It's the holiday season! And what's that mean? Christmas is coming, the year is winding down, and it's time for Holiday Cubes on Magic Online!

The current online Cube is the Modern Cube and like most Magic Online Cubes it's not very well designed. Like most Magic Online Cubes, there are too many planeswalkers and 4-6 drops, not enough enablers, and pretty much every deck you draft ends up being a midrange pile of planeswalkers and mythic rares.

(I may be doing a Cube design article over the holiday season explaining why the Magic Online Cubes are always so bad, as well as going over important Cube design principles as well as my own Cube, so look for that later in December. If this is something that would interest you please let me know in the comments!)

However, the good news is that even poorly designed Cubes are still fun!

There's nothing like being able to draft in your underwear late at night after a long day of eating turkey, Christmas shopping, or dealing with your family, so I'm here to show you how to draft the Magic Online Modern Cube for fun and profit (okay, mainly just fun). Midrange is the name of the game, so let's go!

Draft Deck | MTGO Modern Cube | Jim Davis

• Creatures (8)
• 1 Channeler Initiate
• 1 Hornet Queen
• 1 Joraga Treespeaker
• 1 Knight of Autumn
• 1 Lotus Cobra
• 1 Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1 Tarmogoyf
• 1 Voice of Resurgence

• Planeswalkers (6)
• 1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
• 1 Garruk Relentless
• 1 Garruk Wildspeaker
• 1 Karn, Scion of Urza
• 1 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
• 1 Xenagos, the Reveler

• Sorceries (4)
• 1 Genesis Wave
• 1 Harmonize
• 1 Martial Coup
• 1 Oust

• Enchantments (3)
• 1 History of Benalia
• 1 Oblivion Ring
• 1 Utopia Sprawl

• Artifacts (3)
• 1 Gruul Signet
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Selesnya Signet

• Lands (16)
• 3 Plains
• 8 Forest
• 1 Arid Mesa
• 1 Marsh Flats
• 1 Stirring Wildwood
• 1 Stomping Ground
• 1 Sunpetal Grove

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As we can see, things went perfectly according to plan.

The Modern Cube (and most Magic Online Cubes) are all about mana acceleration and planeswalkers/midrange threats. It's important to be able to win the planeswalker arms race, while also having cards that are good against other planewalkers. Most decks will just be midrange piles, so make sure your midrange pile is faster and better!

The most important take away from this draft is what I like to call "value over replacement." As we can see, planeswalkers and dumb 4-6 mana mythics are a dime a dozen in this Cube, so it's important to make your picks understanding that some cards are far more scarce than others. There are a finite number of one mana accelerators or good removal spells in the Cube; there are too many five mana idiots to even count.

Take your irreplaceable cards early, draft some mana acceleration and planeswalkers and get to work! And have fun! It's not perfect, but Cubing is still great.