The best cube design ideas are already in public, attached to lists you can open. This article pulls ten of them from cubes and writers we have profiled in this series: the MTGO Vintage Cube, the Legacy Cube, the Pauper Cube, Lucky Paper’s writing, and the Magic Online and Arena spotlight cubes. Each one comes with its source and the version that fits a paper cube drafted by eight people once a month.
None of these are about which cards to run. They are about how to run a cube.
1. Add archetypes as packages, not cards
From: the MTGO Vintage Cube. Ryan Spain’s December 2023 post on the future of the Vintage Cube described tagging cards in the cube’s spreadsheet by the archetype it supports and a rough power rank, so the cards for a whole archetype can be filtered in or out together. The August 2026 update is the method in practice: Dark Depths came back with four returning supporting cards, not alone.
Paper version: add a tag column to your list. When you want to try Reanimator, add the whole package in one update and remove it as a unit if it fails. One build-around without support is a slot that will disappoint whoever takes it.
2. Follow every big update with a polish pass
From: the same Vintage Cube plan: four major updates a year, each followed the next month by a smaller “polish” update that refines without changing significant archetypes. The May 2024 polish was 14 swaps with a design comment on each.
Paper version: after any change of 20 or more cards, hold the next month for small fixes only. Big updates always get two or three things wrong, and a polish pass means you fix them before they settle in as the cube’s personality.
3. Write a sentence for every swap
From: the Vintage Cube’s recent update posts, which give a design comment for each change, and the Pauper Cube’s blog posts. The commentary is the part of each update people quote back at each other.
Paper version: “Out: Vengevine. In: Painter’s Servant. Why: madness was taking up too much space and we wanted a second artifact combo.” One line each. Your drafters will read it, argue with it and remember it. Our changelog article covers the format.
4. Put the update calendar in writing
From: the Pauper Cube, which states on its home page that it updates “twice annually, roughly in April and October.”
Paper version: pick two months. Announce them. Between updates, collect suggestions but do not act on them. A cube that changes on a schedule feels stable; a cube that changes whenever the owner gets excited feels like it is shifting under the drafters’ feet.
5. Let players vote on something
From: the Pauper Cube’s separate polling site, linked from its main navigation.
Paper version: you do not need a website. Once per update cycle, post five candidate cards in the group chat and let people vote on which one gets the open slot. The owner keeps the other 539 decisions. The one shared decision is enough to make the cube feel owned by the room, which is the whole argument of the community cube.
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6. Ask the four questions before any other design work
From: Parker LaMascus’s “The First Four Questions Cube Designers Should Ask” on Lucky Paper: how will the cube be played, what are its restrictions, how powerful should it be, and how should the ideal environment play.
Paper version: answer them in four sentences at the top of your primer. Then, every time someone suggests a card, check it against those four sentences before you check it against the card it would replace. Most suggestions fail question one or two.
7. Count the fixing against data, not instinct
From: Andy Mangold’s Lucky Paper study of more than 75,000 CubeCobra draft decks, which found typical cubes running about 8% to 12% fixing and recommended far more for two-color decks at Legacy or Modern power.
Paper version: count your multicolor lands today. Divide by cube size. If the number is under 15% and your drafters keep ending up in two colors with a splash they cannot cast, you have found the problem. The formula and ranges are in our article on lands in a cube.
8. Keep the gold section small and the sentences clear
From: the MTGO Legacy Cube, which runs six gold cards per guild in a list of 600, against the Vintage Cube’s ten to fifteen.
Paper version: for an unpowered cube that wants drafters to stay flexible through pack one, six to eight per guild is enough. Make each guild’s cards agree with one another about what the pair does. A guild whose gold cards point in three directions is a lane nobody will draft on purpose.
9. Push the curve only as far as the support goes
From: the Arena Chromatic Cube, whose 2025 announcement stated two guard rails: players “can’t afford to do nothing during the first four turns,” and they “should not be overly penalized for ramping and playing expensive cards.”
Paper version: if you add five more six-drops, add five more two-mana ramp or fixing pieces in the same update. The big-spell cube that fails is almost always the one where the owner added dragons and forgot the Farseeks.
10. Say what the cube is for in the first paragraph
From: all of them. The Ravnica Cube’s preview told you it was flat-powered and gold-heavy. Tinkerer’s Cube’s announcement told you it had no fixed archetypes. The Pauper Cube’s guide tells you the games are won by “the compounding nature of small strategic decisions.” Nobody sits down surprised.
Paper version: your primer’s first paragraph should let a stranger decide whether to draft. “Unpowered, Legacy-level, aggro is real, three-color decks are a stretch, games end around turn eight.” If you cannot write that paragraph, the cube does not have an identity yet, and giving a cube an identity is the article to read next.
One idea not to borrow
Do not borrow a card list wholesale and call it yours. The famous cubes are tuned for their players: thousands of anonymous MTGO drafters, or a specific CubeCon crowd, or the designer’s own friends. Your eight people are not those people. Borrow the process, read the lists for structure, and let your own drafters tell you what the cards should be.
FAQ
What is an archetype package in cube design?
A build-around card plus the supporting cards it needs, added and removed as a unit. The MTGO Vintage Cube team tags cards by archetype so packages can be filtered in or out together.
How often should a cube be updated?
The Pauper Cube updates twice a year on a published schedule; the MTGO Vintage Cube planned four major updates a year with polish passes in 2024, and in 2026 has updated with nearly every set. For a paper cube, two to four scheduled updates a year is a reasonable house guideline.
Should cube drafters get a vote on changes?
A limited one works well. One shared decision per update, with the owner keeping the rest, gives drafters a stake without turning the cube into a committee.
What is a polish pass?
A small follow-up update, a month or so after a major one, that fixes the things the big update got wrong without changing archetypes.
Take one and try it
Pick one idea from this list and apply it to your next update. Then watch what changes at the table. 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.
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