Signpost Cards: Teaching Drafters What Your Cube Wants

Signpost cards in a cube do one job: they tell a drafter, in the middle of pack one, that a particular deck exists and these are its colors. A drafter who opens Mayhem Devil learns that Rakdos in this cube is a sacrifice deck. One who opens Figure of Destiny learns that Boros is aggressive. The card does not have to be the best card in the lane. It has to be the clearest.

That distinction is the whole topic. A lot of cubes treat the gold section as a place for the strongest two-color cards. The better use is as a set of labels, and labels are judged on legibility, not power.

What makes a card a signpost?

Three things, and a card needs all three.

It is unmistakably for one deck. Kolaghan’s Command is a great Rakdos card, and it tells a drafter nothing, because every Rakdos deck wants it. Mayhem Devil is a weaker card in a vacuum and a far better signpost, because it is only good in a deck full of sacrifice.

It appears early enough to matter. A signpost that only shows up in pack three has already failed, because the drafter’s colors are set. This is a question of how many signposts a lane has rather than which ones. One gold card per lane in a 360 means most drafts a given drafter never sees it. Three to five per lane means they probably see one in pack one.

It is worth taking. A signpost nobody picks teaches nobody anything. Sprite Dragon is a fine Izzet spells signpost because a drafter who sees it wants it. A gold card that wheels to ninth pick has told the whole table the lane is weak, which is the opposite of its job.

The gold section is where most signposts live because gold cards cannot be anything but their two colors. But some of the best signposts are mono-colored. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben signals white aggro. Goblin Bombardment signals sacrifice. Reanimate signals the deck in its name. Young Pyromancer signals spells. These do not nail down the second color, which is sometimes exactly right: a drafter who takes Young Pyromancer can still end up Izzet, Rakdos, or Boros, and the cube has taught them “red spells matter” without boxing them in.

Which signposts do the famous cubes use?

Looking at public lists is the fastest way to see the idea in practice. The MTGO Vintage Cube, for example, runs gold cards like Tidehollow Sculler for Orzhov, cards that announce a plan rather than just being good. Lucky Paper’s Cube Map groups public CubeCobra lists into clusters and labels each with the cards that define it, which is a decent proxy for which gold cards a given kind of cube has settled on as signposts.

A short table of the signposts we have found clearest for the traditional ten lanes, with a note on why. These are our picks, not a standard.

Notice the Simic row. Oko is a signpost in the sense that it is unmistakably Simic and always picked. It is a bad signpost in the sense that it goes into any Simic deck, so it teaches nothing about the lane’s plan. Lotus Cobra is weaker and clearer. Which one you run depends on what the cube is for.

Where do signposts go wrong?

Three failure modes show up over and over.

The signpost lies. The cube has Mayhem Devil but only four sacrifice outlets and three things worth sacrificing. The drafter takes the Devil, commits, and finds nothing. The signpost has promised a deck the cube does not contain. This is the worst outcome because it costs the drafter the whole night and teaches them not to trust the gold section. The fix is covered in archetype density: either feed the lane or cut the signpost.

The signpost is too strong. When the gold card is far better than anything in the lane, drafters take it and splash it, or take it and never build the deck. Oko in Simic, Ragavan in a red section, Grief in a reanimator shell. The card gets picked for its power and the lane never forms around it. Not a disaster, but a wasted slot in terms of teaching.

The signposts contradict each other. Rakdos has Mayhem Devil, which says sacrifice, and Kroxa, which says midrange value, and Rakdos Charm, which says nothing. A drafter who sees all three does not learn a lane; they learn that Rakdos is “good black and red cards.” If a pair has multiple gold cards, they should agree on the plan or at least not fight it.

How many signposts per lane?

The house guideline we use is three to five gold cards per two-color pair in a 360, and five to seven in a 540. That gives each lane a good chance of showing one in pack one without making the gold section so large it crowds the colors.

Within those three to five, aim for a spread:

• One that is the lane’s best card and that everyone wants (the hook).
• One or two that only work in the lane’s plan (the labels).
• One that is cheap and playable so it gets picked even when the lane is contested (the floor).

For Boros aggro that might be Figure of Destiny as the hook, Boros Charm and Lightning Helix as the floor, and something like Forth Eorlingas! or Winota, Joiner of Forces as the label. For Golgari it might be Grist as the hook, Abrupt Decay as the floor, and Deathrite Shaman or Binding the Old Gods as the label depending on whether the plan is graveyard or value.

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Can a cube signpost without gold cards?

Yes, and some of the best-designed cubes lean on it. A mono-colored signpost does half the job (this color has this plan) and leaves the drafter free to find the second color. The upside is flexibility; the downside is that drafters who do not know the cube may miss the signal.

Some examples that work well as half-signposts:

• White: Thalia, Guardian of Thraben (aggro); Thraben Inspector (artifacts matter); Elspeth, Sun’s Champion (go wide, control finisher).
• Blue: Brazen Borrower (tempo); Mulldrifter (value); Opposition (creatures as a resource).
• Black: Reanimate (the graveyard deck); Bloodghast (sacrifice fodder); Bitterblossom (tokens).
• Red: Young Pyromancer (spells); Goblin Bombardment (sacrifice); Sneak Attack (cheat big creatures).
• Green: Lotus Cobra (ramp); Scavenging Ooze (graveyard matters); Hardened Scales (counters).

A cube that uses half-signposts well lets a drafter who takes Reanimate and Sneak Attack in pack one realize on their own that there is a Rakdos “cheat things in” deck, even if no gold card ever said so. That discovery is one of the better feelings in drafting, and it is the reason we keep the gold section leaner than some owners would.

How do you test whether signposts are working?

Ask the drafters, not the spreadsheet. After a draft, ask three or four people what deck they thought they were drafting at the end of pack one, and what card told them. If the answers match the lanes you designed, the signposts are working. If people say “I was just taking good black cards,” they are not.

Also watch pick order on CubeCobra if you run drafts there. A gold card that is consistently picked in the first five picks and consistently ends up in a finished deck of its lane is doing its job. One that is picked early and then sits in a sideboard was taken for power, not plan.

The signposts are one of the three or four things that give a cube an identity people remember, which is the subject of cube identity. A drafter who can name your Rakdos signpost from memory has learned your cube.

FAQ

What is a signpost card in cube?

A card, usually gold, that tells a drafter which deck a color pair supports. Its job is clarity, not raw power.

How many gold cards should a cube have?

A common house range is three to five per two-color pair in a 360-card cube, around 30 to 50 total. More than that and the gold section starts taking slots from the colors.

Should signposts be the strongest cards in the lane?

Not necessarily. The clearest signposts are often mid-power cards that only work in one deck. A too-strong signpost gets splashed or taken on power and teaches nothing.

Can mono-colored cards be signposts?

Yes. Cards like Reanimate, Young Pyromancer, and Lotus Cobra signal a plan without fixing the second color, which gives drafters room to find the pair themselves.

Say what the cube means

A signpost is the cube talking to the drafter. Pick cards that say one clear thing, make sure the thing they say is true, and let people find the decks you built for them. The game is the reason. The people are the point.

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