Cube archetypes are the decks a cube is designed to produce. Most cubes aim for ten of them, one for each two-color pair, so that every seat at an eight-player draft has a lane that is open and a deck that works. If you have drafted a retail set, you already know the idea: Boros is aggro, Dimir is control, Golgari is graveyard. A cube just makes the designer responsible for all ten, forever, with no set designers to lean on.
This article walks the ten lanes, names the cards that signal each one, and gives rough card counts for supporting them. It assumes you know how to play Magic and may be building or drafting your first cube. For the format itself, start with what a cube is.
Why do cubes organize around two-color pairs?
A forty-card limited deck usually runs two colors because the mana works and the card quality holds up. Three-color decks need fixing. Mono-color decks need a deep cube. Two colors is the natural resting place, so designers plan for it.
The ten pairs also give each color five partners, which means a drafter who commits to one color in pack one still has choices in pack two. That flexibility is what keeps a draft from collapsing into “I am blue, I hope blue is open.”
Designers distinguish between an archetype and a theme. White weenie is an archetype: a strategy that works with ordinary good cards. “Equipment matters” is a theme: a set of cards that only work together. A cube needs the first. The second is a flavor choice.
The ten lanes and what each one wants
Card names below are examples, not requirements. Your cube may run cheaper or more powerful versions of each role.
Azorius (white-blue): flyers and tempo. Cheap evasive creatures backed by counterspells and bounce. Signals: Spectral Procession, Mana Leak, Reflector Mage, Thraben Inspector. Wants roughly 14 to 18 creatures and 4 to 6 interaction spells.
Dimir (blue-black): control and reanimator. Removal, card draw, and a late game that wins through inevitability. Signals: Counterspell, Doom Blade, Animate Dead, Griselbrand, Fact or Fiction. Often a thin creature suite and a lot of answers.
Rakdos (black-red): sacrifice and aggro. Creatures that want to die and payoffs for killing them. Signals: Viscera Seer, Goblin Bombardment, Bloodghast, Mayhem Devil, Carrion Feeder. The sacrifice version needs both fodder and outlets, so it is one of the harder lanes to support well.
Gruul (red-green): ramp into big threats, or stompy. Mana dorks and ramp spells into creatures with five or more power. Signals: Llanowar Elves, Rampant Growth, Glorybringer, Thragtusk, Bonecrusher Giant.
Selesnya (green-white): go wide with tokens, or counters. Many small creatures and anthem effects. Signals: Raise the Alarm, Intangible Virtue, Glare of Subdual, Hornet Queen in bigger builds. The counters version uses Basri’s Lieutenant, Conclave Mentor, and similar.
Orzhov (white-black): aristocrats and attrition. Sacrifice payoffs with a drain angle, plus the best removal in two colors. Signals: Zulaport Cutthroat, Cartel Aristocrat, Lingering Souls, Vindicate.
Izzet (blue-red): spells matter. Cheap instants and sorceries with creatures that reward casting them. Signals: Monastery Swiftspear, Young Pyromancer, Ledger Shredder, Brainstorm, Lightning Bolt. “UR spells” is one of the most popular lanes to build because the pieces are cheap and fun.
Golgari (black-green): graveyard value. Self-mill, recursion, and creatures that get better when things are in the yard. Signals: Satyr Wayfinder, Grapple with the Past, Eternal Witness, Deathrite Shaman, Golgari Grave-Troll in dredge-heavy cubes.
Boros (red-white): aggro. The purest beatdown deck in the cube, one- and two-drops curving into burn. Signals: Savannah Lions, Goblin Guide, Porcelain Legionnaire, Lightning Helix, Sulfuric Vortex. See why aggro dies in most cubes for why this one needs the most attention.
Simic (green-blue): ramp and value, or flash. Mana acceleration into card advantage, often a big top end. Signals: Coiling Oracle, Prime Speaker Zegana, Hydroid Krasis, Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath. Simic ramp is a reliable lane because green ramp and blue card draw are both deep.
| Pair | Lane | Needs most |
|---|---|---|
| WU | Flyers, tempo | Cheap evasive creatures |
| UB | Control, reanimator | Removal, card draw, fatties to cheat |
| BR | Sacrifice, aggro | Fodder plus outlets plus payoffs |
| RG | Ramp, stompy | Mana dorks, 5-power threats |
| GW | Tokens, counters | Token makers, anthems |
| WB | Aristocrats | Drain effects, recursive creatures |
| UR | Spells | Cheap cantrips, prowess creatures |
| BG | Graveyard | Self-mill, recursion |
| RW | Aggro | One-drops, burn, haste |
| GU | Ramp, flash | Mana acceleration, card advantage |
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How many cards does an archetype need?
Here is a useful rule of thumb for a 360-card cube: each color gets about 50 cards, each guild gets 5 to 8 gold cards, and the colorless and land slots fill the rest. Within a color’s 50, around 30 should be good in any deck of that color, and around 20 can lean toward one of its five archetypes.
That means a two-color archetype pulls from roughly 20 leaning cards in each color, 5 to 8 gold cards, and the 60 or so generically good cards. A drafter who ends up in Rakdos sacrifice needs to find maybe 10 to 12 synergy pieces among all of that. If the cube only holds 6 sacrifice outlets and they all get taken by other decks, the archetype is a trap.
A few counts that experienced designers tend to agree on:
- Aggro one-drops: 8 to 10 in white, 6 to 8 in red, for a 360 cube. Fewer than that and Boros cannot curve out.
- Sacrifice outlets: 5 to 7 across black, red, and colorless. Free outlets like Viscera Seer matter more than costed ones.
- Reanimation spells: 3 to 5, plus 4 to 6 creatures worth reanimating and 4 to 6 ways to put them in the graveyard.
- Counterspells: 6 to 10 in blue. Too many and blue becomes miserable to play against. Too few and control cannot stabilize.
- Mana dorks and ramp: 8 to 12 in green, so that two Simic or Gruul drafters can both find acceleration.
Designers debate these numbers constantly, and the right ones depend on your cube’s power level. The point is to count. An archetype you did not count is an archetype you did not support.
How do you tell if an archetype is actually working?
Draft data, over months. Keep a note after each night of which decks got built and which ones won. If white weenie has been drafted twice in ten drafts and gone 1-2 both times, the cards are not there or the drafters do not trust them. If Dimir control wins every week, it is probably over-supported or the other lanes cannot pressure it.
A quick test for any lane: can you build the deck from the cube list alone, on paper, with 23 playable spells and a curve? Do that for all ten. Then imagine two players fighting over the same lane and see whether both decks survive. If the second one falls apart, you have a one-seat archetype, and someone will have a bad night.
Gold cards are the best diagnostic. A gold card is a promise: “this pair is a deck.” A Boros gold card like Figure of Destiny or Lightning Helix tells the drafter that aggro is real. If you have gold cards for a pair but the mono-color support is missing, the promise is broken.
What about three-color and mono-color decks?
Most cubes let them happen without planning for them. A drafter who takes enough fixing can play Jund or Bant, and mono-red aggro shows up in any cube with enough burn. Those are rewards for reading the table, not lanes the designer must build.
Some cubes do plan around three-color shards or wedges, usually larger cubes of 540 cards with heavy fixing. That is a different design, closer to Khans of Tarkir than to a classic cube. It works, but it asks more of drafters and of the land section. Count your fixing carefully before you try it.
FAQ
Does every cube need all ten archetypes?
No, but every seat in a draft needs a viable deck. Ten lanes is the simplest way to guarantee that for eight players. Themed cubes often run fewer lanes on purpose.
What is the difference between an archetype and a theme?
An archetype is a strategy that works with normal good cards, like aggro or control. A theme is a set of cards that only pay off together, like “artifacts matter.” Cubes need archetypes and can add themes.
How many gold cards should a cube have?
Common practice for a 360-card cube is 4 to 8 per two-color pair, which comes to 40 to 80 total. Fewer gold cards makes drafting more flexible. More makes the lanes clearer.
Which archetype is hardest to support?
Aggro, because it needs the most redundancy at one and two mana, and sacrifice decks, because they need three kinds of card at once: fodder, outlets, and payoffs.
Keep the lanes open
Archetypes are a planning tool, and the plan is for people. Ten working lanes means eight players each go home having built a deck they chose, not one they were forced into. That is what keeps a group coming back. The game is the reason. The people are the point.
If you want more on cube design and the groups that play it, subscribe to The Ludarium newsletter. One piece a week, and cube comes up often. Readers in Indianapolis can draft with us at Cube Commonwealth, where these lanes get tested every week.
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