This cube is a heavily-proxied physical Vintage Cube (currently about 80% proxies), based on MTGOās Vintage Cube.
The plan is to mirror the original MTGO Vintage Cube closely, with some changes to account for personal taste and availability of cards.
The plan is to accrue more real cards and slowly phase out the proxies. You can take a look at all cards and their status (real vs. proxy) on this spreadsheet.
How does the Cube work?
The same as a normal draft environment. You get three 15-card packs. You select one of the cards. You pass the rest of the pack to the person on your left. You receive 14 cards from your right. You keep doing that until there are no more cards left. The second pack flows to the right, the third one goes back to being passed to the left.
After drafting you can add any number of basic land cards. You are looking to build a 40-card deck.
Iām still tweaking the details of how to seed packs: Iāll write more about it when I have a better idea of how it should work.
Draft pods start working with 6 players, but with 540 cards in total, technically the cube supports up to 12 players or two pods of 6. 8 player pods are ideal.
Every draft is a ghost draft: you give back the cards that you draft at the end of the day.
Can I play in the draft?
Maybe! Currently, the draft is invite only.
If you are playing in a draft, I ask that you contribute to the draft somehow. You can do this in one of three ways:
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Donate a sealed pack to give out as a prize
We will discuss how to best distribute prizes before the draft starts.
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Donate genuine cards to replace proxies in the cube
You can take a look at all cards in the cube here. You can bring some of your own cards to donate to the cube so that the proxies are replaced with real cards! All cards must be in English. All printings are valid, but I especially value original printings of cards.
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Donate sleeves to maintain the cube in top condition.
If you want to go above and beyond, you can bring a sealed pack of sleeves to replace old, torn or grimy sleeves. I use Standard Size Black Matte Dragon Shields. Please donāt bring any other types of sleeves.
Why Proxy?
The cheapest Vintage Cube you can build with real cards would run you around $15k. Unless my net worth changes drastically, Iām not spending that much on cardboard to play with. At the same time, I want to play with physical cards.
Also, because proxies are cool and good, actually.
Why build this cube?
I like Magic: The Gathering. Iāve liked it since I saw a couple of kids play it on a small coffee table at the house of a colleague of my dadās back when I was about 8 (before the modern card frame!).
I didnāt really play regularly until 2025, although Iāve been following MTG professional play on-and-off since about 2011. Since then, Iāve enjoyed mostly Limited, since it doesnāt require a huge commitment upfront; you can just show up, draft some packs and play.
I donāt like a lot of the Universes Beyond sets that have been coming out recently. I missed out on Lord of the Rings and quite liked Final Fantasy, despite not knowing much about the games. But more than half of 2026 being Universes Beyond? Count me out. Spider-Man was uninspired, which makes me even less interested in TMNT, Marvel Superheroes or Star Trek (all franchises that I donāt care for).
I still want to play Magic in 2026! Hell, I want to play Limited in 2026. And I want to play it in person: I enjoy the feeling of shuffling the cards, looking my opponent in the eye and shaking their hand after a good match.
With the success of the Powered Cube in Arena and the continued popularity of the OG Vintage Cube in MTGO, I a Vintage-like Cube seemed like the most interesting option for the largest group of potential players.