720 Card Cube: When a Big Cube Helps and Hurts

A 720 card cube is two full eight-player drafts in one box: sixteen players, two pods, no card opened twice. That is its best argument and, for most groups, its only necessary one. The other reasons people build big (variety, room for every pet card, never having to cut) are real but come with costs that are easy to underestimate until you have drafted the thing a dozen times.

This article is for owners considering 720, 810, 900, or larger. It covers what a big cube does well, where it breaks, and how to build one that stays coherent.

What does a 720-card cube do that a 540 cannot?

Three things.

Two eight-player pods at once. 720 ÷ 2 = 360, a full draft per pod. If your group has crossed sixteen, this is the clean solution. A 540 can split into two pods of six (270 each), but not two pods of eight. For groups that run league nights or store events, this is the whole reason the size exists. Our two-pod logistics guide covers the night itself.

Real draft-to-draft variety. Eight players open half the cube. Any given card is a coin flip to appear. Over a month of weekly drafts, players see a different format every time, and nobody can plan pick one around a specific card.

Room for depth within lanes. In a 540, a Reanimator lane might hold twelve cards. In a 720 it can hold eighteen, with enough redundancy that the lane is draftable even when a third of it is in the box. A big cube can support a few narrower strategies that a 540 cannot afford, provided the owner gives them the slots.

Where does a big cube hurt?

The costs scale faster than the benefits.

Archetype density collapses unless you overbuild. This is the central problem. A lane that needs fifteen cards on the table to be draftable needs about thirty in a 720, because half stay home. Owners who copy their 540’s lane sizes into a 720 and add 180 “good cards” end up with a cube where no lane is reliably open. The draft becomes “take the best card” because synergy cannot be counted on.

Aggro suffers first. Aggro decks need density of cheap creatures more than any other archetype needs anything. In a 720 that runs 540-level counts of one- and two-drops, red aggro is a trap on half the nights. The fix is the same as at 540, only more so: build the cheap creature slots as a percentage of the cube, not a count. Our aggro-in-cube piece has the specific counts.

Fixing gets expensive or thin. If you want three-color decks to work, a 720 needs three or four full land cycles to deliver the same fixing per draft a 540 gets from two. That is 30 to 40 dual lands at the top end, which is a real cost in money and slots. If you run two cycles in a 720, expect strict two-color decks.

Weak cards hide. With 720 slots there is always room for one more. Card 700 is never the obvious cut because it only shows up half the time and nobody remembers it. Big cubes drift toward bloat for structural reasons, not because their owners are lazy. Our shrinking-a-cube piece covers the recovery.

Nobody learns the format. Mastery is part of what makes a cube rewarding over years. Drafters who know a 360 can plan, signal, and bluff. Drafters of a 720 are reacting to a new environment every week, which some love and some find exhausting. Ask your group which they are.

How do you keep a 720 coherent?

Treat it as a 360 that happens to be drafted twice at once, not as a 540 with extra cards. The design moves follow from that.

These are house guidelines, not standards. The pattern is what matters: every count that defines a lane or a role scales by about one and a half from 540 to 720, and the number of lanes does not. Big cubes that add lanes instead of deepening them are the ones that feel random.

Two more rules that help.

Every card has a named role. At 720 “it’s a good card” is not enough. If a card is not aggro, control, lane support, removal, fixing, or a finisher, it is bloat. Write the role in your spreadsheet. Our sections and slots article covers how.

Duplicate effects on purpose. Running two near-identical cards (Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning, Counterspell and Mana Drain) is the big cube’s main tool for keeping a role reliable. Some owners go further and run actual duplicates. Either is fine at 720 and both are better than a unique card that plays the role worse.

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Is 810 or 900 ever right?

810 is 540 times one and a half: eighteen players in two pods of nine, or a 540-feel with three pods of six. 900 is two pods of ten or a round number people like. Past 720, the question is less about math and more about whether you are building a cube or a curated collection.

There are good reasons to go very big. A store that runs public cube nights with unpredictable attendance benefits from a 900 that can seat whatever shows up. A chaos or nostalgia cube that is meant to be unpredictable benefits from size. A Commander cube, where each drafter needs far more playables, often runs 720 or more by necessity.

For a normal competitive or synergy cube with one owner and one group, 720 is the practical ceiling. Past it, the owner spends more time maintaining than the group spends drafting, and that is the wrong ratio.

What about splitting instead of growing?

Often the better answer. Instead of one 720 that tries to be everything, run two 360s with different identities: a powered and an unpowered, a vintage and a pauper, a synergy cube and a good-stuff cube. Each is tight. The group picks the night’s cube. Sixteen players still split into two pods, each pod drafts a full cube, and both lists stay learnable.

The cost is two sets of fixing and two sets of maintenance. The gain is that neither cube has the density problem, and each can be the best version of its idea. Many of the best-regarded community cubes are 360 or 450 for exactly this reason, and their owners run several. Modular cubes are a middle path: one core with swappable sections, which gets some of the variety of 720 with the density of 360.

Who should build a 720

Build one if at least two of these are true.

• Your group regularly seats fourteen or more.
• You draft weekly or more and your group values surprise over mastery.
• You have the time to maintain thirty-card lanes and the discipline to cut.
• You are building a style of cube (Commander, chaos, nostalgia) where size is part of the design.

If only one is true, build 540 and borrow a second cube for the big nights. If none is, build 360 and draft it more.

The game is the reason. The people are the point. A 720 serves sixteen of them at once, which is a fine reason to build one, as long as every eight of them still get a draft worth playing.

FAQ

How many players can a 720 card cube support?

Sixteen, as two pods of eight with three fifteen-card packs each and no cards shared between pods. It also supports two pods of six to eight with cards to spare.

Is a bigger cube more fun?

More varied, not more fun by default. Variety comes at the cost of archetype reliability and aggro consistency, and large cubes need deliberately deeper lanes to compensate.

How many lands should a 720 cube have?

If you want three-color decks, three or four full ten-card dual cycles plus utility lands, about 40 to 60 land slots. For strict two-color play, two cycles is enough. Count lands as a ratio of the cube, not a fixed number.

Should I build a 720 or two 360s?

Two 360s with different identities are usually the stronger choice for a single group. A 720 is better for a store or league with unpredictable, large attendance.

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