The Cube Spotlight Series is intended to showcase interesting, novel, and fun Cube experiences and bring them to Magic Online. While we began with my Uncommon Cube, the series is broader than that, and these cubes can come from many sources. This one, for example, comes from the 2016 You Make the Cube contest: Eric Klug's Pro Tour Cube. The cube may have been a runner-up, but it was too good an idea to pass on forever.

If you have thoughts on the Cube Spotlight Series or any other Magic Online matter, please email us at MagicOnlineFeedback@wizards.com. Happy cubing!

Alli Medwin

Digital Product Manager, Magic Online

Introducing the Pro Tour Cube

Four years ago, I built a cube that would change my life forever. Wait, that's a bit dramatic. Four years ago, I built a cube that had fresh, unique gameplay and set itself apart from all other cubes I had drafted before it. It's now the cube I play most often. That cube is the Pro Tour Cube, and it's the one I have the great pleasure of introducing to you today. I'm here to give you a brief history of how this cube started, how I went about adapting it to be played on Magic Online, and a few of the ins and outs of drafting the Pro Tour Cube.

The creation of the Pro Tour Cube started with a tweet from three-time Pro Tour Top 8 finisher Sam Black. Sam mused that he'd "like to try playing a cube of one of every card to ever [Top 8] a PT." The subsequent discussion served to evolve the concept over the next few days. There were suggestions from many prominent figures in the Magic community: Hall of Famers Kai Budde and Patrick Chapin, Pro Tour historian Brian David-Marshall, and Grand Prix Champion Jarvis Yu, to name a few. Taking in many of these ideas, for me the cube boiled down to limiting the cards to only Constructed Pro Tours (including old Worlds events), the exclusion of sideboards, and the parameter of including only the winning decks from each Pro Tour.

Most cubes have a theme, but usually not one that so tightly restricts which of the nearly 20,000 cards in Magic will find a spot among its ranks. Like winning the Pro Tour itself, earning a slot in the Pro Tour Cube is a tall order. There are some cards ubiquitous in tournament Magic that have racked up many Pro Tour Top 8s but have always fell short of winning, and some that were lucky that one time. That aspect is just a taste of what makes this cube special, though it's an important one. The question I get asked most often when playing this cube, even by pros themselves, is, "When did that win a Pro Tour?" So, while the cube contains many familiar inclusions found in the Magic Online Vintage Cube and Legacy Cube, there are plenty of long-lost favorites, and a few cards you've maybe never played in any cube.

The paper version of the Pro Tour Cube I built has a copy of literally every card that has ever won a Constructed Pro Tour. That version currently clocks in at a whopping 906 cards. For the Magic Online version of the cube, I've cut the number down to 540, the same number as my runner-up You Make the Cube entry from 2016. Six champions and 63 new cards have been crowned at the Pro Tour since then, so the list has been updated considerably. If you're an avid cuber, you may know 540 is also one and a half times the number of cards you need for an eight-player Cube draft. That means each draft table will see around 66% of the entire cube. This aids players in putting together more powerful, streamlined decks and gives them a better chance at assembling some of the combos and high synergies the cube has to offer. Trimming the cube allowed me to cut some cards not well suited for a higher powered Limited environment (e.g., Cranial Extraction, Storm Shaman) or cards that aren't well supported in the larger pool (e.g., Lightning Rift, Ramosian Sergeant). I did my best to make sure every card is either playable on its own or has some amount of support in the cube. There were just enough Pro Tour-winning Zombies to keep Gerry Thompson's Zombie tribal cards around, but unfortunately, all of Kai Budde's Rebels had to go. Finally, the cube at this size is close to perfectly color balanced, unlike its predecessor, which currently has a 56-card difference between most and least populous colors.

Drafting the Pro Tour Cube feels like equal parts traditional cubing, Masters set draft, kitchen table Magic, and some long-forgotten Constructed formats. The upper limit of the cube's power level is similar to MTGO's Legacy Cube and, on average, a touch below it. Many of Magic's earlier Pro Tour-winning cards, often passed over in cubes in favor of their contemporary counterparts, have a home in the Pro Tour Cube and get a chance to shine once again. Overall, a good way to approach the format is to look for the synergies. Each card represents a component of a Pro Tour-winning deck, meaning many of the cards work extremely well together if they're not an outright two-card combo. It should come as no surprise then that classic archetypes are also present: blue-black control, red-white aggro, green ramp, etc. Pro Tour historians may have a leg up, but simply being an engaged drafter works just fine. As with many cubes, perusing the card list before jumping into a queue can be very helpful.

Keep in mind that this cube can challenge tried-and-true card evaluations and expectations of cards you've played with in the past. The example I often give is Tinker, which is an extremely potent threat in even the very powerful Vintage Cube, but not very dangerous here. The Pro Tour Cube spans 22 years of Pro Tour history, and Tinker won early on in a deck where no Blightsteel Colossus, Sundering Titan, or Myr Battlesphere were to be found. So, you won't find any of those and may have to settle for a Bosh, Iron Golem; Pentavus; or Platinum Angel.

Last, I want to point out some of those two- and three-card combos. A few are quite commonplace in your average cube, some not at all, and others are formed out of a bit of cross pollination between the card's respective decks over the years:

It's difficult to convey how excited I am to share a cube that has brought me so much joy over the past four years. It was an experiment with results that left me pleasantly surprised. The Pro Tour Cube can feel somewhat familiar, and yet completely foreign. In that, it can serve as a good palate cleanser from your "normal" Cube experiences, but also has the depth to be drafted many, many times over. Beyond its playability, it's a living relic of Magic history, which is cool in its own right. While I've always enjoyed watching Pro Tour coverage, the anticipation of what will get added to the cube next makes the finish that much more exciting. Please enjoy.

EVENT DETAILS

Pro Tour Cube Phantom Single-Elimination Queue

Start Time: Wednesday, August 15 at 10 a.m. PT

End Time: Wednesday, August 22 at 7 a.m. PT

Location: Play Lobby -> Limited Tournaments -> Queues

Entry Options:

10 Event Tickets

100 Play Points

Number of Players: 8

Product: 3 phantom Pro Tour Cube boosters

Structure: Draft, then 3 rounds of single-elimination

Prize Structure:

1st place: 220 Play Points + 1 QP

2nd place: 160 Play Points

3rd or 4th place: 100 Play Points

Pro Tour Cube Phantom Draft League

Start Time: Wednesday, August 15 at 10 a.m. PT

Close Time: Wednesday, August 22 at 6 a.m. PT

End Time: Wednesday, August 22 at 10 a.m. PT

Location: Play Lobby -> Limited Tournaments-> Leagues

Entry Options:

10 Event Tickets

100 Play Points

Product: 3 phantom Pro Tour Cube boosters

Structure: Draft, then up to 3 matches played at your convenience

Prize Structure: