Welcome to limbo week!

As it stands, most Magic formats are currently in a transitionary period. Bloomburrow is about to release, as well as the big Standard rotation, which makes playing Standard out of the question. Modern is currently existing under the shadow of Nadu, Winged Wisdom, a card that is obviously going to be banned but we're just waiting for Wizards of the Coast to pull the trigger. Legacy is currently in a state of Grief. I suppose Pioneer is technically fine, but Bloomburrow will likely have an impact there and the unholy trifecta of Treasure Cruise, Rakdos Vampires, and Amalia may eventually warrant some action.

So, what is one to do while we wait?

CUBE!

The MTG Arena Cube is up once again during this sort of dead week, and now is the perfect time to crack some Cube packs and enjoy one of Magic's best formats!

The MTG Arena Cube is definitely a different experience than the Magic Online Vintage Cube, as it doesn't contain a lot of Magic's most broken cards for earlier in the game, but it's also a lot of fun. The games are fairer, and you get to see a wider variety of cards that may be awesome but not normally see tournament play.

I go over everything in the video (which is a must watch, the deck was awesome and we had some incredible games), but three main factors go into drafting the MTG Arena Cube:

Your Mana base Is A Top Priority

Just like in Constructed, your mana base defines what you can do with your deck. Think of your Cube deck mana base more like a Constructed deck than a Limited deck; You would never play 9 Plains, 8 Mountain in a Constructed Boros deck, so it's definitely not something you should be doing in Cube.

High quality lands are a huge priority while drafting if your deck is at least two colors, and if you're three colors or more even more so. Fetchlands are the highest priority, as they can often get a bunch of different colors of lands, but the duals that go with them are also high priority too.

Your Mana Curve Is A Top Priority

Just like in Constructed or normal Limited, you must have things to do early in the game or you will fall hopelessly behind. Yes, there are a ton of awesome five and six mana spells in the Cube, but you can't fill your deck with them an hope to succeed.

You need more cards in your deck that cost one, two, and three mana than any other costs, so even an equal distribution just won't do. This means you need to prioritize cheaper cards during the draft portion much like the good lands - they are a requirement for a good deck.

If you're ever unsure about the pick between two cards, your tiebreaker should always be "take the cheaper one."

You Only Need About 25 Playable Spells

There are very few "unplayable" cards in the Cube, which means that of the 45 cards you draft, you will be able to put a large amount of them in your deck happily. Obviously, your goal is to draft a coherent deck, so you probably don't want Savannah Lions and Farewell in the same deck, but it's not usually a stretch to get playable cards.

This plays into the last two points of wanting to use picks on lands and cheaper cards, because you're not afraid of getting enough playables or things to do on the top end, which leads into perhaps the most important Cube concept of all:

Value Over Replacement

Sure, it might not be as exciting to take that Polluted Delta or Fatal Push over a huge banger like Grave Titan, but the concept of value over replacement should always be in your mind.

It's not about the power level of each card in a vacuum that matters, but more so the idea of "how difficult will it be to find an adequate replacement for this card later in the draft?" There are very few black fetchlands or good one-mana Black removal spells in the Cube, which makes your odds of seeing another very low. However, there are a ton of great five- and six-mana win conditions in the Cube, which means that maybe you may not get this exact one, but you'll get something comparable.

Every time you're thinking about taking a card, think about how important this card is to what you're trying to do, and how easy would it be to replace this card? The draft in the video was a great example of this.

You only need so many playable cards, so make sure you take those cheap cards and lands, and don't be afraid to speculate a little bit too!