Planeswalkers in Cube: How Many Is Too Many?

Planeswalkers in cube are the card type most likely to be over-included and least likely to be noticed as the problem. Each one is a strong card. Twenty of them in a 540-card list turn every midrange game into a contest of who untaps with a walker first, and they quietly push out the creatures and spells that make games interactive. The right number is lower than most lists run, and the right ones are the cheap ones.

This article explains why walkers stack on each other, names the ones that still earn a slot at each mana value, and gives a count that works as a house guideline.

Why do planeswalkers warp a cube more than creatures do?

A planeswalker is a permanent that generates an effect every turn, protects itself, and cannot be answered by most of the removal a cube runs. Creature removal does not touch it. Counterspells answer it only on the stack. The default answer is attacking it, which means the walker’s controller is playing a different game from an opponent who drafted a removal-heavy control deck.

Three things follow:

1. Walkers reward the player who is already ahead. A walker on an empty board is a lock. A walker behind on board is a Lightning Bolt that fizzled. So walkers widen the gap between a good draw and a bad one.
2. Walkers stack. Two walkers protect each other. Jace, the Mind Sculptor bouncing an attacker while Elspeth, Knight-Errant makes a blocker is a board that most decks cannot break. A cube with many walkers makes two-walker boards common.
3. Walkers compete for the same slot. Every four-mana walker in a color replaces a four-mana creature or sweeper. Past a point, the color’s four-drop slot is nothing but walkers and the decks that want creatures starve.

Which planeswalkers still earn a slot?

Mana value is the sorting key. Cheap walkers come down before the board is settled; expensive ones arrive when the game is already decided one way or the other. The Magic Online Vintage Cube designers said as much in their October 2026 update: “Five-mana planeswalkers are unquestionably declining in viability in modern Vintage Cube.”

Two mana. Wrenn and Six (plus: return a land from your graveyard to hand; minus: deal one damage to any target). Cheap, kills one-toughness creatures, and its ultimate rarely matters. In the current MTGO list. Few other walkers cost two, and most cubes run none of them.

Three mana. The best band. Liliana of the Veil (plus: each player discards; minus: target player sacrifices a creature). Oko, Thief of Crowns (plus two: make a Food; plus one: turn an artifact or creature into a 3/3 Elk with no abilities). Teferi, Time Raveler (static: opponents cast only at sorcery speed; plus: you may cast sorceries at instant speed; minus: bounce an artifact, creature or enchantment and draw). Narset, Parter of Veils (static: opponents draw at most one card per turn; minus: dig for a noncreature). Liliana, the Last Hope. Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy flips into one. Saheeli, Sublime Artificer and Kaya, Orzhov Usurper are the next tier down and most cubes skip them. Three-mana walkers are strong because they arrive before the board is settled and because their costs match the two-drop creatures meant to pressure them.

Four mana. Jace, the Mind Sculptor (plus two: fateseal; zero: Brainstorm; minus: bounce a creature). Elspeth, Knight-Errant (plus: make a 1/1 Soldier; plus: give a creature +3/+3 and flying). Chandra, Torch of Defiance. Garruk Wildspeaker. Daretti, Scrap Savant and Karn, Scion of Urza. Four is where walkers used to live and where they are now a coin flip: good against a slow deck, dead against a fast one.

Five mana and up. Elspeth, Sun’s Champion (three Soldiers a turn, or destroy every creature with power four or greater). Ugin, the Spirit Dragon at eight. Karn Liberated at seven. These end games they enter but increasingly do not get to enter. The MTGO designers cut Nissa, Ascended Animist (seven mana, five with life) in August 2025, and in October 2026 put Garruk, Curse Breaker in on trial while noting that five-mana walkers are declining.

What does each mana value do to the format?

The counts are a house guideline. They add up to roughly 12 to 15 walkers in a 540-card cube, or 8 to 10 in a 360. Many public lists run 20 or more, which is where the problems in the next section start.

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What are the signs you have too many?

• Four-drops are all walkers. Open your four-mana section by color. If white’s four-drops are all walkers and there is no four-mana creature except a token maker, the slot is broken.
• Aggro’s win rate falls. Walkers are hard for aggro in theory and easy in practice, because aggro attacks them. But cheap walkers that make or remove blockers (Elspeth’s Soldiers, Oko’s Elk, Liliana’s edict) stop a two-drop deck cold. If aggro cannot close games, count walkers before you blame removal. See aggro in cube.
• Games end on untap steps. When the question in every midrange game is “did they untap with the walker,” the walker count is too high. Interactive games end on combat and on spells.
• Drafters first-pick walkers over everything. A walker should be a good pick, not an automatic one. If every walker goes in the first three picks, there are too few of them per drafter who wants one, or too many of them relative to the creatures that answer them.

Which answers should a cube run alongside walkers?

If you run walkers you owe the cube answers that are not “attack it.” The ones that pull their weight:

• Burn that hits any target. Lightning Bolt, Lightning Helix, Chandra’s Triumph, Hero’s Downfall-style spells.
• Flexible removal. Assassin’s Trophy, Vindicate, Anguished Unmaking, Council’s Judgment, Maelstrom Pulse.
• Hasty creatures and fliers. The honest answer. Goblin Guide, Hellrider, Stormbreath Dragon.
• Counterspells. Only matter if the walker is cast into open mana, which is why blue control decks like walkers more than they fear them.
• The Elderspell and Pithing Needle are narrow and usually not worth the slot.

A cube with fifteen walkers and six answers in the first two categories is balanced. A cube with twenty-five walkers and three is not. How much removal a cube needs covers the broader count.

FAQ

How many planeswalkers should a 360-card cube have?

A house guideline is eight to ten, leaning on three- and four-mana walkers with at most one five-drop per color. Fewer is fine. More than fifteen is where the four-drop slot starts to break.

Is Jace, the Mind Sculptor still good in cube?

Yes, in any band that allows it. Four mana for a Brainstorm every turn plus a bounce is still the best control walker printed. It is weaker against aggro than it was in 2010 and still a first pick in most seats.

Is Oko too strong for an unpowered cube?

Oko answers any artifact or creature for three mana and makes a 3/3 every other turn. Wizards banned it in Legacy, an eternal Constructed format, in February 2021, which tells you how strong it is even among the best cards ever printed. Most unpowered lists that keep it do so with eyes open.

Should a Pauper cube have planeswalkers?

No planeswalker has a common printing, so a Pauper cube has none. That is part of why Pauper games are decided on the board.

Count yours this week

Open your list, sort by type, and count. If the number surprises you, start by cutting five-drops. 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. The game is the reason. The people are the point.