MTG Arena Cube Lets Players Go Wild With 30 Fetch Lands

Last updated on March 26, 2025

​Misty Rainforest | Illustration by Shelly Wan

The Arena Cube Draft returns to MTG Arena from March 25 to April 8, 2025, with some shocking news: The chance for drafting some much-improved mana bases, as seen in this sweet 4-color deck:

Source: 3-0 deck by Fullerene60 (from the Jank Diver Gaming Discord).

Yeah, you're seeing that right. This Arena Cube has fetch lands.

In threes!

What Is The Arena Cube?

Bloodstained Mire | Illustration by Bruce Brenneise

In Magic, a Cube is a curated draft. Rather than cracking Play Boosters from a single MTG set (like Aetherdrift right now, or Tarkir: Dragonstorm in April), a cube's card pool is curated from across all Magic sets.

There are all sorts of cubes (high power, low power, Commons-only, and any flavor you can think of). The Arena Cube is specifically designed to be:

High-power: You get to play with some of the most powerful cards available on Magic Arena, and

Fast: Most of the best cards in this cube are low cost, so you either aim to go out all guns blazing, or have a plan for foes that do.

And this particular MTG Arena Cube has a couple of twists to make it even faster and furious-er.

How Is This Arena Cube Different?

Two words: Fetch Lands.

(Yes, those are two words… Our editor grows a year older every time we send him a draft saying “fetchlands”!)

And two more: Shock Lands.

Oh, and yet two more words: Not Singleton.

Let's break that down!

If you're new to Magic and have only played Standard, Pioneer, or Explorer, you may not have met the likes of Arid Mesa or Bloodstained Mire: 

They're nicknamed “fetch lands” for their activated ability, which lets you search two basic land types in your deck. They're among the most powerful lands you can play in any Magic format, making them off-the-charts powerful in a Limited environment.

They may not look so powerful at first glance, but they really are. And that's why WotC included them in this Arena cube, along with another important change to this Arena Cube iteration: They come in multiples.

Arena Cubes are usually Singleton, which is to say there's only one copy of each card in the cube's card pool. Normally, if you draft a Arid Mesa, then you can be 100% sure you won't see another copy. And if your foe plays one card, you can also be dead certain they won't have a second copy in their hand or library. But in this iteration, the cube pool has three copies of every fetch land, and two copies of every shock land. 

“Recognizing fetch lands' power is one of the steps in becoming a more experienced Cube drafter,” notes WotC in their Arena Cube's article. “We want to give more players the opportunities to play with and against these cards, but following the Singleton rule limits how much they can be played with and necessitates they be drafted highly. So, we have included three copies of each fetch land and two copies of each shock land as a treat and an experiment.”

How Will Fetch Lands and Shock Lands Affect This Arena Cube?

For starters, and this is true in any format, fetch lands and shock lands make mana bases much better. That's why, in Arena, fetch lands are one of the very few cards banned in Historic, while legal in Timeless. They pack enough power to define an MTG format.

Better mana bases mean faster and more consistent decks. Whatever it is your deck wants to do on the first couple of turns, a better mana base gives you better odds of making it happen.

Faster decks may mean that aggro gets stronger (aggro wants to punch face ASAP), but that's not always a given: It also means midrange and control get their answers online sooner, landfall decks get to pull their landfall shenanigans like clockwork, etc.

With fetch and shock lands, it's “no pain, no gain.” The activated abilities of these cards do 1 or 2 damage to you. If you start pinging and shocking yourself, your aggro and burn opponents are going to be very happy!

Beware of Bugs

According to the official Arena Cube Draft article, the only cards that you should see in multiples in any given pool are fetch lands (3x) and shock lands (2x). But there are several players on reddit that have reported finding other cards (both lands and non-lands) in multiples.

At the time of writing, WotC hasn't confirmed if this is indeed happening, and if it is a bug or not.

How Much Does Arena Cube Cost?

Bloodstained Mire | Illustration by Bruce Brenneise

Entry fee for the Arena Cube is either 4,000 gold or 600 gems. Both Best-of-One and Best-of-Three cost the same.

While cheaper than other Draft formats, be aware that the Arena Cube is a phantom format – you do not get to keep the cards you draft (unlike Quick, Premier, or Traditional Drafts). Also notice that rewards are in gold, not gems.

Here are the payouts, according to the official Arena Cube Draft article.

Source: Official Arena Cube Draft article

If you love crunching numbers, you'll probably notice that the Arena Cube payouts are not as good as Premier or Traditional draft, but this format is above all about having a very different experience from standard drafts on Arena.

You know what they say: No pings, no gain!