Today is a sad day but undoubtedly an inevitable one. I must announce that Cube Tutor will be going permanently offline on Monday 1st November at 10:00 AM GMT. There are many reasons for this but I’ll start with the most obvious and pressing; Cube Tutor hasn’t been able to cover its costs for several years. For a while I was able to run it on the financial buffer that I had built up in the years previous, but for the best part of the past year I have personally been spending hundreds of pounds a month just to keep the site live. I would like to say how incredibly thankful I am to anyone who supported me on Patreon at any point over the last 6 years and particular thanks go to those people, who still to this day send me some of their hard earned dollars month-on-month. It all goes on server costs and you have been directly responsible for keeping Cube Tutor live for as long as it has been. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Further to this, the work required to keep the site updated with the latest set releases has increased significantly over the last couple of years. With the advent of Collector, Draft and Set boosters plus supplementary products like Commander, Secret Lair and Universes Beyond there are now a myriad of different card versions, alternate art, etched foil and promo cards. Previously I could comfortably get several sets added to Cube Tutor in one morning, it can now take me a day or more to add just one of these bigger sets. That’s time that I just don’t have and the site is suffering as a result.
Cube Tutor was launched at a time when browsing the internet on a phone just wasn’t as big as it is today, a time when sitting in front of a screen with a keyboard and mouse was a much more typical way to interact with the internet. Cube Tutor is a homage to a simpler, more naive time in web development and in 2021 it just doesn’t really stand up. Whilst many of its novel features are still useful, it really needs to be completely rewritten from the ground up to be a viable product in the medium to long term. Thankfully the community now has an excellent alternative in Cube Cobra. The guys behind that project have done a great job in producing a modern, elegant alternative to Cube Tutor with many of the same features and more. They have made it easy to import your cube from Cube Tutor. All you have to do is provide your cube id (found in the URL) and Cube Cobra will grab your card list and import it. One of the great aspects of Cube Cobra is that it is Open Source and there is a large community of contributors who are constantly working to improve it. This is something that I could never quite manage to do with Cube Tutor and is arguably one of its greatest failings. I wish Cube Cobra all the best and hope that everyone who has enjoyed Cube Tutor over the years can find a new home there.
I wanted to give a good amount of notice so that anyone who may not see this announcement straight away has a chance to migrate their cubes to Cube Cobra or somewhere else. However on Monday 1st November the site will go offline and all data will be deleted. After that date it will not be possible to recover your cubes so please make your arrangements in plenty of time. I fully understand that many of my remaining Patreon supporters will decide to terminate their support at this announcement. To anyone who is able to hold out for one last month to help me pay my final bills I would appreciate that greatly. Whatever you decide I am incredibly grateful for the support you have given. Thank you.
Despite the significant financial burden, this hasn’t been an easy decision to come to. Cube Tutor was a big part of my world for many years and it’s with a heavy heart that this announcement had to be made today. My best work on Cube Tutor happened around 2013-2015 when I had just left a full time job and had all the time in the world to dedicate to it. It was a really exciting time and I couldn’t wait to get to my keyboard each morning and thrash out a new feature. There are many ways that I hope Cube Tutor innovated and helped to change the way we manage our card collections. I’m most proud of the changelog / blog feature which felt like something essential that you really couldn’t achieve in a spreadsheet. I’m glad to see that this along with aspects of the Analysis, Tagging, List layout, Tokens page, Grid Draft features and many others have made it on to other sites and so even if Cube Tutor isn’t out in the world any more, it’s influence is evident. Life has changed a lot for me since those early days and now at a time in life when I am no longer able to give Cube Tutor the time it deserves I’m happy to see that others have taken the torch and forged forward.
So that’s it. If anyone would like to get in touch you can find me on Twitter @cubetutor or email ben@cubetutor.com
For one last time.. Happy Cubing!
– Ben
CubeTutor dev blog 
I will definitely miss this site… 😦
Ben, thank you *so* much for what you have done for the cube community. I first got into cube during the “peak” time of your work on the site in 2014, and I do not know if I would be where I am today with Cubing if not for your work. As a college student I did not have the time or know how to mess around with spreadsheets, and I needed simple ways to share my list in a *readable* format with fellow drafters. I will always remember a Cube Tutor as the birth home of my own cube.
Just want to say thanks so much for the work you put into the site. Have used it for years and loved having it around as a resource to show off and organize my cube. Thank you thank you!!
Ben, thank you for your time and dedication to CubeTutor. I discovered CubeTutor when I was fairly new to cube, and it was a wonderful tool to help me organize and tinker with my cube, and to get ideas from other cubers out there. To this day, almost a decade later, cube remains my favourite way to play Magic and spend time with old friends. Magic has been a big part of my life, and cube and CubeTutor specifically have been a highly memorable part of my Magic experience. Thank you again for all you have done for me and the cube community. Best wishes from Toronto ❤
Thank you for all the effort you put into this over the years. You’ve definitely had a huge impact on the format! I know my early cubes would never have been created without cubetutor as a resource!
Dude, fantastic site. Sadly I only came across it in the last year or so, but I’ve enjoyed what little time I had with it. This was definitely a work of art! Stay amazing Ben!