Usman's Cube Articles

There were some points that I cut from my article about the MTGO cube being powered, which I cut because the article was already tl;dr but I figured that I’d compile them here.

[It’s also where I need to razz Anthony a bit for not having updated his cube list. 🙂
But yeah, it has cards from RTR all non-Prophecy sets before, it still has 10 signets, still has 10 bouncelands and aggro’s still very good in it.
Also, there’s an article I did some time ago about underrated MTGO cube cards that I re-remembered through recent blog referral data. Thankfully, all of the cards are still there and some cards like Goblin Welder got better and ones like Steppe Lynx got better due to increased density of fetches [but it was definitely good even without them.]

……

Many people tend to stream drafts with MTGO when the MTG cube is available and this season should be no exception. Here are many that I’d recommend:

I assume that others like David Williams will as well, but I assume that almost everyone under the “Magic: The Gathering” sub-channel on Twitch will be streaming Cube, so if you’re worried about what the addition of power, signets and bouncelands will bring, I’d suggest giving some of the streams a whirl to see how it goes.

One of the interesting things is much like how some cards like Sylvan Library and Future Sight got new art for their introduction into the Magic Online cube, some of the power cards from this update are getting new art like Black Lotus, as well as Mana Drain, Mana Vault, Library of Alexandria and Mind Twist, as the Alpha Moxen use art from the 2006 – 2010 Vintage Champs oversized trophies, Ancestral Recall uses the art from the 2005 Vintage Champs and Timetwister using the art from the 2012 Vintage Champs.

A few months ago, there was some splash art on the “Planeswalker Points” quizzes. It was pre-RTR, so we now know that the art was as the following: Guildmage, Charm and Guildgate. There was a 4th picture, but we didn’t know what it was.

Through the Izzet vs Golgari box, we found out that the last one was a signet.

So I’m guessing that these will be used as the art for the signets on the MTGO cube, since it’s doubtful that they’d create 10 different pieces of art just for a quiz background. I’m also wondering if these would be the arts used for Modern Masters, if Signets are printed there. The art could be used for just MTGO (like with the dual lands) but I’m thinking that they will be the new art for either MM or one of the Commander products in the future, since Signets are popular with the Commander crowd, as far as I know (or maybe it’s just wishful thinking since Simic Signet’s art was not very good and, with some new experiments to try the red signets in my cube, the arts for Boros Signet and Gruul Signet would be a nice addition, especially if they can be obtained in foil. Aside from Dimir’s art which looks kinda generic as with the spooky backdrop, the colors are much more dynamic on these as well and they all look much better than the originals, this coming from someone who actually digs the Hildebrandts’ art [RIP Tim.])