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MTG Cube Design, Guides, Formats, Templates, and Gear

Cube Formats

Discover the best MTG Cube drafting methods, gameplay variants, and specialized cubes to maximize the value of an MTG collection and time for you and your playgroup.
  1. Drafting Methods: The different ways players can select or build a pool of cards.
  2. Gameplay Variants: Ways to play a game of Magic once decks are built.
  3. Specialized Cubes: Cubes with a fundamental twist that change how they’re drafted or played.
  4. No Deck-Building Required: All-in-one cube format experiences that don’t require drafting or deck-building to play.

Drafting Methods

These are different sets of rules for taking a cube and creating individual player card pools to build decks and play magic with.

Players |
Setup Overhead? The amount of extra time and logistics required before the draft can even start
|
Minutes? The amount of time a draft will take on average
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Booster Draft

  • Players: 4-12
  • Setup Overhead: Low
  • Minutes: 20
  • Concept: Traditional method. Players pick one card from a pack and pass the rest, repeating until all cards are gone.

Grid Draft

  • Players: 2-3
  • Setup Overhead: Low
  • Minutes: 15
  • Concept: Create 3x3 grid of face-up cards every round, choosing a single row or column each pick.

Sealed

  • Players: Any
  • Setup Overhead: Low
  • Minutes: 0
  • Concept: Each player gets 90 random cards from which to build their 40 card decks.

Burn Draft

  • Players: 2-6
  • Setup Overhead: Low
  • Minutes: 20
  • Concept: A twist on booster draft for smaller groups that emulates more players by “burning” cards from packs.

Double Decker Draft

  • Players: 4
  • Setup Overhead: Moderate
  • Minutes: 40
  • Concept: A four-player booster draft where players draft a double-size pool and then build two separate decks.

Rochester Draft

  • Players: 4-8
  • Setup Overhead: Moderate
  • Minutes: 120+
  • Concept: Players snake draft each pack of cards face-up, with each new pack shifting first pick by 1 seat.

Rotisserie Draft

  • Players: 4-8
  • Setup Overhead: Severe
  • Minutes: 120+
  • Concept: The entire cube of cards is snake drafted one at a time (Usually best to do asynchronously).

Solomon Draft

  • Players: 2
  • Setup Overhead: Low
  • Minutes: 20
  • Concept: Two players take turns creating piles of cards from a shared pool, then the other player chooses a pile, similar to Fact or Fiction.

Supreme Draft

  • Players: Any
  • Setup Overhead: Severe
  • Minutes: 20
  • Concept: Repeatedly generating packs from a cube list ignoring singleton restriction leading to broken decks of absurdity. (The actual drafting is fast but time to gather or create proxies can be lengthy)

Team Sealed

  • Players: Any
  • Setup Overhead: Low
  • Minutes: 0
  • Concept: Players are split into teams and each player gets 90 random cards to pool together as a team from which to build their respective 40 card decks (This significantly increases deck-building time).

Winchester Draft

  • Players: 2
  • Setup Overhead: Low
  • Minutes: 15
  • Concept: Each pick, draw 4 cards adding one to each of 4 piles of cards, take turns choosing an entire pile.

Winston Draft

  • Players: 2
  • Setup Overhead: Low
  • Minutes: 20
  • Concept: A two-player format where drafters battle choosing a known pile of cards versus the FOMO and take a gamble on the next unknown pile.

Gameplay Variants

These are rule modifications that change how the game of Magic itself is played. They can be applied to almost any deck, whether you got it from a cube draft or brought it from home.

Star Battle

  • Players: 5
  • Time Impact: A 5 player game will take longer than any 1v1 game but only having to defeat two opponents instead of 4 others to win helps reduce this overhead
  • Concept: Each player has two allies sitting directly next to them and two enemies sitting opposite them. The first player to defeat their two enemies first is the winner which creates interesting dynamics of shifting priorities and targets. This is a particularly useful format to know about because 5 players is a difficult number to work with in most other ways of playing magic. I have Khans of Tarkir Cube that can support this as a Sealed or Draft event with each player claiming one of the 5 Tarkir clans that I love playing anytime we have exactly 5. (I have Google Doc with the full rules. )

Team Draft / Team Sealed

  • Players: Any even number split into two teams (Works great with two teams of 3)
  • Time Impact: Fewer rounds required to crown team winners than individual winner
  • Concept: Each player from one team will play against each member of the opposing team until one team has a number of match wins greater than half the total possible matches (so for two teams of 3 players there are 9 possible matches or 3 team A * 3 team B, so it’s the first team to 5 match wins as 9 / 2 = 4.5).

Two-Headed Giant

  • Players: 4 (in two teams of two)
  • Time Impact: Expect a game of 2v2 to take twice as long as 1v1
  • Concept: Teams of two players share a life total (usually 30) and take their turn simultaneously. It’s a cooperative format that encourages teamwork and synergy between the two decks. Full rules can be found on the wizards website.

Specialized Cubes

Commander Cube

  • Draft your commander(s) in addition to your deck.
  • Games played are multiplayer format.

Desert Cube

  • A variant of Booster Draft where players are not provided with a basic land station.
  • Every land you play must be a land you drafted, making mana fixing and land picks more important.

A friend and fellow cuber has a great Desert and companion cube themed around the Dune IP you can check out here: The Desert of Arrakis

Stone Soup

  • A collaborative cube build where everyone secretly and independently contributes a portion of the cards that make up the cube.
  • Usually 45 un-sleeved cards that remain un-sleeved for the night.
  • It’s a fun and chaotic way to create an environment where no one knows the full contents of the draft pool ahead of time.

No Deck-Building Required

These are all-in-one contained experiences & cube-adjacent formats that have their own distinct rules and constraints that don’t require any drafting or deck-building before playing. (These are great games to have on hand that provide fun, fast, and unique MTG based experiences. Future deep dive articles on these formats to come.)

Dandan / Forgetful Fish

  • Players: 2
  • Concept: A two-player battle of wits using a single shared library. It’s a deep and strategic format focused on blue instant-speed interaction and beating down with a Dandân (Full Google Doc from Creator Nick Floyd).

Battle Box / Danger Room

  • Players: 2-4
  • Concept: Players play using a single shared library with all lands coming from a land bank instead of the deck removing mana screw and flood. It can be a good format for teaching some of the basics of how to play MTG with the right list.

Party Box

  • Players: 2-6
  • Concept: A chaotic shared library format that includes non-mtg cards (Lorcana, Yu-Gi-Oh!, even Uno are all fair game) where any card can become a face down “everywhere” land to flip face-up later using a Flickerwisp. How do these different games’ rules interact with each other? You’ll spend much of the time figuring that part out. The experience ranges from “Well, I guess you win?” to some of the most fun I’ve had playing “Magic” with friends. It truly is a party in a box.
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