🔗 Share this article

The Classic Cube stands as one of the highly popular cubes on Magic Online, the primary digital service for playing Magic: The Gathering before Arena was launched. Now, MTGA players will have the chance to encounter immense strength when the Powered Cube limited event debuts on October 28. As per the announcement, "This exciting event is unlike anything else on Arena and will showcase some of the most powerful cards from across Magic's legacy, featuring the legendary Power Nine."

Understanding the Classic Cube?

As experienced Limited players know, a cube is a unique form of Booster Draft that does not pull cards from particular expansions, but instead from a pre-selected collection. The Classic Cube has long been 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 needing to spend the substantial cost required for physical Vintage play. Arena previously offered a comparable option with its Timeless play style, but it excluded cards such as the iconic Power Nine — MTG's legendary high-power cards, including Black Lotus, the Mox gem series, Time Walk, Timetwister, and Ancestral Recall ability.

Details of the Arena Powered Cube

The Powered Cube will incorporate 100 new MTG Arena card printings, but some of these will be obtainable at the release of the event. This enables the addition of a larger card pool, as some of these extremely strong cards could create imbalance issues in Constructed formats. Based on the announcement, this also facilitated the launch of the new cube quicker. Online community members are already theorizing that this move was a response to the poor reception of the Omenpaths set — the Arena version of a Spider-Man themed set and the least-played Arena set ever, according to some reports.

Event Structure and Participation Details

Introducing a version of one of the top draft formats ever will certainly boost numbers in MTG Arena, but there is an important caveat to add. The Powered Cube will adopt a prize structure and access cost similar to the Premier Draft events, thus being costlier to play than earlier cube events. The event structure will be the following:

• Event Start: October 28, 8 a.m. PT (15:00 UTC)
• Signup Close: Nov. 18, 8:00 AM Pacific Time (15:00 UTC)
• Entry: 10,000 gold, or 1,500 gems, or 1 Player Draft token
• Game Style: Phantom Player Draft (Participants won't retain the event cards)
• Single Game Mode: 7 victories or 3 defeats; ranked
• Best-of-Three: 3 matches; without ranking

Prizes and Additional Details

The Cube Prize Packs issued as rewards can contain almost every card legal in the Timeless format, plus cards from a unique bonus card list. For more details on the prizes and the included cards in the Arena Powered Cube, interested players can review the official announcement. Also, on October 22, professional Magic players Luis Scott-Vargas and Paul Cheon, long-time Vintage Cube aficionados, will provide more updates on their video platforms.