rob Alexander's art for Taiga is really beautiful. It depicts a snow capped mountain range that has evergreen trees lining the slopes. Hard to imagine natural landscape more breathtaking than this.
Usage & Gameplay
Taiga being the mountain and forest dual land, it saw common play in creature heavy decks. Particularly relevant were the turn 1 Kird Apes which are still a very capable aggro creature by today's standards. 2/3 creature for one mana is OP.
Nostalgia
I remember playing against my bff Mastro's land destruction deck in his upstairs room with blue carpet. We would sit on the floor playing cards while his mom would go pick us up Portillo's (of which he would eat a big beef sandwich and a double serving of onion rings). While playing, he would use four taigas in his deck to dish out land destruction with four copies of Ice Storm, Stone Rain and Strip Mine, while his fat ass was giggling away before dropping a 5/5 Balduvian Horde.
The land destruction prevented his opponents from playing any cards due to removing access to the resources needed to any cast spells. In Magic, getting your lands destroyed with a strong hand of cards is like winning a in-store shopping spree with all of the malls closed from COVID.
Mastro's deck was 60 cards of pure misery. I asked him about it years later, to which he replied. "Hahahahaha bro that was your masterminding".
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