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 came into existence. Now, Arena enthusiasts will have the chance to experience immense strength when the Powered Cube limited event debuts on Oct. 28. As per the announcement, "This exciting event is unlike anything else on MTG Arena and will showcase some of the strongest cards from throughout Magic's history, featuring the Power Nine."
Understanding the Vintage 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 instead from a predetermined pool. The Vintage Cube has consistently served as a enjoyable and widely-used way for Magic fans to experience the thrills 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. Arena introduced something similar with its Timeless format, but it did not include cards such as the iconic Power Nine — Magic's legendary high-power cards, including Black Lotus, the five Moxen, Time Walk card, Timetwister, and Ancestral Recall.
Details of the Arena Powered Cube
The Arena Powered Cube will include 100 new Arena card versions, but not all of them will be obtainable at the launch of the event. This allows for the inclusion of a larger card pool, as some of these extremely strong cards could cause balance problems in Constructed gameplay. According to the announcement, this also made the release of the new cube faster. Fans online are already theorizing that this move was a reaction to the poor reception of the Omenpaths set — the Arena adaptation of Marvel's Spider-Man and the least-played Arena set ever, as indicated by various sources.
How It Works and Participation Details
Introducing a iteration of one of the most popular cubes ever will surely increase engagement in MTG Arena, but there is an important caveat to note. The 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: October 28, 8 a.m. PT (3 p.m. UTC)
- Registration Ends: Nov. 18, 8 a.m. PT (3 p.m. UTC)
- Participation Cost: 10k gold, or 1,500 gems, or 1 Player Draft token
- Game Style: Phantom Player Draft (Players do not keep the event cards)
- Single Game Mode: 7 victories or 3 defeats; ranked
- Best-of-Three: Three matches; unranked
Rewards and Extra Details
The Cube Prize Packs issued as rewards can contain nearly all cards legal in the Timeless format, along with cards from a new, special bonus sheet. Additional information on the rewards and the cards present in the Powered Cube, interested players can review the official announcement. Additionally, on Oct. 22, MTG pro players LSV and Paul Cheon, experienced cube format experts, will provide more updates on their YouTube channels.
