The Vintage Cube stands as one of the highly popular cubes on the original digital platform, the premier digital service for playing Magic: The Gathering before Arena was launched. Now, Arena enthusiasts will have the chance to experience immense strength when the Powered Cube limited event debuts on Oct. 28. According to the announcement, "This exciting event is unlike anything else on MTG Arena and will feature some of the strongest cards from across Magic's legacy, featuring the Power Nine."
What Is the Classic Cube?
As experienced Limited players know, a cube is a distinctive form of draft format that does not pull cards from particular expansions, but rather from a predetermined pool. The Classic Cube has consistently served as a fun and popular way for MTG players to experience the thrills of using some of the strongest cards in the history of the game without needing to spend the significant money required for tabletop Vintage. MTG Arena introduced something similar with its Timeless play style, but it did not include cards such as the Power Nine — MTG's legendary high-power cards, such as Black Lotus, the Mox gem series, Time Walk, Timetwister, and Ancestral Recall.
Features of the Arena Powered Cube
The Arena Powered Cube will include 100 new Arena card printings, but not all of them will be obtainable at the release of the event. This enables the inclusion of a broader selection of cards, as some of these massively overpowered cards could cause balance problems in Constructed gameplay. Based on the official news, this also facilitated the launch of the latest cube quicker. Fans online are already theorizing that this decision was a reaction to the negative feedback of the Omenpaths set — the Arena adaptation of a Spider-Man themed set and the least-played Arena set to date, according to some reports.
How It Works and Participation Information
Introducing a iteration of one of the most popular cubes ever will surely increase engagement in MTG Arena, but there is an key point to note. The Arena Powered Cube will adopt a prize structure and entry fee similar to the Premier Draft events, thus being more expensive to play than previous Arena cubes. The format details will be the following:
- Event Start: Oct. 28, 8 a.m. PT (15:00 UTC)
- Signup Close: Nov. 18, 8 a.m. PT (15:00 UTC)
- Participation Cost: 10,000 gold, or 1500 gems, or one draft token
- Format: Powered Cube Phantom Player Draft (Participants won't retain the event cards)
- Single Game Mode: Seven wins or three losses; ranked
- Best-of-Three: 3 matches; without ranking
Rewards and Additional Details
The reward packs issued as rewards can contain nearly all cards legal in the Timeless format, plus cards from a new, special bonus sheet. For more details on the prizes and the included cards in the Arena Powered Cube, interested players can review the official announcement. Additionally, on October 22, professional Magic players Luis Scott-Vargas and Paul Cheon, long-time cube format experts, will provide more updates on their YouTube channels.
