The Vintage Cube is recognized as one of the highly popular cubes on Magic Online, the primary digital service for playing MTG before Arena was launched. Now, MTGA players will get the opportunity 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 feature some of the strongest cards from across Magic's legacy, featuring the Power Nine."
Understanding the Vintage Cube?
As experienced Limited players know, a cube is a unique form of Booster Draft that does not pull cards from one or more specific sets, but instead from a pre-selected collection. The Vintage Cube has consistently served as a fun and popular way for Magic fans to experience the thrills of using some of the strongest cards in the game's history without having to pay the significant money required for physical Vintage play. Arena introduced something similar with its Timeless format, but it excluded cards such as the Power Nine — Magic's legendary high-power cards, including the famed Black Lotus, the Mox gem series, Time Walk card, Timetwister spell, and Ancestral Recall.
Features of the Arena Powered Cube
The Powered Cube will include a hundred fresh Arena card versions, but some of these will be obtainable at the release 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 gameplay. According to the announcement, this also facilitated the launch of the new cube faster. Online community members are already speculating that this move was a response to the poor reception of the Omenpaths set — the Arena adaptation of a Spider-Man themed set and the least-played Arena set ever, as indicated by various sources.
How It Works and Entry Information
Launching a iteration of one of the most popular cubes ever will surely boost numbers in MTG Arena, but there is an important caveat to note. The Powered Cube will adopt a reward system and entry fee similar to the Premier Draft events, thus being costlier to play than previous Arena cubes. The format details will be the following:
- Begins On: Oct. 28, 8 a.m. PT (3 p.m. UTC)
- Registration Ends: November 18, 8:00 AM Pacific Time (15:00 UTC)
- Participation Cost: 10,000 gold, or 1500 gems, or 1 Player Draft token
- Format: Phantom Player Draft (Players do not keep the drafted cards)
- Single Game Mode: 7 victories or 3 defeats; with ranking
- Best-of-Three: Three matches; without ranking
Prizes and Extra Details
The reward packs awarded during the event can include almost every card permitted in the Timeless format, along with cards from a new, special bonus sheet. Additional information on the rewards and the included cards in the Arena Powered Cube, interested players can examine the full details. Additionally, on October 22, MTG pro players Luis Scott-Vargas and Paul Cheon, long-time cube format experts, will provide more updates on their YouTube channels.
