The Vintage Cube stands as one of the highly popular cubes on Magic Online, the premier digital service for playing MTG before MTG Arena was launched. Now, Arena enthusiasts will have the chance to experience immense strength when the Powered Cube limited event launches on Oct. 28. According to the official description, "This exciting event is distinct from all others on Arena and will feature some of the strongest cards from across Magic's legacy, featuring the legendary Power Nine."
Understanding the Classic Cube?
As experienced Limited players know, a cube is a distinctive form of draft format that does not pull cards from one or more specific sets, but rather from a pre-selected collection. The Classic Cube has long been a fun and popular way for MTG players to enjoy the excitement of using some of the strongest cards in the history of the game without needing to spend the substantial cost required for physical Vintage play. MTG Arena previously offered a comparable option with its Timeless format, but it excluded cards such as the Power Nine — Magic's classic powerhouse cards, such as Black Lotus, the Mox gem series, Time Walk, Timetwister, and Ancestral Recall.
Features of the Arena Powered Cube
The Powered Cube will include 100 new Arena card printings, but not all of them will be obtainable at the launch of the event. This enables the inclusion of a larger card pool, as some of these extremely strong cards could create imbalance issues in Constructed formats. According to the announcement, this also made the release of the latest cube faster. Fans online are already theorizing that this decision was a response to the poor reception of the Omenpaths set — the Arena version of Marvel's Spider-Man and the least-played Arena set ever, according to some reports.
Event Structure and Participation Information
Launching a iteration of one of the most popular cubes ever will certainly increase engagement in MTG Arena, but there is an key point to note. The Powered Cube will use a prize structure and entry fee comparable with the Premier Draft tournaments, thus being more expensive to play than earlier cube events. The event structure will be the following:
- Event Start: October 28, 8 a.m. PT (3 p.m. UTC)
- Registration Ends: November 18, 8:00 AM Pacific Time (3 p.m. UTC)
- Entry: 10,000 gold, or 1500 gems, or 1 Player Draft token
- Format: Phantom Player Draft (Participants won't retain the drafted cards)
- Best-of-One: 7 victories or 3 defeats; with ranking
- Match Play Mode: 3 matches; unranked
Prizes and Additional Information
The reward packs awarded during the event can contain almost every card legal in the Timeless format, along with cards from a unique bonus card list. Additional information on the prizes and the included cards in the Powered Cube, interested players can examine the official announcement. Also, on Oct. 22, professional Magic players Luis Scott-Vargas and Paul Cheon, experienced cube format experts, will share further insights on their YouTube channels.
