Soo now we have a shadowlands alpha build, its only matter of time to get alpha testing started (1-2 weeks my guess), so its time to guess it, who gonna get in first. Take your bets:
Alpha will probably be fairly selective as it’s a much smaller sample.
I assume people whom were most active in bug reporting during previous alpha/beta releases .
Or i might be wrong ?
They’d all be quite happy to be able to bark at a videogame instead of children.
Alpha is always
Family
Friends
Streamers
That connections and long term ones to wow and blizzard .
Expect from May onwards people posting .
" ive subbed 13 years and not got beta and ive unsubbed"
Ive taken part in every beta but i only bug report and focus on a small section not to spoil the game .
I spent 500 euro on the game this month can I join the alpha too guys?
God bless you ! 
That would be my guess as they were always the ones who got it first because they been advertising the game.
I’m going for the usual suspect here, pro players from top guild for balance and indication on it, and possibly some guys from wowhead for everything else.
I’d say it’s most likely:
Friends, family which is standard for alpha’s.
Streamers, community site people, theory crafters most likely end up in (an early) closed beta build.
Why would you want to play alpha?
Have you ever played a game in it’s alpha state?
It’s not fun, like at all. It’s very much a state of the game where testing is really the only thing you can do on it.
This is going to be glorious to rank those forum trust levels xD
I don’t actually have a desire to alpha test games, unless it’s a paid job. In case of WoW, we’ll be doing the content after release exhaustively anyway.
What I do like is late-ish beta testing, though, so I can make some decisions about which spec I’ll play, and just to have a general idea what’s coming (first hand, not from videos). Since beta tests have become more about promotion than feedback, it’s usually not hard to get into them (toward their end).
Passive-aggressive much?
You know, that would actually be a good thing. They’d get great input on why Saberon is such a crap race:
and it would show just how effectively you can farm Saberstalker reputation. Unfortunately though, input on actual Shadowlands content would be minimal.
It’s supposed to be for testing anyway, it’s not really for customer enjoyment. Streamers and serious players getting it makes sense…
Yeah I confirm that, my dog has access to the Alpha!
Damn I’m so jealous!! He doesn’t want to share his PC with me 
…
I think you are talking about the Beta, OP.
Option 4 is correct
I’ve been given Beta access a number of times, yet I never bother with them… don’t want to make myself bored of the next expansion before it’s even out! 