Magic Online Weekly Announcements, March 11, 2025

Posted on Mar 11, 2025

THE LEAD

Vintage Cube Returns!

It’s nearly time for a new round of MTGO’s favorite – the Magic Online Vintage Cube!

We have full-press coverage here on MTGO.com:

• Learn about the latest changes to the Cube from Cube Curator Chris Wolf in this article.
  • Want to see the full card list? Here’s your page.
• Creative Director Ryan Spain brings us up-to-date in the State of Vintage Cube
• If you are a Vintage Cube newbie or just getting comfortable with the format? We’ve got you covered with A Beginner’s Guide reference article from Cube aficionado Econbronen – read it, bookmark it, use it anytime!

Vintage Cube Free Preview League – 1 Day Left!

As a special welcome back to everyone following all the lag issues we’ve dealt with this year (read more about those below), we have brought back the Free Preview League that we ran with the Holiday Vintage Cube in December. Until tomorrow at 5 a.m. PT (12:00 UTC), you’ll be able to play single-game matches of the new Cube for free!

Try out some wacky strategies and learn how to find your draft lane – all in preparation for the real League starting tomorrow. The Free Vintage Cube Preview League runs until Wednesday, March 12 at 5 a.m. PT.

If you haven’t yet done so, you’ll need to get yourself Draft Points. How do you acquire those? Enter the code 2025MARCH into the box in the MTGO Store, just as shown below.

You can only redeem the code once on your account, but you will receive 2 Draft Points. Spend one of them to enter the draft queue, then play up to three single games with your Phantom draft deck. Then repeat this process once.

Win just one of those six total games and you’ll receive this event’s only prize - a special tradeable avatar featuring Scythecat Cub!

We’ll clear out any leftover Draft Points once the League ends.

Vintage Cube "Holiday” Bundle Returns

The other promotion we had during the last Holiday season, the Vintage Cube Holiday Bundle, also returns for a special appearance: same name, same price, new avatar!

For $27 USD, you get the following:

• 3 Vintage Cube Draft Tokens – each Token is an entry option into either a League course or an 8-player single-elimination draft starting Wednesday, March 12 – a savings of $1 per draft!
• A Loot, the Pathfinder avatar that can only be obtained via this Bundle during this promotion!

The Draft Bundle itself is not tradeable nor are its contents. The Tokens expire when the Cube League ends during our April 2 downtime, so be sure to use them all up (we’ll remove them at that time and they are non-refundable)!

Important: These Tokens are valid for a 3-week period this time, two weeks shorter than we had during the Holidays.

The New Hotness – Vintage Cube Single-Elim Queue All The Time!

Our community has been asking us for years now to find a way to have Vintage Cube up all the time, around the clock. After extensive care and thought, we present our solution – the 8-Player Single-Elimination Queue will be live continuously starting tomorrow, March 12.

We have tweaked the prize payouts to be more top-heavy – our most competitive Cubers will enjoy the challenge of higher-risk, higher-reward events.

8-Player Single-Elimination Queue

Entry Options:

• 10 Event Tickets or 100 Play Points (no changes)
• 1 Vintage Cube Draft Token (only when offered – currently March 12-April 2)

Prizes:

• 1^st Place – 400 Play Points and 3 Qualifier Points
• 2^nd Place – 200 Play Points and 1 Qualifier Point
• 3^rd-4^th Places – 1 Qualifier Point

The set of cards being used in this queue will always match the most recent League version. This page is the best reference.

64-Player Vintage Cube Events Back Tomorrow

Our Vintage Cube 64-Player Single-Elimination tournaments are back tomorrow starting at 10:30 a.m. PT (17:30 UTC). The schedule remains the same as the end of the Holiday season – new events fire every four hours between 6:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. PT (13:30 same day and 01:30 next day UTC).

For full details including the prize table, visit the MTGO Limited Events page.

MTGO BROADCASTS

Creator Showdown This Weekend – Vintage for up to $5,000!

Dozens of your favorite Magic content creators will be in action competing for up to $5,000 in cash and prizes in the next MTGO Creator Showdown this Saturday, March 15!

The rotating format of battle this month is Vintage and all participants will be streaming simultaneously in this six-round, double-elimination event starting at 9 a.m. PT (17:00 UTC).

Once the field is whittled down to 16 undefeated players, the official MTGO Twitch channel will fire up a broadcast hosted by our new host Admirable (aka Nathan Zamora) and featuring a rotating cast of commentators – this month it’s Ecobaronen (aka Andreas Petersen)! Look for that to begin between 10:30 and 11 a.m. PT (17:30-18:00 UTC).

We’ll whip around from stream to stream catching every turn of the cards until one player emerges with a 6-0 record and scores the top prize of $1,250!

There will be giveaways galore on the MTGO channel’s broadcast, so be sure to tune in and follow the action!

PREMIER PLAY & EVENT NEWS

Aetherdrift Limited RCQs Sunday & Monday

Your next chance to reach the Regional Championship arrives this weekend with tournaments featuring Aetherdrift Limited on both Sunday and St. Patrick’s Day Monday.

Sunday features a Limited Super Qualifier and Monday is the day for the Limited Qualifier. Both events feature the new set’s Sealed Deck format with Top 8 Draft starting at 7 a.m. PT.

Sunday’s Super Q accepts 40 Event Tickets, 400 Play Points, or 40 Season 1 Qualifier Points. The Top 4 are invited to the April-May round of tabletop RCs, and prizes go down as far as 128^th place.

It takes 40 Season 1 QPs to enter a Qualifier. The Top 2 finishers earn an invitation to the RC while prizes go to the Top 64!

For more information on these events, click the Premier Play Information link at the top of the Blog.

Season 1 QPs Expiring Soon

If you have been amassing Qualifier Points since December, it’s time to make time to use them up prior to season’s end. Here are the events that accept QPs between now and April 2:

• Super Qualifier on March 16 (DFT Limited)
• Qualifiers on March 17 (DFT Limited) and March 21 (Legacy)
• Showcase Challenges March 22-30 (Modern, Standard, Vintage, Legacy)
• Last Chance Events March 30-April 2 (Modern, Standard, Vintage, Legacy)
  • We’ll be adding a handful of extra Vintage Last Chances to the schedule – dates/times to be announced in a couple weeks

No decision has yet been made about spending expired QPs for events after April 2. We’ll make an announcement here in next week’s Blog.

ALTERNATE PLAY

Alternate Play Schedule

Here’s a look at the schedule of events coming up between now and Tarkir: Dragonstorm. Each description mentions if the Draft is Phantom – cards won’t be added to players’ collections in Phantom events. All transitions take place at 10:00 a.m. PT (18:00 UTC until March 8, 17:00 UTC after) unless otherwise noted.

• March 12-April 2 – The Vintage Cube will be back with another refresh for a single 3-week run. (Phantom)
  • Look for the article describing the latest update on Friday, March 7.
• April 2-8 – Before leaving Avishkar and Aetherdrift behind, we’ll make a return trip to the plane’s original format – Triple Kaladesh (Phantom)

When Does Vintage Cube Return?

• March 12-April 2 – Spring Refresh
• April 23-May 21 – Update to support MOCS

AROUND THE WEB

MTGO University – Fundamentals of Playing MTGO

We’ve introduced a brand-new landing spot for everything related to getting your new-to-MTGO friends up to speed on playing our game – MTGO University! Whether you’re new to a specific format, new to Magic Online, or are just curious about what this version of MTG is all about, check out MTGO University.

New to MTGO University – the MTGO Fundamentals playlist: short-form videos showing off a bunch of tips and tricks. Check it out on YouTube today!

New Education Series Comes to MTGO University in March

Next month, we’re launching an exciting new How-To series featuring one of our favorite content creators, OblivionSorrow, from The Grim Tutors! Join her as she embarks on a journey through Magic: The Gathering Online, guiding both new and returning players through the ins and outs of the game. From streams to YouTube videos, shorts, and more—there’s something for everyone. Stay tuned for more details!

WEEKLY UPDATES

Aetherdrift on MTGO

The need for (max) speed and the thrill of the open (interplanar) road take center stage in the newest expansion to arrive on Magic Online! Aetherdrift is available now in the MTGO Store - check out this article now for details on this shiny new set:

• The Golden Booster, with its GOLD First-Place Foils, awaits winners of Scheduled Events during DFT season plus it appears in 1 of 20 Treasure Chests.
• The 10-card Premium Booster returns with a tinge of GOLD – a First-Place Foil in every one – for only $6.99 USD.
• Beyond the Golden Booster, the Booster Fun in this set is stunning! Check out our favorites in the article.

Redemption Corner

We’ve updated our Redemption page with new quantity percentages.

Aetherdrift redemptions are now on sale in the MTGO Store!

A limited number of Duskmourn redemption tokens – both regular and foil-for-regular – have been added back into the Store.

Meanwhile, new BLB redemption orders are temporarily on hold. A technical issue incorrectly is requiring Starter Kit cards to Bloomburrow redemption as of a couple weeks ago. Apologies for the inconvenience.

As a reminder, we announced changes to the Redemption Program starting with Bloomburrow – read all about it in this article.

The last batch of Outlaws of Thunder Junction foil sets still remain available.

Magic Online Format Challenges Every Weekend

Format Challenges are the first step toward qualifying for Premier Play through your favorite Magic formats and provide excellent prizes for those looking to test their mettle in their favorite formats. Learn more about Premier Play qualification to get started today.

Magic Online's Format Challenges run as shown on the schedule on this page.

TOMORROW’S PATCH NOTES – March 12, 2025

Card Fixes

• Thousand-Year Storm will no longer reset the game after triggering multiple times
• Monstrous Rage will no longer lead to stuck matches (fixed Monday)

NEXT SCHEDULED DOWNTIME – April 2, 9 a.m.-Noon PT

The next scheduled maintenance is set for Wednesday, April 2 from 9 a.m. to 12 noon PT (16:00-19:00 UTC). This is to support the release of Tarkir: Dragonstorm.