Timeless: Powered Cube Prize Pack 1 Review

Magic Arena has brought another new addition to fans of the platform's Eternal formats: between October 28th and November 18th, the "Powered Cube" format will be available on the digital platform, bringing the Phantom Draft experience to the Cube with cards as strong as the Power 9.

The event offers "Prize Packs" as part of the rewards, with exclusive cards, including some iconic reprints not yet available on Magic Arena, such as Unmarked Grave, Preordain, and Leovold, Emissary of Trest, among others. These cards will be craftable on the platform and legal in Historic, Brawl, and Timeless formats, unless previously banned.

Furthermore, the list of additions will be expanded as the weeks go by. While there is no exact estimate of how many additions will be available and how often an update will be released, Powered Cube is expected to bring some iconic staples from Pioneer, Modern, and Legacy to MTGArena.

The first full list of additions can be found below, and in this article, we evaluate the main additions from the Prize Packs for Timeless!

Winds of Abandon might be worth an experimental slot or two in the Sideboard, but don't expect too much. The Overload cost is too high, and Timeless already has enough cheap but effective interactions between Swords to Plowshares, Solitude, Path to Exile, and even Fragment Reality.

Potential Staple.

Dress Down offers a lot of versatility between responding to effective ETBs like Elementals and/or Atraxa, Grand Unifier. It has a hit-kill combo with Death's Shadow that can help bring the Dimir version of the archetype to the spotlight. It's also never a dead card in most cases because there's always a specific situation where removing creature abilities makes a difference.

Between Brainstorm and Ponder, Timeless currently boasts the best selection of cheap cantrips available even in Legacy. Preordain often shows up as a complement in Combo decks like Show and Tell and can play the same role in Timeless, despite the archetype's already limited slots.

Upheaval is a bad card, but someone will try to create their own version of the Psychatog combo with Psychic Frog and the new spell coming to Timeless. It may appear as a one-of in specific slots, but there are better options for winning games.

Potentially the best and worst card in the Prize Packs for Timeless.

Black is already one of, if not the most played color in the format, and currently about four or five Midrange/Tempo variants with black exist in the format, and they are archetypes that fall between Tiers 1 and 1.5, giving Snuff Out plenty of room to join the format's free spells category.

On the other hand, the predominance of black archetypes can significantly hinder the inclusion of Snuff Out in lists, as there are fewer targets if they are too popular.

Of course, it still answers Guide of Souls and almost the entire Energy deck package, handles Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student and Wary Zone Guard, as well as a dozen other creatures outside the top of the Metagame chain, but the more prevalent the presence of Grief, Sheoldred, the Apocalypse or Barrowgoyf and Psychic Frog, the less prevalent Snuff Out can be in the maindeck.

Tourach, Dread Cantor may deserve some slots in the sideboards of Midrange and Lurrus decks if we see an increase in attrition matches that require mid-game disruption. Having protection against Solitude and Swords to Plowshares is a plus, but it doesn't seem like the kind of card we want against Energy, since our opponent can always just "run through" with Guide of Souls or deal with Tourach with Goblin Bombardment.

Without Archon of Cruelty, the possibilities of using Unmarked Grave as a pseudo-Entomb are quite limited, but there is potential in cards like the new Woodfall Primus to use the combo with Reanimate.

It shouldn't be a staple until Archon is released on Magic Arena.

A potential staple of the most accessible Timeless deck. Fireblast benefits from a Strip Mine format and offers a much-needed finisher for Mono Red Prowess/Burn lists, which are well-known and relatively popular due to their low investment cost to build.

Fury already does a good job of holding aggro, but with Energy being one of the best Timeless decks, Pyrokinesis's instant speed could be worth sideboard slots to avoid more explosive turns with Guide of Souls, Ajani, Nacatl Pariah's transformation, or dealing with Ocelot Pride and multiple tokens in the same turn.

A potential sideboard staple for Red Stompy and other archetypes with easy access to red cards.

It's still difficult to imagine a Ruby Medallion Storm in Timeless that's better than the Rakdos variants with Dark Ritual and Underworld Breach, but an extra ritual with Seething Song is always welcome and can make a difference in making the archetype more explosive and consistent.

Titania, Protector of Argoth requires a high mana investment but benefits greatly from the existence of Fetch Lands and Strip Mine in Timeless and cards like Wary Zone Guard and Wrenn and Six as recursive tools.

It might be worth some testing in Golgari Midrange as another win condition, but it seems like a card better suited for Jund and/or more land-focused archetypes, perhaps even helping to revitalize Titan Field with a new look that resembles Legacy's Lands Control.

Woodfall Primus is a decent target for [Unmarked Grave]] and Reanimate, especially against archetypes that don't have exile effects to deal with the card with removal alone.

It shouldn't see much play outside this lineup, and its power level seems considerably lower than Archon of Cruelty to justify an archetype based on this interaction.

Leovold, Emissary of Trest was once a Legacy staple and justified the creation of a Four-Color Control deck running Deathrite Shaman as a manafixer.

It has some inherent advantages in the current Timeless format against Midrange decks with The One Ring or blue decks with Brainstorm and Ponder that could also make it a staple, but the Metagame still requires slightly more balanced answers for Leovold to have more competitive space, given its low relevance against Combo and Aggro, the spectrum where two of the best decks in the format currently meet.

That's all for today!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!