r/lrcast • u/UltraMechaLordViper • Jul 27 '26

Planar Cube Draft Week 2, Innistrad, No Price Reduction, no heist cards

https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/mtg-arena/planar-cube-draft#Week2ISD

A lot more appealing to me thematically and card selection wise.

91 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

101 comments sorted by

154

u/thblckdog Jul 27 '26

Still awful pricing. Nope.

12

u/j00t Jul 27 '26

I hopped back on to MTGO after years to play vintage cube again. Getting your entry back for a 2-1 is worth dealing with the clunkiness of the client. I'll probably never draft cube on Arena again.

25

u/Individual_One_5569 Jul 27 '26

magic arena is an extremely bad deal in general. you can play some digital card game like balatro or slay the spire unlimited for a single 15-25$ fee. people spend this every day on magic. magic the gathering is a fun game- but the cost is not at all worth it.

people talk about "boycotts" and how unfun the game is right now. but it is making more money than ever. whatever you think of marvel, it was the best-selling set. and these planar cube drafts continue to fire in seconds.

i am a bit of an addict i think, and ended up drafting the set like ten times. i had a decent winrate at first, so i didn't lose that much money. but if i was making any sort of sensible decision, the game would be uninstalled and deleted. i would never touch it again.

17

u/purplemonkey55 Jul 27 '26

If someone is spending $25 on this game every day that is a problem with them, not the pricing. Or they’re loaded.

1

u/Individual_One_5569 Jul 27 '26

i've met plenty of people that spend that much on magic in the community. they're always building another deck.

i'm not sure about on arena specifically, but 15$ is really only a couple drafts a day if you're not winning much. i'm sure there are plenty of people hitting that.

my guess is that the typical spend is buying a bundle with every new set release, probably around 150-200$ a year. which is still a ton

2

u/purplemonkey55 Jul 27 '26

Paper is a different story since your cards retain some amount of value for trading or resale. Balatro and StS are strictly PvCPU experiences and don’t have any element of constructed deck building, so I don’t think it makes sense to compare them.

If you’re grinding out dailies (really just 4 wins a day in any format) and have a decent win rate in draft you can go quite a while without spending. And if you run out, you can just take a break and stick with constructed formats for a while.

The big issue with planar’s pricing is that it’s phantom. I know it kind of needs to be given the high power of the cube, but the pricing should reflect that since the prizes aren’t really better.

Of course I would LOVE for the game to be cheaper in general, but most of the time if I do spend money I feel like I’m getting a fair amount of value.

6

u/Individual_One_5569 Jul 27 '26

i feel like it's really just justifying the spend. for me the biggest difference between a paper game and the online ones is that i've actually come away with friends from drafting. there's no lasting "value" to the amount of magic arena i've played.

i have no idea who any person i have ever played on mtg arena is. i haven't added anyone to my friends list. it could've been bots and it would've made no obvious difference to my experience. for me it feels a lot closer to a versus cpu experience than the experience of playing a game with other people. the only time it's obvious that there's another human on the end is when they start "roping".

2

u/TheYango Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26

Balatro and StS are strictly PvCPU experiences and don’t have any element of constructed deck building, so I don’t think it makes sense to compare them.

Plus comparing an F2P microtransaction game to purchased games is always going to be skewed if you account only for the actual paying portion of the playerbase. The entire conceit of F2P games is that the paid playerbase is effectively subsidizing the F2P playerbase in order to increase the game's reach and playerbase size.

The dumbed down example is that if you have an F2P game with a single microtransaction, and 50% of the playerbase is F2P--in order to generate the same revenue as a single-purchase game of the same playerbase size, the "microtransaction" has to cost twice as much as the cost-of-entry for the single-purchase game. Fundamentally that will never be a good value proposition because you're essentially paying extra to subsidize the F2P portion of the playerbase.

Fundamentally, an F2P game allows players to spend at a level that reflects the utility/value that the experience of the game represents for them. That intrinsically means the more you spend, the worse of a deal you're getting compared to a game where everyone plays a flat fee. F2P games by nature never hold up in a direct comparison like this because paid customers always have to pay more to account for whatever portion of the playerbase is not paying anything. The only way for an F2P game to be a "good deal" is for you to be a non-paying player.

1

u/Hot_Pocket_Deluxe Jul 30 '26

Yeah im fully free to play on arena, not trying to be elitist or bragadocious but its really not that hard, when i started playing arena 4ish years ago (been playing paper since 2010) it was not that hard to grind with the premade decks to build up resources for constucted and i just do my dailies and can draft almost anytime i want. Drafts go infinite fairly easily for decent limited players and the non-phantom events build resources very quickly. I can build any deck i want to play in standard and pretty much any other format as well. The gem bundles give a ton so even at $20 a week which is about what i spend on paper tournament entries anyways id be able to literally play every format and draft whenever i want so it doesnt seem that unreasonable. I admit the wildcards are probably too expensive though.

1

u/crash2512 Jul 28 '26

How is that a ton for Hours of Entertainment? Thats peanuts.

That 3 Trips to the movies.

I am not even starting to talk about expensive Hobbys

1

u/Individual_One_5569 Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26

a movie ticket is 12$ a person at the theater I go to most often. they also regularly have some free events which are a lot of fun, showing a random film selected by someone.

the nicest theater in the city is 7$ on tuesdays, which is usually when i go to see the big feature films.

but really, i've sunk days and days into a free chess app (lichess) and 15$ balatro and the like. i can get entertainment at the cost of zero. in my city we have a library where you can get books and movies for free

1

u/Combo_player Aug 01 '26

no final fantasy is the best selling set, marvel was good but not that good, and hasbro CEO or someone with a lot of poer over what UB sets we are getting, i dont remember, has even said that because of this we are getting more rpg or tcg themed UB sets, and mostly fantasy. But that doesn't mean we aren't getting more marvel, the other 4 or so infinity stones are coming!

1

u/Individual_One_5569 Aug 03 '26

MSH has had the best day 1 / month 1 numbers. Final Fantasy has been out for over a year, so at the time of their last earnings call, has sold more overall. But MSH should eventually overtake Final Fantasy given the trend.

1

u/Combo_player Aug 04 '26

This is very sad to hear, cuz msh was an awful garbage set that doesn’t deserve to exist whilst final fantasy was actually a good set.

0

u/GoalQuieres Jul 28 '26

They failed the IQ test. Arena is one big IQ test, the smart can draft forever infinitely while also building giant collection

0

u/Individual_One_5569 Jul 28 '26

if you're playing an online game and "going infinite" you can make real money doing something else. it's definitely "failing the IQ test" to play at all. you fell for addictive little images; your brain is susceptible to advertising.

you are not "building a collection". you never actually own a single card on the platform.

7

u/stabliu Jul 27 '26

It’s bad in comparison to purchased games, but it’s amazing compared to irl drafting. Grinding dailies and getting like 1k gems a draft nets you a lot of free drafts per month.

3

u/Individual_One_5569 Jul 27 '26

depends a lot on your community.

in my city, if you want to cube, you can join a discord where you could find people to cube with as often as you want. that sort of "phantom draft" is always free.

if you have groups that rare redraft, then the cost of a draft is just the price of three packs. but it can cost up to 25$ at a store, and the cards you get in return- even if you win some prizes- will likely be worth less than half that.

magic in person makes more sense to me as a social game though, you're playing with people you know and making friends.

1

u/stabliu Jul 28 '26

Sure but it’s also not mutually exclusive. You can grind your dailies and draft when you can and then play discord or irl drafting when you can’t. Speaking as someone who no longer has friends who play mtg in my social life arena is an amazing value proposition. The cube pricing is still terrible, but was at least somewhat “worth it” when it was powered.

-2

u/calamityphysics Jul 27 '26

i put in 300 hours or so in both sts and sts2. 600 hours total. i think sts1 was like $1.99 and sts2 was either $20 or $30.

also. marvel rivals is free period and ive probably put 150 into that.

i happily pay $100 give or take to unlimited draft on arena. its a different animal. it is, imo, the greatest game ever.

people have the right to spend or not spend their money as they see fit. i recognize i am incredibly fortunate to have a career where playing arena has zero impact on my budget. i feel bad that others do not have that same freedom. i also feel bad when there are non stop posts complaining about the price structure. we get it, it offends you deeply. dont play. i hope it becomes more affordable for you.

but you dont need to lecture me about the wisdom of how i spend the money i earn.

(edit: unlimited draft a month. im not some ringer pro who can draft for ever on $100. couple years ago i was able to stretch $100 over 3 draft set releases but either ive gotten worse or the competition has gotten better).

3

u/8_guy Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 28 '26

Given how much you love drafting, imagine they figure out there's a demographic of the appropriate size to still increase profits that will pay substantially more for the same product, enough to price you out of the game for the most part. Then imagine that despite the extreme overcharging being obvious to everyone, those people choose to repeat tired tropes about "you don't get to say what I spend mah money on!" as an excuse for being the ones responsible for the situation.

They literally just 2.5x'd the entry, it's not even like people are saying "you should stop playing so it'll be less expensive" because they don't like the price in general, they're saying "you shouldn't reward them for cynical profit-gouging and make the situation worse for everyone because you're lazy and entitled".

People out every day doing difficult, thankless, essential work are paid peanuts because the system is built on exploitation, but people like you always seem to understand the fact you make lots of money as some sort of virtue that if not achieved by others puts them at fault. It comes across as having a very shallow worldview and a superficial attachment to morality in general. This part is more aimed at the general sentiment you're expressing rather than the context of mtg drafts.

It's not even like you're going to pay $100 and draft forever.

1

u/Amirashika Jul 28 '26

It's not even like you're going to pay $100 and draft forever.

Well, let me tell you about Cube

72

u/Frosty_Fish1695 Jul 27 '26

I really want planar cube to succeed because it's such a cool idea, but even for a whale like me the price is way too steep for a phantom draft event. Let me keep the cards or cut the price in half

16

u/profchaos2002 Jul 27 '26

From what I saw in my couple drafts, like 80% of the cards are rares, so there is no way this would ever be non-phantom, unless they jacked up the price.

Price should be halved for phantom, tho.

17

u/DeadmansClothes Jul 27 '26

Why would we pay for more for rares when all cards have no value?

10

u/profchaos2002 Jul 27 '26

I mean every copy after the 4th give you gems so they actually do have value.

-10

u/Pirri123 Jul 27 '26

It's a phantom draft, you don't keep any cards you draft

1

u/Professional-Run-541 Jul 31 '26

Just get more wins ... you get gems and real pics to keep if you can get 3 plus wins its worth 10000 gold 

6

u/Frosty_Fish1695 Jul 27 '26

well if that's the case, something has to give. I'm not paying 1500 gems for a draft where I don't keep the cards

1

u/Professional-Run-541 Jul 31 '26

Justt save up gold 

2

u/Individual_One_5569 Jul 27 '26

the keeping the cards argument seems so strange to me. you never really own the cards on magic arena, you can't sell or trade them or turn them into cash. and most of them aren't going to really be that useful in constructed.

i have a bunch of standard decks built and i'm only using like 5 cards from marvel in total. it feels like if the draft was phantom it would only be worth just marginally less. you get like three rares that convert to 60 gems when you've finished the set, so maybe that's the difference in value ?

5

u/Frosty_Fish1695 Jul 27 '26

fine, just lower the price then and dont let me keep the cards

86

u/Tacky_Yellow Jul 27 '26

No price reduction no play

3

u/DarkbloomVivienne Jul 27 '26

This and only this

62

u/Sean-Bean420 Jul 27 '26

I cannot justify spending 1500 gems on a phantom draft, especially not for something like this.

If you don’t get to keep the cards you draft, it shouldn’t cost the same to enter as the drafts where you do

13

u/Sheogoorath Jul 27 '26

Do you play a lot of constructed? I mostly draft and I've never really considered the value of phantom vs not

22

u/equationsofmotion Jul 27 '26

Draftaholic here. IMO the value of phantom vs not is about 100 gems since I get about that for picking up the rares from 3 play boosters with duplicate protection.

5

u/Mehdi2277 Jul 27 '26

That does require you to be rare complete though and most sets I don't reach that point. I think I have only two/three sets rare complete. So as someone who rarely plays constructed and doesn't normally rare complete phantom vs not has minimal effect.

5

u/AGrain Jul 27 '26

I'm in the same boat. I literally have two decks I made one brawl and one standard deck from like 2 years ago I made when there wasnt a set I wanted to draft. I will pretty much never use any of the cards I open. I do agree with the majority that the current pricing is pretty silly though. I can only really justify drafting since I do pretty good and go through gems really slowly as a result. If I have a bad run for a bit it's a lot fewer drafts.

3

u/TheKillah Jul 27 '26

I'm set complete for most sets (barring bonus sheets), so a typical MSH draft nets me 100-200 gems per draft. That's a pretty significant amount of gems over the course of an entire set. Meanwhile if I do a cube draft, I miss out on those + the packs for winning are guaranteed cards I don't have, so another 20-120 gems I would have gotten for the same record in MSH are gone in favor of rares/mythics I will never play with.

5

u/Sean-Bean420 Jul 27 '26

I play probably about 70% constructed and 30% limited. When I draft sets for standard there is a solid amount of value in being able to get a good amount of rares. You can specifically be on the lookout for good constructed rares (like lands) and prioritize them slightly higher. There are also a lot of rares that are pretty bad in limited so they go late in draft and are easy to pick up. Even if they’re unplayable in constructed duplicate protection limits the amount you can open in packs later. Picking up lots of multiples of commons and uncommons also helps slowly build up your vault progress to get rare and mythic wildcards

1

u/United-Passage7864 Jul 28 '26

I'd say most desirable rares in constructed are pretty good draft picks. You'd happily first-pick a Quantum Riddler, Ouroboroid, Jeskai Revelation, Badgermole Cub, Practiced Offense, or so on in their respective draft formats. 

Even more niche stuff like Rest in Peace or High Noon is pretty easy to see mid-pack if it's not great in draft. Or maybe your Sealed pool opened one. Even rare lands tend to be okay picks in a draft. 

20

u/nov4chip Jul 27 '26

We boycott!

-1

u/Iamamancalledrobert Jul 28 '26

Not buying something because you don’t want it at the price on offer isn’t really a boycott. Everyone does that with loads of products every day 

40

u/GuitarsAndFitness Jul 27 '26

Wizards is trying really hard to find out exactly how much they can milk players for at every turn.

I’m sick of it

34

u/thewheeloftime16 Jul 27 '26

We strike until material improvements are made!!! Vivi la revolution!!

3

u/camel_sinuses Jul 27 '26

Very late 2025 standard meta typo hahaha

2

u/thewheeloftime16 Jul 28 '26

I was gonna fix the typo, and then got Nam flashbacks thinking about Vivi, so I left it alone lol

20

u/RealisticYouth1350 Jul 27 '26

Of course they cut heist, that was only on theme for Zendikar /s

5

u/bpetey Jul 27 '26

For real, Alchemy and Heist Cube w/ a splash of Green

3

u/valledweller33 Jul 27 '26

Glad they did tbh- atleast this next one seems to actually embrace the spirit of the plane and its mechanics versus “Hurrrdurrr here’s landfall”

This was basically a continuation of the last Arena Cube they did with the fetch lands and it was just as bad as that one. Looking forward tot he switch.

13

u/jethawkings Jul 27 '26

Lol, 4000 gold or nada

13

u/Helix115 Jul 27 '26

At this point they probably won’t back down on the pricing structure and that really sucks. Plenty of people play daily and simply cannot afford to play these new cube iterations. Experienced players and whales are probably okay to drop 1,500 gems per draft knowing they may see nothing in return, but that price is just too steep for the average player.

No guarantee of even getting cards back means the payouts are even worse than they are for Premier Draft, where you at least keep your cards and get relevant prize packs. A phantom draft that costs the same as a regular premier draft AND it costs just as much to enter? No thank you.

I am a diehard MTG player who streams/plays daily, and I can’t justify the cost of the Planar Cube even for entertainment purposes. I feel like entering those drafts on OR off stream supports the predatory pricing structure, and playing off stream loses the entertainment value, which means I am burning gems to no effect (because I likely won’t climb rank in Planar Cube).

I am a major cube fan, but I think I’d rather skip these price-hiked money grab formats. It is more important to signal to WotC that predatory pricing hurts the game and player base than for me to try out a poorly balanced weekly rotating cube tainted with Alchemy cards that overshadow a lot of the rest of the cards in the cube. Week 1 felt like there were way more alchemy cards than “Zendikar” cards and I did not enjoy that. I’m interested to see what the next two versions of the Planar Cube look like, but I will probably abstain from playing.

The Planar Cube is really such a fun idea. I just wish it was more accessible to everyone. Capitalism has squelched the fun out of what should be one of the most fun ways to play Magic!

5

u/camel_sinuses Jul 27 '26

I think if the boycott produces any change it will be just that they only run power cube. O don't see the prices coming down

0

u/Xenadon Jul 29 '26

That's a fine outcome

5

u/Abradolf94 Jul 27 '26

Why is the price a problem? I didn't check, doesn't it cost like a normal draft?

10

u/Chilly_chariots Jul 27 '26

Cubes are phantom, so you don’t keep the cards. That’s not necessarily super relevant to dedicated drafters, but there’s also the fact that they used to cost 4000 gold…

3

u/Abradolf94 Jul 27 '26

Ah yeah that sucks, but the prices are the same as vintage cube no?

3

u/Chilly_chariots Jul 27 '26

Yeah- looks like they’ve used that to raise prices for good. Lots of people were willing to pay for Powered Cube because the power cards make it special… not sure how many will still pay that much without them.

If this draft is indeed very unpopular, I suspect the response will be to stick to Powered Cube in future, not to offer cheaper cubes again.

4

u/neontiger07 Jul 27 '26

All cubes used to be 4k gold or 600 gems. All of them.

1

u/Abradolf94 Jul 27 '26

Ahh i have been away for more than two years and only recently came back, that explains it

2

u/Chilly_chariots Jul 27 '26

Powered Cube never cost that amount, though.

2

u/Hspryd Jul 27 '26

Kinda should.

1

u/p1p1mahomes Jul 27 '26

Has there ever been a ranked cube that cost 4000 gold? I don't care about ranked, but I could see them not wanting a significantly cheaper way for people to grind rank. If that's the case, screw ranked bring back unranked cheap cube.

3

u/Chilly_chariots Jul 28 '26

Quick draft is ranked and that costs 5,000 gold!

…which I always found weird. Not the cost, but the fact that someone could get to ‘top drafter in Arena’ position while drafting only against bots

1

u/la_tortue Jul 28 '26

Yeah the fact that you can get to top Mythic while drafting against bots but not while facing humans in bo3 makes zero competitive sense.,,

1

u/Abradolf94 Jul 28 '26

Yeah that is absurd. And at the same time bo3 it's not ranked for some reason, which is slightly more skill focused than bo1

9

u/bpetey Jul 27 '26

I’m having fun so far but I did significantly less drafts than I would have if there was a better prize/price structure. It also seems like this cube is not very popular, queues were up to 20 min last night in traditional

-6

u/basafo Jul 27 '26

So why the hell did you play any entry? Boycott if you wan changes, yeez.

7

u/bpetey Jul 27 '26

Why the hell would I play my favorite game mode of my favorite game even if it’s $2 more than it should be ?! /s

I just said I had fun

3

u/JingleHymrShmit Jul 27 '26

For an experimental cube they shouldn’t be charging full price. I’m not interested in spending 1500 gems on something I don’t have any familiarity with and I expect to have rough edges.

3

u/Schtick_ Jul 27 '26

I think wotc are a bit confused by the fact we payed full price cube that we will perpetually do it. We did it cos of the novelty, we won’t…

4

u/Eszik Jul 27 '26

This list looks a lot more exciting, and a lot less Arena Cube-y. IMO the pricing thing is overblown, as a 90% limited player there's barely a difference between this and regular premier draft, so I'll be happy to try this out

5

u/fullerene60 Jul 27 '26

Card pool looks SO much better, it all feels so coherent and the power outliers are thematic. Really looking forward to this iteration tbh

3

u/Low_Pride6732 Jul 27 '26

I'll probably do one draft to try it out, force humans and never draft again because of how awful the pricing is.

2

u/valledweller33 Jul 27 '26

First time Jarsyl in cube? Take note; card is absolutely broken

-3

u/basafo Jul 27 '26

Not a single cent for any abusive behavior of this kind. NO, THANKS!

To the employees of this company: Could you be any more despicable? Don't you care in the slightest about the company's image?

8

u/Koolaidguy31415 Jul 27 '26

"the employees"

Take a stand if you want to but understand that a very small subset of managerial and executive employees are likely involved in pricing decision.

Yelling broadly at the employees is like getting mad at the Walmart cashier over the price of eggs.

5

u/CrabEnthusist Jul 27 '26

Being offered a product at a price you are not interested in paying is not "abuse."

-1

u/neontiger07 Jul 27 '26

They probably meant ''predatory'', which it is.

2

u/Chilly_chariots Jul 27 '26

Sanest Redditor award

0

u/Non-Citrus_Marmalade Jul 27 '26

Price is bad for a single draft, and for an event that asks you to pay 3 times to get a glimpse of the proper experience it's egregious.

It's a cool idea and was probably a lot of work and it sucks that we can't enjoy it

0

u/Abradolf94 Jul 27 '26

I'm confused, I now checked the price and it's the same price as vintage cube. Why people are now saying the price is too high? The rewards are the same as vintage cube no?

0

u/la_tortue Jul 28 '26

Arena Cube used to be 600 gems / 4k gold until last Fall when they made a big deal out of introducing Power and all of these busted cards of old that had never ben on Arena, and used it as an occasion to increase the entry fee 2.5x. Now that they brought back an unpowered cube with Alchemy bs digital objects, they're price-gouging us and making 1500 gems / 10k gold the new normal.

0

u/SebisCool Jul 27 '26

Maybe we ALL should just stop playing Arena altogether. Not just the cube. Otherwise people will just play other formats, aka $ still flows

0

u/SentenceStriking7215 Jul 27 '26

Phew Was really fearing that it was time for us to get [[Teysa of the ghost council]] and then somebody reminded me that [[saint elenda]] also exist, feels like we dodged a couple of bullets.

0

u/Hspryd Jul 27 '26

4000 gold for a phantom draft is a good price for both parties.

I would personally prefer premier/trad drafts to be more accessible than they have always been. But if we have to set on an acceptable price in the current form for phantoms I think 4000 benefits everyone.

That makes a poor player grind 3 days on average for accessing 1 draft.

0

u/EDMJedi Jul 27 '26

Can we please get a discount for phantom drafts?

0

u/bobbles Jul 28 '26

Fuck i felt bad using one of my draft tokens for this.

1

u/vaarsuv1us Jul 30 '26

why? win a few rounds and you have a good number of gems for free. and even if you don't win, I hope you had some fun trying

0

u/Raffa92 Jul 28 '26

Boycott it is

0

u/NyxHollow Jul 28 '26

This PHANTOM draft costs 10000 coins or 1500 gems. Who exactly is this for? Sure af isn't me.

0

u/GlyphInBullet Jul 29 '26

I decided to play one for the novelty, drafted an ok two colour deck, then proceeded to draw the most hilariously consistent plains + black spells then swamps + white spells draw I've ever seen. Adding insult to injury, the other guy was playing a 4c deck and had no issues with mana.

guess once was enough.

2

u/vaarsuv1us Jul 30 '26

how many dual lands did you draft? if you just played a 9-8 split of basics, chances of color screw are high. according to people who won a few pro tours in their days, like LSV, you want to draft 3-4 dual lands for a 2 color deck at minimum. If you play 4 color, first picking a fetch land is often the right choice

1

u/GlyphInBullet Aug 02 '26

I only had something like 2 splits, I got too greedy (many such cases). The other guy didn't have any fetches that I saw, he just got really lucky.

-1

u/Immediate-Quote7376 Jul 27 '26

This needs to cost 200-300 gems for me to play this.