Magic Online Weekly Announcements, August 19, 2025

Posted on Aug 19, 2025

THE LEAD 

Read All About It – Vintage Cube League Returns Tomorrow

It’s almost time for another round of Vintage Cube. This iteration features some new overarching themes involving old favorites as well as the debut of cards from Edge of Eternities. Creative Director Ryan Spain and Cube Curator Chris Wolf present the updated card list and archetypes in this article – be sure to give it a read before you start playing.

As usual, the Always-On Vintage Cube queue will keep its current configuration until the League begins tomorrow at 10 a.m. PT (17:00 UTC).

You can always find the most recent Vintage Cube card lists on this page.

Vintage Cube Bundle On Sale Now!

Our Vintage Cube Holiday Bundle returns - the best deal in Cube!

For $27 USD, you get the following:

• 3 Vintage Cube Draft Tokens – each Token is an entry option into a League course until downtime on September 17 – a savings of $1 per draft!
• A Chrome Companion avatar - exclusive to this Bundle offering.

The Draft Bundle itself is not tradeable nor are its contents. The Tokens expire when the Cube League ends on September 17, so be sure to use them all up (we’ll remove them at that time and they are non-refundable)!

Preview League Lasts 1 More Day

Until tomorrow morning, 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 tomorrow, August 20 at 5 a.m. PT (12:00 UTC).

In order to enter the League, you’ll need to get yourself Draft Points. How do you acquire those? Enter the code 2025AUG into the box in the MTGO Store 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.

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

Extra Downtime Next Monday, 8-9 a.m. PT

We will be taking an extra downtime early next week to address some technical issues unrelated to MTGO itself. Magic Online will be down for maintenance starting at 8 a.m. Pacific (for all times in UTC, add 7 hours) on Monday, August 25^th. It is expected to last only one hour, anticipating a return at 9 a.m. PT.

• The Legacy and Limited Preliminaries at 4 & 5 a.m. PT that day will be canceled.
• The Modern Challenge and Duel Commander Trial at 7 & 8 a.m. PT that day will bump back three hours to 10 & 11 a.m. PT.
• The Standard Challenge, Modern Preliminary, and Pioneer Challenge between 1 and 4 p.m. PT will bump back 1 hour to 2-5 p.m. PT.

PREMIER PLAY

MOCS Postseason Continues This Weekend

It’s time once again to qualify players for the next Magic Online Champions Showcase in October! Over the next two weekends, Top 8 finishers from Showcase Challenges and 5-win players from Last Chance events (see Premier Play below) will battle until one remains as this season’s Showcase Champion for that format.

In addition to reaching the Champions Showcase (with its $50,000 prize pool and two invitations to the 2026 World Championship), the winner of each Showcase Qualifier is invited to the first Pro Tour of 2026 plus the Regional Championship round in October-November feeding that event. Leaderboard Points are also on the line as players seek one of two At-Large invites at the end of the postseason.

Here’s the schedule:

If you miss out on reaching the Showcase Qualifiers, you’ll have a final shot at reaching the MOCS Showcase from one of two Limited-format MOCS Open events on September 6-7.

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

EOE Limited Super Qualifier Friday

It’s a new season for tabletop’s Regional Championship qualifying, so your next chance to earn a seat at the January-February 2026 RC comes up this Friday.

We’ll have a Limited RC Super Qualifier that begins Friday, August 22 at 7 a.m. PT (14:00 UTC)!

It takes 40 Event Tickets or 400 Play Points to enter this event. This is also the final tournament to accept 40 Season 2 Qualifier Points as entry before they expire (Season 3 QPs are not usable for this event). The Top 4 finishers earn seats at the RC and prizes go down to 128^th place.

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

MTGO BROADCASTS

MisplacedGinger Wins the Modern Creator Showdown!

Dozens of your favorite Magic content creators took on the Modern format competing for up to $5,000 in cash and prizes in Saturday’s MTGO Creator Showdown!

After five rounds of play, only MisplacedGinger emerged unscathed. In the finals against Hall of Famer Reid Duke in a Boros Energy mirror match, both players had viewers and casters on the edge of their seats with clutch draws and lightning-fast play! It came down to the final seconds, but MisplacedGinger secured the win with decisive board dominance.

Other top finishers earning cash included LucasG1ggs (Boros Energy) and Sandioche (Domain Zoo).

Our new Creator GameShowdown format returns next month! Be on the lookout for announcements and upcoming players. Watch all the action here! 

Catch YungDingo Streaming on Fridays

Magic Online is pleased to bring you weekly streams from some of our top creators. We’ve teamed up with YungDingo to show off MTGO at a regular time each week.

YungDingo takes the reins Friday nights at 6 pm PT (01:00 Tuesday UTC) streaming at twitch.tv/magiconline.

There will be giveaways galore, including Play Point codes and his own unique in-game avatar!

Visit YungDingo's stream and collect each Friday

EVENT UPDATES

MTGO Spellgrounds – Standard Next Week

Great news – our Spellgrounds project continues! Try out a slice of the current metagame between Monday and Wednesday – all with sideboards geared specifically for this group – all for free!

You’ll encounter a Super-Jump style draft – 3 of the 6 decks are presented randomly for you to select one. Then play up to 3 matches without the pressure of prizes on the line.

Spellgrounds are pre-empted this week by the Vintage Cube Preview, but they return next week with Standard following downtime (spoiler alert: Izzet Cauldron won’t be on the menu). Watch our Discord for links to the decklist page on Moxfield when it’s posted later this week.

Here’s the upcoming schedule:

• August 18 – None (Vintage Cube Preview League)
• August 25 – Standard
• Labor Day Weekend (August 30-September 3) - Pioneer
• September 10 - Vintage

We hope you find this is a no- or low-risk way to expand your horizons in Magic Online and it’s a great way to learn new formats!

ALTERNATE PLAY

Expiring QPs Usable for Vintage Cube Single Elimination 1 More Day

Those expired Blue Season 2 Qualifier Points will be redeemable for free entries into the Vintage Cube Single Elimination queue - but only for one more day. . The queue closes early tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. PT  (14:00 UTC). These events will use the current iteration of the Cube, not the one that will debut later that day in the League.

In a change from past seasons, the number of QPs per free entry has increased. Each free entry will take 12 Season 2 QPs. Regular entry options of 10 Event tickets or 100 Play Points still apply.

Pack Wars! TDM Continue 1 More Week

Attention Limited fans: We've taken a long-time favorite of Magic at big conventions and brought it into Magic Online. There are some who call it Mini-Master, but on MTGO it’s Pack Wars! This format is up and running and our next pack at war is Tarkir: Dragonstorm.

There are two different flavors of Pack Wars events – both of which are Best-of-One formats: a Keeper Swiss League, and a 2-Player Phantom Queue.

These events will run until Wednesday, August 27. We’ll reveal our next set in the Pack Wars queue next week.

Get all the details in the Edge of Eternities set article!

Alternate Play Schedule

Here’s a look at the schedule of events coming up between now and Through the Omenpaths. 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 (17:00 UTC) unless otherwise noted.

• Until September 17 – These are the weeks where the Vintage Cube League returns! (Phantom)
• September 17-23 – Shred those packs and build the best you can in Tarkir: Dragonstorm Supreme Draft. (Phantom)

When Do Vintage Cube Leagues Return?

• August 20-September 17 – Edge of Eternities Refresh
• October 1-21 – Update to support MOCS

WEEKLY UPDATES

Read All About It – Edge of Eternities on MTGO

Magic’s first space opera is in flight – Edge of Eternities! Check out this page for information on what we have going on with this set:

• Awesome premium effects, including Galaxy Foil and Viewport Frames with animation
• A handful of Quality-of-Life Improvements
• Premium Boosters return for $6.99 USD each
• Draft Bundles are back for a three-week run – including an exclusive avatar
• The debut of Pack Wars events

Note: EOE Limited events will use the traditional entry options and prize structures shown on the MTGO Limited events page and the Premier Play pages

Redemption Corner

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

Aetherdrift and Tarkir: Dragonstorm regular redemptions remain on sale in the MTGO Store. Foil-for-regular redemption sets for those expansions have sold out.

Edge of Eternities redemption tokens will go on sale August 27^th.

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

AROUND THE WEB

MTGO University

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 the MTGO University playlists on YouTube.

NEXT SCHEDULED DOWNTIME – August 25, 8-9 a.m. PT

The next scheduled maintenance is Monday, August 25 from 8-9 a.m. PT (15:00-16:00 UTC).