Great news! Magic: The Gathering Arena will now officially support the best format of Limited gameplay – Cube.
The fans demanded and Wizards of the Coast obliged. After a long wait, on top of the recent user interface changes, MTGA will officially start to support games of Cube – a format viewed by many as the pinnacle of Limited gameplay.
What is Cube?
Cube is a way to play Draft, but instead of using a traditionally designed thematic set, such as the latest Theros Beyond Death, players collect their favorite cards from all over Magic’s history and put them together to form a unique set.
Cube, just like Commander, was originally designed by players of Magic, and not Wizards themselves. It is a very customizable and individual format. The idea here is to combine your favorite cards and strategies in one so you get the best out of them.
There are many styles of Cube. Some sets are based on mechanics alone, others on rarity (such as Pauper Cube, using only commons), or even flavor (for example a Zendikar Plane Cube combining cards from the original Zendikar block with Battle for Zendikar and Oath of the Gatewatch sets released years apart.)
From what we currently know, Magic Cube Sealed will be “packaged” in special new packs designed especially for the format.
In terms of gameplay, Cube plays just like Draft, with players picking one card and passing the rest to their opponents. One intricacy is that picking the Rare first isn’t at all a viable strategy, as all cards in a Cube are put there for their mechanics and usability and rarity doesn’t really matter.
What does that mean for Arena?
Cube is usually reserved for private collectors and game shops that share cards. In Arena, the Cube pool won’t be added to our collections after the games, making it a “Phantom” event, which is fine. What we are mostly interested in is the card pool that will be available.
The preview artwork from the in-game menu depicts familiar faces such as Klothys, Massacre Girl and even History of Benalia – cards introduced in Theros Beyond Death, War of the Spark and Dominaria respectively.
The Arena Cube Sealed is still in the works and doesn’t have a release date yet, but since Wizards are publically talking about it, we can expect it to hit the game client very soon. It’s a time of wonderful new things for MGTA, with the new Ikoria set just around the corner.
