The Arena Cube Draft, July 16–30

Greetings! Welcome to Arena Cube July 2024 edition! The Arena Cube is a fan-favorite experience we're always excited to feature, and this season we've got a few extra-special changes to share with you.

Slow Down! What's Cube?

Cube is like Booster Draft but pulls cards from across Magic's history. There are all sorts of permutations of Cubes, from high powered to rarity restricted, special rules to color restricted, and many, many more flavors. The Arena Cube is a powerful, classic Cube experience:

1. High Powered. The Arena Cube uses many of the most powerful cards available on MTG Arena.
2. Fast. Many of the strongest cards on MTG Arena are cheap, which means you need to have a plan either to be aggressive or to answer aggression. Accordingly, this cube is lower on synergies, combos, and giant plays more frequently seen in another of our Cube events, the Chromatic Cube.
   
3. Singleton. The Arena Cube contains exactly 540 cards with only one copy of each.
   
4. Phantom. In tabletop, a cube is lent out to players who return the cards at the end of the draft, and the same is true here. Cards are not added to a player's collection.

Arena Cube Event Details

• Event Open: July 16, 8 a.m. PT (15:00 UTC)
• Signup Close: July 30, 8 a.m. PT (15:00 UTC)
• Entry: 4,000 gold or 600 gems
• Format: Arena Cube Phantom Player Draft
• Structure:
  • Best-of-One: Seven wins or three losses
  • Best-of-Three: Three matches
• Rewards: Historic individual card rewards (ICRs) not in Standard

Changes in This Arena Cube

One of the biggest changes to the Arena Cube is to its mana. Our headliners are the enemy-colored fetch lands, which join the Khans of Tarkir allied-color fetch lands. Thanks to the Murders at Karlov Manor surveil lands, all ten fetch lands have 50% more lands to fetch. In fact, there are almost 50% more lands total in the Arena Cube than last time.

Every color pair has seven lands supporting it. To use Simic as an example, you have access to Botanical Sanctum, Breeding Pool, Dreamroot Cascade, Hedge Maze, Hinterland Harbor, Misty Rainforest, and Restless Vinestalk, plus Spara's Headquarters, Ketria Triome, and Zagoth Triome. So, it should be a good bit easier to stretch your colors and splash a few off-color cards, or if you're like me, you could get quite greedy with your mana and still fend off aggro by putting Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury in the same deck as Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath.

You'll also see plenty of new faces with Murders at Karlov Manor, Alchemy: Karlov Manor, Outlaws of Thunder Junction (including cards from Breaking News and The Big Score), Alchemy: Thunder Junction, and Modern Horizons 3. And of course, there are some very Special Guests.

Testing a Higher Power Band

We're trying something different and perhaps just a teensy bit risky this season. Solitude, Grief, and Fury are Constructed all-stars and likely to be among the strongest cards in the Arena Cube. Fractured Identity and Pest Infestation are generally seen in the highest-powered cubes (known as Powered Cube or Vintage Cube). And Mana Drain is one of the most powerful counterspells in the entire history of Magic. They all compromise a sudden spike in the power-level ceiling of Arena Cube.

At the same time, we have chosen to omit other high-powered cube staples available on MTG Arena, like Oko, Thief of Crowns, Channel, and Show and Tell. We're dipping our toes into the waters of higher power, not jumping in head first. Depending on how this experiment goes, we could lean farther into higher power, ease off the gas and give more space for new cards to breathe, or perhaps end up with the Arena Cube splitting into two different entities. Time will tell.

Hopefully you've enjoyed this glimpse into the design process of the Arena Cube. The cube is an absolute blast to play, and I encourage you to try it out, test out some different archetypes, and test your mettle against the competition.

Arena Cube Card Lists

The following lists contain all cards in the Arena Cube broken down by color.