Cube Power Levels Explained: Vintage to Pauper

Cube power level is the one decision that shapes every other one. It sets how fast games end, which cards are even eligible, and what a drafter can expect from a random pack. The four names people use most, Vintage, Legacy, Modern and Pauper, are not formal tiers. They are loose bands with fuzzy edges, borrowed from constructed formats and from the cubes Magic Online runs.

This article explains what each band actually contains, which specific cards sit on each boundary, and how to choose one. If you want the card-by-card method for filling a cube once the band is set, start with cube card selection.

What does “power level” mean in a cube?

Power level is not price, and it is not rarity. It is the ceiling of what a deck can do early. A useful test: what is the scariest thing that can happen on turn two?

• In a Vintage cube, turn two can be Black Lotus into a four-mana planeswalker, or Sol Ring into a three-mana artifact that draws cards every turn.
• In a Legacy cube, turn two is usually a Signet, a two-drop creature, or a counterspell held up.
• In a Modern cube, turn two is a two-drop creature or a Lightning Bolt.
• In a Pauper cube, turn two is a 2/2 and the game will be decided by combat math.

Each band also implies a different distribution. A Vintage cube has a handful of cards that end games alone and a long tail of support. A Pauper cube has a flat curve where the best common and the fortieth-best common are close. Both are good games. They are different games.

What is in a Vintage cube?

“Vintage” means everything is legal, including the Power Nine. The reference point is the Magic Online Vintage Cube, a 540-card list that Wizards updates several times a year (October 2026 update).

The cards that define the band are the fast mana and the blue restricted list:

• Black Lotus: a zero-mana artifact you tap and sacrifice for three mana of one color.
• The five Moxen (Pearl, Sapphire, Jet, Ruby, Emerald): zero-mana artifacts that tap for one colored mana each, a free land drop that does not count as a land drop.
• Sol Ring: one mana for an artifact that taps for two colorless.
• Mana Crypt: zero mana, taps for two colorless, with a coin flip each upkeep that can deal three damage to you.
• Mana Vault and Grim Monolith: artifacts that tap for three colorless but do not untap normally.
• Ancestral Recall (one blue mana, draw three cards), Time Walk (two mana, take an extra turn), and Timetwister (each player shuffles hand and graveyard into their library and draws seven).

Around those sit the combos: Sneak Attack and Show and Tell putting Emrakul into play, Reanimate and Animate Dead on Griselbrand, Tinker fetching a game-ending artifact, Thassa’s Oracle with Doomsday, Underworld Breach with Brain Freeze and Lion’s Eye Diamond. The current MTGO list has every card above in it, and the October 2026 update added Auriok Salvagers because new automation tools on the client make its infinite-mana loop with Lion’s Eye Diamond or Black Lotus practical to play out.

Vintage cube games are swingy by design. The appeal is that every pick is a famous card and every game could be a story.

What is a Legacy or “unpowered” cube?

“Legacy cube” and “unpowered cube” are used almost interchangeably. The core rule is no Power Nine. Beyond that, owners draw the line in different places. The common extras cut from a Legacy cube are Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Library of Alexandria and Strip Mine. Some owners keep Sol Ring. Some cut Mana Drain. Write your own line down; there is no standard.

Magic Online’s Legacy Cube historically ran as a separate event. A 2021 Star City Games preview noted that the list was “relatively light on mana rocks” with “very few 0 and 1 mana value cards,” and that Oko, Thief of Crowns was banned from it. That is the texture of the band: the explosive starts are gone, but Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Griselbrand reanimation and Sneak Attack are all still there.

What changes in practice: aggro decks become real because nobody is six mana ahead on turn two, and midrange value cards (Thragtusk, Glorybringer, Grave Titan) go from filler to finishers. The removal count matters more because you cannot race a planeswalker with a Lotus.

What is a Modern cube?

A Modern cube restricts itself to cards legal in, or at least printed in, Modern-era sets (Eighth Edition onward, with the modern card frame). This band cuts the old fast mana and the old combos automatically. No Moxen, no Dark Ritual, no Sneak Attack, no Reanimate, no Mana Drain, no Swords to Plowshares.

What remains is a creature-centric game. The signature cards are the ones that defined Modern constructed: Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Tarmogoyf, Snapcaster Mage, Lightning Bolt, Thoughtseize, Path to Exile, the Modern Horizons evoke elementals (Solitude, Fury, Grief), Urza’s Saga, Wrenn and Six and Teferi, Time Raveler. Power is present but it lives on creatures and three-mana planeswalkers, not on turn-one artifacts.

Modern cubes have a problem the other bands do not. Modern Horizons and Universes Beyond sets have pushed the top of the card pool so hard that a Modern cube built from 2024 onward can be more oppressive at the creature level than an older Legacy cube. See power creep and cube for how owners handle that.

If this is useful, the newsletter sends more like it.

What is a Pauper or Peasant cube?

Pauper means commons only. The best-known list is The Pauper Cube, which Adam Styborski started in 2008 and which uses a broad definition: any card with a common printing counts, so long as it exists as a physical, standalone card. Peasant adds uncommons.

The ceiling in Pauper is a card like Mulldrifter (five mana, 2/2 flier, draw two, or evoke it for three to just draw two), Lightning Bolt, Counterspell, Rancor or Pestilence. There are no planeswalkers, no two-card combos that end the game on turn three, and almost no fast mana beyond Dark Ritual and Lotus Petal if an owner chooses to include them.

The result is the most skill-rewarding band for a weekly group, and by far the cheapest. It is also the band where a single misfiled rare breaks the whole cube.

How do the four bands compare?

The MTGO Vintage Cube size of 540 is a known figure; the rest of the table describes conventions, not rules.

Which power level should your group pick?

Three questions settle it.

1. How many of your players know the old cards? Vintage rewards format knowledge. A table of new players will lose to Tinker without understanding why.
2. How long do you want games to run? Vintage games average shorter. Pauper games average longer. If your draft night has a hard stop, lower bands fit it better.
3. Do you want a flat power curve or a lottery? Flat is Pauper and Legacy. Lottery is Vintage, and some groups love the lottery.

There is also a middle answer that more cubes are choosing. Omniczech’s May 2025 post The Changing Face of Cube argues that copies of the Magic Online cubes are rarely discussed now and rarity-restricted cubes have faded, while cubes trying something new have become the dominant mode. Power band is still a choice in those cubes; it is just not the only one. If that is the direction you lean, decide the idea first and the band second.

FAQ

Is a Legacy cube the same as an unpowered cube?

Nearly. Both exclude the Power Nine. “Unpowered” often also cuts Sol Ring, Mana Crypt and Mana Vault; “Legacy” sometimes keeps them. Ask the owner.

Is Vintage cube more expensive than Legacy cube?

Only if you buy real Power. Most paper Vintage cubes use proxies for the nine cards that cost thousands, and the rest of the list is close in price to a Legacy cube.

Can a Pauper cube have combo decks?

Yes, but slow ones. Pauper combos are things like Ghostly Flicker loops or Pestilence locks that take several turns and can be interrupted. Nothing wins on turn two.

Can I mix power levels in one cube?

You can, but drafters will feel the seams. A single Sol Ring in an otherwise Legacy cube is a lottery ticket, not a design choice. Pick a band and hold it.

Draft at every band with us

The band question is easier to settle across a table than on paper. Subscribe to The Ludarium newsletter for new cube pieces, and to hear when Cube Commonwealth, our Indianapolis cube group, sets its first night as part of The Ludarium. The game is the reason. The people are the point.