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The Classic Cube stands as one of the highly popular cubes on Magic Online, the premier digital service for playing MTG before MTG Arena came into existence. Now, Arena enthusiasts will get the opportunity to encounter true power when the Arena Powered Cube debuts on Oct. 28. According to the announcement, "This exciting event is distinct from all others on Arena and will feature some of the most powerful cards from throughout Magic's history, including the Power Nine."

What Is the Vintage Cube?

For seasoned Limited enthusiasts, a cube is a distinctive form of draft format that doesn't draw cards from one or more specific sets, but rather from a predetermined pool. The Vintage Cube has consistently served as a fun and popular way for MTG players to experience the thrills of using some of the strongest cards in the history of the game without having to pay the significant money required for tabletop Vintage. MTG Arena previously offered a comparable option with its Timeless format, but it excluded cards such as the iconic Power Nine — Magic's legendary high-power cards, such as the famed Black Lotus, the Mox gem series, Time Walk card, Timetwister, and Ancestral Recall ability.

Features of the Arena Powered Cube

The Arena Powered Cube will include a hundred fresh MTG Arena card printings, but not all of them will be obtainable at the launch of the event. This enables the addition of a larger card pool, as some of these extremely strong cards could cause balance problems in Constructed formats. According to the announcement, this also facilitated the launch of the new cube faster. Online community members are already theorizing that this decision was a reaction to the poor reception of the Omenpaths set — the Arena adaptation of Marvel's Spider-Man and the lowest-engagement Arena set ever, according to some reports.

Event Structure and Participation Information

Introducing a version of one of the most popular cubes ever will certainly increase engagement in Arena, but there is an important caveat to note. The Arena Powered Cube will adopt a reward system and access cost similar to the Premier Draft tournaments, thus being more expensive to play than earlier cube events. The event structure will be the following:

• Begins On: Oct. 28, 8 a.m. PT (15:00 UTC)
• Registration Ends: November 18, 8:00 AM Pacific Time (3 p.m. UTC)
• Participation Cost: 10k 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
• Best-of-Three: 3 matches; unranked

Rewards and Extra Details

The reward packs issued as rewards can contain nearly all cards permitted in the Timeless format, plus cards from a unique bonus card list. For more details on the rewards and the included cards in the Arena Powered Cube, interested players can review the full details. Also, on Oct. 22, MTG pro players LSV and Paul Cheon, long-time cube format experts, will provide more updates on their YouTube channels.