A cube first draft tells you more than the previous month of list-building did, if you pay attention to the right things. Most owners spend the night drafting their own cube, win or lose a few matches, and come away with a vague sense that “green felt weak.” That is a wasted test. This article is a checklist for watching the draft, the deckbuilding, and the games, and a method for turning what you see into a short change list instead of a panicked rebuild.
If you have not built the cube yet, the weekend build plan gets you to this night.
Should you draft your own cube’s first draft?
Ideally, no. Sit out and watch. You know the list, so your picks will not tell you anything, and while you are agonizing over pick six you are missing what the other seven people are doing. If you need eight bodies and you are the eighth, draft, but draft on autopilot and keep a notepad beside you.
If you can, recruit a mix of players. Two experienced cube drafters will find the broken things. Two newer players will find the confusing things. Both matter.
What should you watch during the picks?
Walk behind the table. You are looking for five things.
- First picks. Write down every pack-one pick-one. If six of eight are the same color or card type, that is your cube’s current power center. It may be fine. It may be a problem. Note it either way.
- What is left at pick eight. Look at pack one after the seventh pick. The cards still there are the cards your drafters think are weakest. If a whole color dominates the leftovers, that color is either too deep or too weak, and the games will tell you which.
- When drafters commit. In a healthy cube, most drafters have settled into two colors by the end of pack one. If half the table is still three or four colors deep at pick fifteen, your gold section or your signposts are not giving them a reason to commit.
- Fights. Watch for two neighbors in the same colors who never got a signal. That usually means the cube’s archetype in those colors is wide enough to support two drafters, or that the signals (cards that only one deck wants) are missing.
- Faces. Players grimace at packs with nothing in them. Count the grimaces per pack-position. Pack three, pick five should still have a real choice in it.
Do not interrupt. Do not explain the cube. Write.
What should you watch during deckbuilding?
Time it. Deckbuilding in a well-built cube takes 15 to 20 minutes for experienced players. Over 25 means something is unclear, usually mana or a lack of playables.
Count each deck’s playables. Ask each drafter: “How many cards did you leave in the sideboard that you would have been happy to play?” Fewer than three means the cube’s colors are thin at that seat. More than eight means those colors are deep enough that the drafter had too easy a time, which can be fine for a first cube but worth knowing.
Count lands. If several players are running 18 lands in a 40-card deck, or splashing a third color with one dual, your fixing is thin. If several are at 15 and running mana rocks, your curve is low and your rocks are good. Both are notes, not fixes yet.
If this is useful, the newsletter sends more like it.
What should you watch during the games?
The games are where the first-draft mythology forms. “Green was broken” after one night usually means one green deck won three matches, and that is one data point. Still, record it.
- Turn the game was decided. Not the turn it ended; the turn after which one player could not come back. Averages under turn five mean a fast cube; over turn nine, slow. Decide whether that matches what you want.
- What decided it. A bomb, a curve-out, a sweeper, a topdeck, mana problems. Tally these across every game. If “mana problems” is the top entry, nothing else matters until you fix the lands.
- Cards that generated a reaction. Every time someone says “that card is absurd” or “that card does nothing,” write the card down with a plus or a minus. One mention is noise; three across the night is a signal.
- Matches by archetype. Which two-color pairs won, which lost, which never got drafted. Across one night this is barely data. Across five nights it is the most useful thing you own.
How do you turn notes into a change list?
Sit down the next morning, not that night. That night you are tired and the loudest player’s opinion is still in your ears.
Sort the notes into three buckets.
Fix now. Anything structural: a color with too few playables, fixing that failed, a mana curve so high that nobody could cast spells. These get changed before the second draft, because they will ruin every draft until fixed.
Watch. Anything that was a single data point: one card that dominated, one archetype that lost, one color that wheeled. Leave it in and see whether it repeats. Most first-night complaints land here.
Ignore. Opinions about cards that did not come up in play, and requests to add a specific favorite. Write them down for politeness and move on.
A reasonable change list after a first draft is five to ten cards. If your list is forty, you are reacting to noise, and you will not know whether the second draft went better because of the changes or in spite of them. The slow method is in how to update a cube without breaking it.
What do first cubes usually find?
Watch enough first drafts and five findings come up more than any others. This is observation, not a tally.
| Finding | Usual cause | Usual fix |
|---|---|---|
| Deckbuilding ran long | Not enough fixing; confusing mana | Add dual lands, mana rocks |
| One color wheeled all night | Weak two-drops or no removal in that color | Rebuild that color’s cheap slots |
| First bomb won | Too little cheap removal | Add unconditional removal, see the removal piece |
| Nobody drafted a specific pair | No signposts, or the pair’s payoffs are weak | Add two clear gold cards for the pair |
| Games went to turn twelve | Top-heavy curve, too many sweepers, or too few threats | Cut five-drops, add two-drops |
If your first night produces one of these, you are normal. If it produces all five, you still are. That is what first drafts are for.
What should you ask the drafters afterward?
Three questions, asked the next day by text so people answer thoughtfully:
- What was the best card you drafted, and the worst card you played?
- Was there a deck you wanted to draft but could not find the cards for?
- Would you draft it again next week?
The third question is the only one that matters for the cube’s future. If the answer is yes, every other problem is fixable.
FAQ
How many players do you need for a cube test draft?
Eight is ideal. Four works with two packs each and 40-card decks, and it will still show you curve and fixing problems. Two-player formats test individual cards but not the draft itself.
Should the cube owner draft their own first draft?
Preferably not. Watching the table shows you what the cube does; drafting it shows you what you already knew.
How many cards should change after a first draft?
Five to ten. Fix structural problems like fixing and a dead color immediately; put single-night card complaints on a watch list for the second and third drafts.
What is the most common problem in a first cube draft?
Mana. Thin fixing shows up as long deckbuilding, awkward splashes, and games decided by color screw. Fix it before anything else.
Watch, then change a little
The first draft is not the night your cube is judged. It is the night it starts telling you what it wants to be. The game is the reason. The people are the point.
Subscribe to The Ludarium newsletter for new cube pieces, and to hear when Cube Commonwealth, our Indianapolis cube group, sets its first night as part of The Ludarium.
Get the next one in your inbox.
Cube news, draft guides, and Cube Commonwealth updates from The Ludarium.