A draft timer is the difference between a cube night that ends at ten and one that ends at midnight. Eight players, three packs of fifteen, 45 picks each: at the official tournament pace that is about 30 minutes of drafting. Most casual tables take 50 to 70, and the extra time comes from a handful of picks and a handful of people.
This article gives the official per-pick times, the casual schedule we recommend, how to run a clock with no judge and no hard feelings, and the places a draft loses minutes that have nothing to do with picks.
What is the official draft timer?
The Magic Tournament Rules set per-pick time by how many cards are left in the pack. The schedule, from MTR Appendix B:
| Cards left in pack | Time per pick |
|---|---|
| 15 or 14 | 40 seconds |
| 13 | 35 seconds |
| 12 | 30 seconds |
| 11 or 10 | 25 seconds |
| 9 or 8 | 20 seconds |
| 7 | 15 seconds |
| 6 or 5 | 10 seconds |
| 4, 3, or 2 | 5 seconds |
| 1 | none |
Add that up and a 15-card pack takes 4 minutes 45 seconds, or about 14 and a quarter minutes for three packs. Between packs there is a review period of 60 seconds after pack one and 90 after pack two. Total at tournament pace: about 17 minutes of pure picking, with the rest of a 30-minute draft going to opening, passing, and counting.
The same appendix gives Rochester draft 20 seconds to review a laid-out pack and 5 seconds per pick, and Two-Headed Giant teams a slower schedule starting at 50 seconds for a full pack because two people decide together. Recommended time for deck registration and construction is 25 minutes for draft.
No casual table should run the tournament clock. It is built for players who draft the same set every week and who have a judge to enforce it. But it is the right reference, because it shows how little time a pick needs once the pack is small.
What is a reasonable casual schedule?
Our house schedule for cube, which doubles the early picks and leaves the late ones alone:
| Cards left in pack | Casual time |
|---|---|
| 15 to 12 | 60 seconds |
| 11 to 8 | 40 seconds |
| 7 to 5 | 20 seconds |
| 4 to 1 | 10 seconds |
That works out to about 8 minutes per pack and about 25 minutes of picking across three packs, with a two-minute break between packs to count, sort, and get a drink. Call it 30 minutes of draft, 40 with the usual delays, and the whole thing still fits under 45.
The reason for being generous early and firm late: the first three picks of a pack are where a drafter chooses a lane, and rushing those produces bad decks and resentment. The last six picks of a pack are between cards nobody wants. Thirty seconds on a choice between two filler creatures is where the minutes go.
How do you run a clock without a judge?
You do not need a judge. You need one visible timer and one rule everyone agreed to.
The single-timer method. One phone or kitchen timer in the middle of the table, run by whoever opened the pack. It starts when everyone has their pack and runs for the first-pick time. When it goes off, everyone passes. Reset for the next pick. Nobody is timed individually; the table moves together. It takes a pack or two to get the rhythm and then runs itself.
The pass-when-ready method, with a backstop. No clock for ordinary picks. If a pack has been sitting in front of one player for more than about 30 seconds while the player next to them is empty-handed, anyone may say “clock,” and that player has ten seconds. It is more relaxed and works for a group that already drafts at a reasonable pace.
The hard stop. A timer for the whole draft: 40 minutes. When it goes off, remaining cards are drafted at five seconds a pick. It is the least intrusive option and the most effective, because players pace themselves against a visible total.
Whatever you choose, say it before pack one and apply it to everyone. A clock that only ever gets called on the slowest player is a social problem, not a pacing fix.
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Where does a draft actually lose time?
Picks are only part of it. Watch a draft night with a stopwatch and this is the list, in order of damage:
- Starting late. The draft is scheduled for seven and starts at seven twenty because two players are parking. Fifteen minutes lost before a pack opens. Fix: packs are dealt at seven, and whoever is not seated has their picks made by the table at pick-the-best-card speed until they arrive. Announce it once; nobody is late twice.
- Opening and counting. Eight people each count 15 cards, three times. Fix: the owner deals packs the night before and bands them. Players count once, at the start of each pack, and that is all.
- The one slow pick. One player, one pack, two minutes, usually with a planeswalker in hand and two colors to choose between. Fix: the clock. This is what it is for.
- Talking. A good table talks. The time cost is real: a joke that stops four players from passing costs the whole table 30 seconds. Fix: do not fix it. Budget for it instead.
- Looking back at picks. Players who spread their pile out mid-pack to recount their colors. Fix: picks stay face down in a stack until the pack ends. The MTR has the same rule for competitive events.
- Deck-building drift. Twenty-five minutes becomes forty-five because nobody called time. Fix: a timer for building too, at 25 minutes, with a five-minute warning.
Handled, those six recover more time than any pick clock. Our full setup checklist for the evening is in how to run a cube draft.
Does a timer make the draft worse?
It makes the first pack slightly worse and the night better. The honest trade-off:
A drafter given unlimited time makes slightly better picks in the first five cards of each pack and identical picks afterward. The deck improvement is small. The cost is paid by seven other people, who sit idle, and by the match rounds at the end of the night, which get cut when the draft runs long.
What the clock does not do is help new players. A first-time drafter should be exempt for their first draft or two, seated next to someone who can whisper, and told the clock is for everyone else. Our new-player approach, including the one-page draft guide we hand them, is in cube draft guide for new players.
The groups that use a clock longest are the ones that frame it as a pace, not a penalty. “We draft in 40” is a norm. “You took too long” is a complaint.
How long should the whole night take?
A planning schedule for an eight-player cube night with best-of-three rounds:
| Block | Target | Common slip |
|---|---|---|
| Seat and deal | 10 min | 25 |
| Draft | 35 min | 60 |
| Build | 25 min | 40 |
| Round 1 | 50 min | 60 |
| Round 2 | 50 min | 60 |
| Round 3 | 50 min | 60 |
| Total | 3 h 40 | 5 h 05 |
The slips add up to nearly an hour and a half, and the seating, draft and build are about two thirds of it. Hold those two blocks and the night ends when it was supposed to. Groups that need the night shorter cut round three before they cut anything else, or run single games in the third round.
FAQ
How long should a draft pick take?
Tournament rules allow 40 seconds for a full 15-card pack, dropping to 5 seconds when four or fewer cards remain. A casual cube table doing 60 seconds early and 10 seconds late finishes three packs in about 25 minutes.
How long does an 8-player cube draft take?
About 30 minutes at tournament pace, 35 to 45 at a casual pace with a clock, and 50 to 70 with no clock. Deck-building adds 25.
Do you need a draft timer for cube?
No, but you need an agreed pace. A single visible timer run by the table, or a 40-minute hard stop for the whole draft, keeps most groups on schedule without timing anyone individually.
What is the review period in a draft?
The pause between packs when players may look at their picks. Tournament rules give 60 seconds after pack one and 90 after pack two. Casual tables use the time to count and sort.
Forty minutes, then play
The draft is the part of the night people come for, and the part that eats the rest if nobody watches it. A clock the table runs for itself keeps the games in. The game is the reason. The people are the point.
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