Cube Gold Section: How Big Should It Be?

The cube gold section is the set of multicolor cards, and its size does more to shape a draft than any other single count. Too small and color pairs have no identity; drafters take the best card in every pack and the decks all look alike. Too large and gold cards go late, drafters feel punished for committing to two colors, and the “wrong” pairs feel unsupported. The common range is 5 to 12 percent of the cube, and where you land inside it depends on your fixing and your archetype count.

This article gives numbers by cube size, a method for splitting the section across pairs, and a note on the colorless section, which is the gold section’s quiet partner.

What does the gold section do in a draft?

Three jobs, and it is worth naming them because each one argues for a different size.

Signposting. A gold card says “this color pair is a deck.” Drafters see Goblin Electromancer and know blue-red spells is supported. The first two gold cards per pair exist for this reason, and they do their job even if they are not the best cards in the cube.

Rewarding commitment. A drafter who locks into black-green by pick eight should get paid for it in packs two and three. Gold payoffs do that. A cube with no gold payoffs makes commitment a weakness.

Limiting flexibility. Every gold card is a card only a fraction of the table can use. That is a feature when you want drafters to commit and a bug when you want them to stay open. Heavy-fixing cubes can afford more gold because more drafters can cast it; light-fixing cubes cannot.

So the size question is really: how much do you want to reward commitment, and how many drafters can cast a two-color card on time? Answer those and the count follows.

How many gold cards by cube size?

House guidelines, assuming ten supported two-color pairs and no three-color cards. Treat the middle column as the default.

The MTGO Vintage Cube, which runs heavy fixing including the original duals and fetches, files more than a hundred cards into its ten guild sections and a multicolor section (MTGO publishes the full list with each update); that count includes the dual lands and Talismans, and once those are set aside the true gold count lands near the top of the table for a 540. Lightly fixed community cubes often run half that at the same size.

Two notes on reading the table.

Per-pair counts matter more than the total. Thirty gold cards is three per pair in a ten-pair cube. If you support only six pairs, thirty gold cards is five per pair, which is a very different draft. For 180-card cubes and other small sizes we support fewer pairs, and the 180-card cube piece explains the trade-off.

Hybrid cards are not gold for this count. A hybrid card goes into either color’s section, usually the one it plays best in. It does not reward commitment and should not be counted as if it does.

How should you split the section across pairs?

Evenly, with one exception.

Even distribution is the default because an uneven gold section makes some pairs feel like “real decks” and others like afterthoughts, and drafters notice within a few sessions. If black-red has seven gold cards and blue-green has three, blue-green is a second-class lane whatever the single-color support looks like.

The exception is a cube with a deliberate identity. If your cube is built around four lanes and six good-stuff pairs, give the four lanes five gold cards each and the other six pairs two each. Write that down in the primer so drafters know. The unevenness is a feature when it is on purpose and announced.

Within each pair, a structure that works at five per pair in a 540:

1. Cheap signpost (two mana). Visible, castable early, tells the story.
2. Mid signpost (three or four mana). The card drafters build around.
3. Payoff that is strong in the lane and fine outside it.
4. Good card any deck in these colors wants, no lane required.
5. Flex or test slot.

The two signposts are the non-negotiables. The other three can shift with the season. Our signpost-cards piece covers how those two teach a draft.

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Should the gold section include three-color cards?

Mostly no, with a small allowance in heavily fixed cubes.

A three-color card can be cast by a smaller share of the table than a two-color card, and it signals a lane that most cubes cannot support ten of. In a light or medium fixing cube, three-color cards sit in packs until pick twelve and then get hate-drafted. They are dead slots.

In a heavy-fixing cube with triomes and fetches, a handful of three-color cards at the shard or wedge level (five or ten total, not thirty) can work as high-end payoffs for drafters who went deep on fixing. Keep them powerful and keep them few. If a three-color card is not clearly better than the best two-color option in its colors, it is taking a slot from a card that would get cast.

Four- and five-color cards are a different question. Cards like Niv-Mizzet Reborn or the Sliver legends are build-arounds for a specific kind of cube, usually one that wants rainbow decks to exist. In a normal two-color cube they are novelty slots.

What does the colorless section owe the gold section?

The colorless section is the gold section’s balance. Gold cards narrow who can play a card; colorless cards widen it. A cube with a big gold section and a small colorless section leaves drafters with nothing to take when the pack has no cards in their colors. A cube with lots of colorless cards and little gold lets everyone stay open forever and never commit.

House guideline for a 540: colorless at 35 to 45, roughly two thirds of the gold count. Within it:

• Mana rocks (10 to 14): Signets and Talismans at two, a few at three, Sol Ring and Mana Crypt only if the cube wants them.
• Equipment (6 to 10): the cards that make aggro work in any color.
• Artifact creatures (8 to 12): the “any deck” creature layer, scaled to the cube’s power.
• Utility and hate (6 to 10): Pithing Needle, Relic of Progenitus, Smuggler’s Copter-style value.

Colorless cards are also the easiest place for a cube to bloat, because every one of them is “playable in any deck.” Playable is not the same as wanted. If a colorless card goes eleventh pick three drafts running, it is filler.

When is the gold section too big or too small?

Signs it is too big:

• Gold cards regularly wheel, even the signposts.
• Drafters complain about “dead packs” with four gold cards none of them can use.
• Late-pack picks are mostly hate drafts of gold cards.
• Three-color decks are common and two-color decks feel underpowered by comparison.

Signs it is too small:

• Decks across the table look the same regardless of color pair.
• New drafters cannot tell what any pair “does.”
• Commitment by pick eight feels like a mistake rather than a plan.
• Your primer describes ten archetypes and the draft reliably produces three.

Fix a too-big section by cutting the fifth and fourth slots per pair first and keeping the two signposts. Fix a too-small section by adding one cheap signpost to each pair before adding payoffs, because the signpost is what drafters are missing. Both fixes move the cube’s shape, so make them one swap at a time and read the next three drafts. The method in how to update a cube applies.

The game is the reason. The people are the point. The gold section is how you tell the people what the game wants from them.

FAQ

How many gold cards should a 540 cube have?

A common range is 30 to 70, with 50 (five per color pair) a reasonable default for a medium-fixing cube. Lighter fixing argues for fewer; heavier fixing and more supported lanes argue for more.

What percentage of a cube should be multicolor?

Roughly 5 to 12 percent. The right point in that range depends on how much fixing the cube runs, since fixing decides how many drafters can cast a two-color card on time.

Should every color pair have the same number of gold cards?

By default, yes. Uneven gold distribution makes some pairs feel unsupported. The exception is a cube with a stated identity that deliberately supports some pairs more than others.

Do hybrid cards count as gold?

No. A hybrid card can be cast by either color, so it does not reward two-color commitment. Count it in the color section where it plays best.

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