Forget the Black Lotus. We have something even cooler.

One of our goals with the Vegas Cube was to celebrate and showcase the last 30 years of Magic history. But we are not only showcasing the cards, we also want to highlight the best and most iconic players and other Magic personalities from this era.

When we first saw the Mystery Booster 2 cards on Twitter that Gavin Verhey showcased at Gen Con 2024, we thought it would be incredibly cool to add Kai Budde’s and Jon Finkel’s playtest cards to the Vegas Cube and have them sign it. The set officially goes on sale right after Magic Con Las Vegas, so these would be 1 of 1 signed copies in the world. By the two best players of all time. No big deal.

We reached out to Gavin and he graciously offered his assistance with acquiring the cards in time to give Kai and Jon enough time to sign them and have them ready for the finals.

Now that we had these two locked up, why not try to get more? We reached out to a few more players and asked if they had any cards that had a special meaning to them that they would be able to add to the Vegas Cube. Two quickly became ten and ten became twenty-four.

In this article you will find a list of 24 cards. Each of these cards is from the personal collection and signed by one of the absolute best Magic players of all time (who are either in the Hall of Fame, have won a Pro Tour, or in most cases both), game designers and personalities. Almost every player on this list was at some point considered the best player in the world. Every single card has a special story to it.

Have you ever wanted to own an NBA finals game jersey worn by Micheal Jordan, Kobe Bryant or Lebron James? Wayne Gretzky’s hockey stick he used to score with in the Stanley Cup Finals? Tiger Woods’ championship winning golf club?

We assembled a completely unique museum of Magic’s equivalent of these game jerseys, hockey sticks and game balls. 

To celebrate these players and personalities and show our gratitude for their donations, each booster pack at the final table of the Vintage Cube Draft in Vegas will feature exactly 1 of these cards. 

You can see Part 2 of this piece here.

Kai Budde - Wisedrafter’s Will

Kai Budde is the definition of dominance. 

It is ridiculously hard and usually a lifetime achievement for most top competitive players to make the top8 of a single Pro Tour. Kai has won SEVEN of them in a span of three and a half years. This record will never be broken. In 2001 he won three Pro Tours in a row, making Eric Taylor eat his hat. 

Just look at these numbers and achievements.

7x Pro Tour Winner

4x Player of the Year

7x Grand Prix Winner

World Champion 1999

Team World Champion 2002

National Champion 2002

Magic Invitational Champion 2001

Masters Series Champion 2002

11x Pro Tour Top8

Hall of Fame member since 2007

Kai has top finishes in 4 different decades. He wasn’t just doing well, he was outright winning almost every tournament he played. The player of the Year trophy is literally named after Kai Budde. 

We are celebrating Kai by putting a copy of his personally-designed card, Wisedrafter’s Will, signed by him, in the Vegas Cube. It replaces Snap from the MTGO version of the Cube. 

Jon Finkel - Wrath of Leknif

Jon Finkel is the second most decorated player in Magic history and one of the most naturally gifted. 

Where Kai has extra wins, Jon has extra top8s, making the final day of the Pro Tour a record 16 times. That alone would be good enough for 4 different hall of fame careers. 

Jon is a 3-time Pro Tour Champion, a World Champion, a Team World Champion, a National Champion, Invitation Champion, 4-time Grand Prix Champion, Player of the Year and a Magic Hall of Fame member since 2005 with the highest vote percentage of any inductee. 

Jon was not only successful in Magic, but other card games as well. There is actually a book written about him - Jonny Magic & the Card Shark Kids—How a Gang of Geeks Beat the Odds and Stormed Las Vegas. The book recounts Finkel's rise to Magic stardom and his subsequent exploits as a poker player and a Blackjack card counter.

You could make the case that Kai outworked everyone with a combination of perfect preparation, precise play and dedication to win. Jon could just show up to any tournament with little to no preparation and still be one of the favorites to win. 

Around the year 2003, Finkel took a break from competitive play for a few years. He returned 5 years later at Pro Tour Kuala Lumpur, you guessed it, outright winning the entire tournament.

This signed copy of Wrath of Leknif, which is replacing Supreme Verdict in the MTGO version of the Vegas Cube, is the card Jon designed for winning the Magic Invitational in 2000 in Sydney.

Paulo Vitor - Elite Spellbinder

PV is also in the conversation for the best player of all time, which is a ridiculous achievement considering the pedigrees of Kai and Jon. Paulo is a World Champion (Honolulu 2020), two-time Pro Tour Champion (San Juan 2010, Kyoto 2017), two-time Grand Prix Champion (Singapore 2011, Sao Paulo 2015), two-time Nationals champion (2006, 2009). He is also the 2016-2017 Player of the year and has a total of 17 top finishes (14 PT Top8s!), which do not even include his 24 GP Top8s. Paulo dominated the professional scene for over a decade and is the only Magic player in history with over 1 million dollars in lifetime winnings.

Paulo also proved himself as one of the best Magic writers of all time. 

His crowning achievement came in Honolulu 2020 where he earned the right to have his likeness featured on a Magic card after winning the World Championship. When your face is on the art of a Magic card, you know you truly made it. 

This card is Elite Spellbinder and of course the Vegas Cube will featue a copy signed by Paulo from his personal collection. 

Gabriel Nassif - THE Cruel Ultimatum

This might be the coolest card on the list. At PT Kyoto 2009, Gabriel Nassif was already considered as one of the game’s greatest players. Down to 4 life in game 5 of the quarterfinals, staring down a lethal attack with nothing in hand, Gabe found himself in a situation where he needed to topdeck a Cruel Ultimatum. 

He rearranged his lands to prepare the UUBBBRR mana, slowly peeled the top card and then this happened:

Gabriel Nassif's Called Shot

This signed copy of Cruel Ultimatum comes directly from the deck in this video. 

Nassif went on to win the Pro Tour after another memorable match against LSV in the finals, cementing himself as one of the absolute best players this game has ever seen, winning 2 Pro Tours and making 9 total Top8s. Gabe is currently second on the All-Time Money Leaders list, with over three-quarters of a million dollars in lifetime earnings. 

LSV - Llanowar Elves

Speaking of Luis Scott-Vargas in the finals against Nassif, Luis was actually one game away from winning back-to-back Pro Tours, having won Pro Tour Berlin 4 months earlier! 

I’m sure everyone remembers the Elves deck he used to win in Berlin, which was one of the most busted Extended decks ever, making up 75% of the Top8. As they say, “You can’t spell Elves without LSV”.

Luis was inducted in the Magic Hall of Fame in 2013 as one of the most consistent players in history. On top of having 10 total Pro Tour Top8s and 6 Grand Prix wins, Luis is also famous for going 16-0 in the swiss rounds of Pro Tour San Diego. In 2016, he made the top8 of three Pro Tours in a row. 

Luis is also the founder of Team ChannelFireball. 

This Beta Llanowar Elves is a signed copy from Luis’ personal collection. 

If you want to get better at Vintage Cube drafting, I recommend checking LSV’s Youtube channel where he posts daily draft videos.

Shota Yasooka - Mutavault

Mutavault might seem like an odd choice for someone who is known for his mastery of control decks, but it is actually Shota’s favorite Magic card.

Japan had a lot of extraordinary players throughout the years. Between 2005 and 2009, five different Japanese players won the Player of the Year title. Of course Shota was one of them. 

What distinguishes Yasooka from the rest is that he has been consistently putting up finishes for the past two decades, year after year being considered one of the absolute best players in the world. 

On top of being a 2-time Pro Tour Champion, Shota is also widely recognized as one of the best deck builders. Some of his most famous creations include the Eternal Command deck from Players Championship 2012 and the wild 4-color Doran the Siege Tower deck that also featured 4 copies of Cryptic Command with a mana base including 3 Treetop Villages and 4 basic lands.

In my opinion, which comes from personal experience of having played against Shota countless times in the last 15 years, Yasooka is the Japanese equivalent of Jon Finkel. Naturally gifted player who can win with any deck at any tournament without having to dedicate too much time to testing, known for his precise decision making despite his blistering pace of play. 

The Vegas Cube features a Mutavault signed by Shota from his personal collection. 

Seth Manfield - Duress

Seth has been one of the most consistent and best performing players of the last decade, quietly climbing to 3rd place in the All-Time Money Leaders list in the process. 

There is an incredibly small company of players who can say they won the World Championship and two individual Pro Tours. These players are Kai Budde, Jon Finkel, Paulo Vitor and Seth Manfield. That is a very elite group of players to be a part of. 

The Vegas Cube features a copy of Duress signed by Seth. The very Duress that was in both of his Pro Tour winning decks, Albuquerque 2017 and Chicago 2024.

Shuhei Nakamura - Grim Lavamancer

Shuhei, who fully embraced the old “Play the game, see the world” Magic motto, is the most successful Grand Prix player of all time, having made the top8 an astonishing 33 times. 

Remarkably, all of his 7 Grand Prix victories have been in the Limited format. It wouldn’t be a stretch to call Shuhei the best Limited player of all time, considering how many trophies he has to show for his efforts. 

On top of his incredible GP success, Shuhei made the top8 of the Pro Tour 6 times, he is the 2008 Player of the Year, a Japanese National Champion and a member of the Magic Hall of Fame as the class leader of 2011. 

Nakamura is arguably the best player to have never won the Pro Tour. 

Shuhei’s card in the Vegas Cube is a signed copy of his Grim Lavamancer that was in his deck that he used to make his first Pro Tour Top8 in Columbus 2006.

William Jensen - Glorybringer 

William “Huey” Jensen is a former professional player turned Director of Play Programs for Wizards of the Coast. 

At the time of his Hall of Fame induction in 2013, he was one of the very few players in the game with a championship title at the Pro Tour, Grand Prix and the Masters Series. Since then he has added numerous other top finishes, including winning the World Championship in Boston 2017, cementing his legacy as one of the best and most successful players the game has ever seen. 

Jensen’s card in the Vegas Cube is a signed copy of Glorybringer, one of the pivotal cards in his Temur Energy deck from the World Championship in Boston. 

Kenji Tsumura - Gifts Ungiven

Kenji’s breakthrough season came in 2005 during which he made the top8 of three Pro Tours in 7 months and quickly solidified himself as one of the best players in the game. 

That year, he also top8ed 4 Grand Prix tournaments and as a result earned the 2005 Player of the Year award. Interestingly, he did so without ever having made day 2 of a Limited Pro Tour that season. 

Next year, Kenji made his goal to get better at Limited. He partnered up with Rich Hoaen and the results quickly started coming. Next season, in a span of 7 weeks, Kenji won GP Kuala Lumpur, GP Toulouse, and finished 3rd at GP St. Louis. Later that year, he added another PT top8 in Kobe, all in the Limited format. 

After 2007, Kenji took a break from traveling to Magic tournaments to start focusing on his studies instead. His professional career was quite short, but his peak was extremely impressive, racking up 6 Pro Tour top8s in 3 years, having been considered the best player in the world for the most part of this period. 

Kenji was inducted in the Magic Hall of Fame in 2012. His card in the Vegas Cube is a signed copy of Gifts Ungiven from his personal collection, a signature card from the two decks he used to make his first two constructed Pro Tour top8s in Philadelphia and Los Angeles. 

Reid Duke - Liliana of the Veil

Reid has been considered one of the best players in the world for a long time, but only recently solidified his legacy as one of the best of all time by finally going all the way and winning Pro Tour Philadelphia in 2023 with his Izzet Creativity deck. 

Reid has 5 Pro Tour top8s, he is a 5 time Grand Prix champion, a Magic Online Championship champion, a Pro Tour Team series champion and he was the last person inducted into the Magic Hall of Fame in 2019. 

Reid is an excellent ambassador of the game. He is a perfect example of sportsmanship, respect, gratitude and love for the game. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that he is the most universally loved member of the Magic community. 

Reid is represented in the Vegas Cube by the card he very likely played in the most decks at the professional level of his career, a signed Liliana of the Veil from his personal collection. 

Masashi Oiso - Chrome Mox

Oiso stormed the professional scene in the 2002-03 season, winning the Rookie of the Year title and eventually becoming one of the most successful players of the mid-2000s.

He was the first Japanese player with multiple Pro Tour Sunday appearances and along with Shuhei Nakamura and Kenji Tsumura, they are the three players with the most Pro Tour top8s without ever having won the title. 

Despite a very short professional career that lasted only about 5 years, he still racked up 6 Pro Tour top8s, a Team World Championship victory, a Grand Prix victory, a Japanese Nationals victory, and was considered the best in the world on numerous occasions.

In 2012, Masashi was voted into the Magic Hall of Fame.

Masashi’s card in the Vegas Cube is a signed Chrome Mox from his personal collection, a card he used to great success, making the top8 of Pro Tour Columbus 2004 and winning Grand Prix Boston 2005. 

Check back next week to see the second half of the cards!