The Vintage Cube stands as one of the highly popular cubes on Magic Online, the premier digital platform for playing Magic: The Gathering before Arena was launched. Now, MTGA players will have the chance to experience immense strength when the Arena Powered Cube launches on October 28. According to the official description, "This exciting event is unlike anything else on MTG Arena and will showcase some of the most powerful cards from throughout Magic's history, featuring the Power Nine."
Understanding the Classic Cube?
As experienced Limited players know, a cube is a unique form of draft format that doesn't draw cards from one or more specific sets, but instead from a predetermined pool. The Vintage Cube has consistently served as a fun and popular way for MTG players to enjoy the excitement of using some of the most powerful cards in the history of the game without having to pay 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 iconic Power Nine — Magic's classic powerhouse cards, including Black Lotus, the Mox gem series, Time Walk, Timetwister, and Ancestral Recall.
Details of the Arena Powered Cube
The Powered Cube will incorporate a hundred fresh MTG Arena card printings, but some of these will be obtainable at the release of the event. This allows for the inclusion of a larger card pool, as some of these massively overpowered cards could cause balance problems in Constructed formats. According to the official news, this also facilitated the launch of the new cube faster. Online community members are already speculating that this move was a reaction to the poor reception of the Omenpaths set — the Arena adaptation of a Spider-Man themed set and the lowest-engagement Arena set to date, according to some reports.
How It Works and Entry Details
Launching a iteration of one of the most popular cubes ever will certainly increase engagement in Arena, but there is an important caveat to note. The Powered Cube will adopt a prize structure and entry fee comparable with the Premier Draft events, thus being costlier to play than previous Arena cubes. The event structure will be the following:
- Begins On: October 28, 8:00 AM Pacific Time (3 p.m. UTC)
- Signup Close: Nov. 18, 8:00 AM Pacific Time (3 p.m. UTC)
- Participation Cost: 10k gold, or 1500 gems, or one draft token
- Format: Powered Cube Phantom Player Draft (Players do not keep the event cards)
- Best-of-One: Seven wins or three losses; ranked
- Match Play Mode: 3 matches; without ranking
Rewards and Extra Details
The reward packs issued as rewards can contain almost every card permitted in the Timeless mode, along with cards from a unique bonus card list. Additional information on the rewards and the cards present in the Arena Powered Cube, enthusiasts can examine the full details. Also, on October 22, MTG pro players Luis Scott-Vargas and Paul Cheon, experienced cube format experts, will provide more updates on their video platforms.
