The Vintage Cube is recognized as one of the highly popular cubes on Magic Online, the primary digital service for playing Magic: The Gathering before Arena came into existence. Now, Arena enthusiasts will get the opportunity to experience immense strength when the Powered Cube limited event launches on October 28. According to the announcement, "This thrilling occasion is unlike anything else on MTG Arena and will feature some of the strongest cards from throughout Magic's history, featuring the Power Nine."
Understanding the Vintage Cube?
For seasoned Limited enthusiasts, a cube is a unique form of draft format that doesn't draw cards from particular expansions, 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 game's history without having to pay the substantial cost required for tabletop Vintage. MTG Arena introduced something similar with its Timeless play style, but it excluded cards such as the iconic Power Nine — Magic's classic powerhouse cards, including the famed Black Lotus, the five Moxen, Time Walk card, Timetwister spell, 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 release of the event. This enables the addition of a broader selection of cards, as some of these extremely strong cards could cause balance problems in Constructed formats. According to the official news, this also made the release of the new cube faster. Online community members are already speculating that this move was a response to the negative feedback of Through the Omenpaths — the Arena adaptation of a Spider-Man themed set and the least-played Arena set ever, according to some reports.
Event Structure and Participation Details
Introducing a iteration of one of the most popular cubes ever will surely boost numbers in Arena, but there is an important caveat to add. The Powered Cube will adopt a reward system and access cost similar to the Premier Draft tournaments, thus being costlier to play than earlier cube events. The event structure will be the following:
- Begins On: Oct. 28, 8 a.m. PT (3 p.m. UTC)
- Signup Close: Nov. 18, 8 a.m. PT (15:00 UTC)
- Participation Cost: 10k gold, or 1500 gems, or 1 Player Draft token
- Game Style: Phantom Player Draft (Participants won't retain the event cards)
- Best-of-One: 7 victories or 3 defeats; with ranking
- Match Play Mode: 3 matches; without ranking
Prizes and Extra Details
The Cube Prize Packs issued as rewards can contain almost every card legal in the Timeless mode, plus cards from a unique bonus card list. For more details on the prizes and the included cards in the Arena Powered Cube, enthusiasts can examine the full details. Also, on Oct. 22, professional Magic players Luis Scott-Vargas and Paul Cheon, experienced cube format experts, will provide more updates on their YouTube channels.
