3v3 Team Draft for Cube: Rules, Seating, and Scoring

Team draft seats two teams of three in alternating chairs, so every pack you pass goes to an opponent. After the draft, each player plays each of the three opponents, nine matches in all, and the first team to five match wins takes the night. It is the format where a cube group stops being eight individuals and becomes two sides.

Six players is the sweet spot for a lot of groups, and team draft is the best thing to do with six. This article gives the procedure, the scoring, and what changes about picks when the person to your left wants you to lose.

Where does team draft come from?

Team Limited has been part of professional Magic since the 1999 to 2000 season, per the MTG Wiki’s Team Limited page, with Pro Tours using it from 1999 to 2005 and Grand Prix from 2000 to 2005 and again from 2012 to 2019. The wiki also notes that the classic 3v3 team draft runs nine rounds, with each player facing each opposing player, and that pools are not shared: you play only what you drafted.

The format survived at kitchen tables after the pros moved on because it needs exactly six people, takes one evening, and produces a result everyone remembers.

How does a 3v3 team draft work?

Setup

1. Form two teams of three. Call them A and B.
2. Seat them alternating around the table: A1, B1, A2, B2, A3, B3. Every player has an opponent on each side.
3. Shuffle the cube and deal 18 face-down packs of 15, three per player. That is 270 cards.

Drafting

1. Draft exactly as in a normal booster-style draft. Open pack one, take one card, pass left. Pack two passes right. Pack three passes left.
2. No talking between teammates during the draft. The wiki is explicit about this for sanctioned play, and it is the right rule casually: a team that can confer out loud drafts three coordinated decks, which is a different and worse game.
3. Each player ends with 45 cards.

Building

Each player builds a 40-card deck from their own picks plus basic lands. Teammates may help each other build and may look at each other’s pools. They may not swap cards. Tournament guidance allows 40 minutes for team draft building; 30 is enough for a cube table that knows the cards.

Playing

1. Round one: A1 plays B1, A2 plays B2, A3 plays B3. Best of three with sideboarding.
2. Round two: rotate so A1 plays B2, A2 plays B3, A3 plays B1.
3. Round three: A1 plays B3, A2 plays B1, A3 plays B2.
4. Each match win is one point. First team to five of the nine wins. Most groups play all nine matches anyway, because the players want to.

Time

Draft 40 to 50 minutes, build 30, three rounds of 50 minutes each. About four hours. A quicker version uses single games instead of best of three and finishes in under three.

What changes when every pass goes to an opponent?

In a normal eight-player draft, the players on either side of you are rivals for colors and nothing more. In team draft, they are the people you will play tonight, and they will play your teammates. That changes the math on almost every pick.

Hate-drafting is correct more often. The MTG Wiki calls this out directly: team draft gives players “the added incentive of hatedrafting cards.” A removal spell you cannot cast is still a removal spell your opponent will not have. When the pick is between a marginal playable for you and a strong card for the player you are passing to, take the strong card. Three of your opponents’ nine matches are against you; the other six are against your teammates, so a card you deny helps the whole team.

Cutting a color on purpose works. If you take every blue card in pack one, the opponent to your left is not in blue by pack two. The cost is that your teammate two seats down gets no blue either, so agree on it before the draft: the cutter takes the color, and teammates stay out of it.

Signals lie. In a normal draft, a late good card is a signal that the color is open. In team draft it might be a trap: an opponent passing you a strong red card so you move into red and fight your own teammate for it. Veterans read signals from the opposing team with suspicion.

Pool quality is lower. Six drafters from 270 cards see less of the cube than eight from 360 do, and everyone is hate-drafting, so playables run short. Expect 40-card decks with 17 lands and a 23rd card you are not proud of. That is the format working.

If this is useful, the newsletter sends more like it.

How do you keep the rivalry friendly?

Team draft is louder than any other cube format, and the volume is the point. A few things keep it on the right side of fun:

• Fixed teams for a season, then reshuffle. Three months of the same three against the same three builds a real rivalry. Longer than that and it hardens. Reshuffle quarterly, and announce it as a rule in advance.
• Captains pick. Two captains alternate choosing players. It takes two minutes and gives the night a draft-within-a-draft.
• A standing record. A whiteboard or a pinned Discord message with the running team score. Our approach to tracking results without a tournament feel is in cube draft pairings and records.
• Teammates watch, not coach. Once a match starts, teammates whose matches have finished may watch but not advise. The rule from sanctioned play is that a teammate who may have gained hidden information stops communicating. Casually: stand behind your own player, say nothing about the opponent’s hand.
• Decide trash-talk rules out loud. Some groups want silence. Most want noise. Say which before the draft.

What about four-on-four or odd numbers?

Four-on-four with the full 16 matches is a long night. The common fix is three rounds, so each player faces three of the four opponents, and the first team to seven wins out of twelve.

With seven, the seventh player drafts normally and plays one match against each side’s weakest record as a tiebreaker, or sits out the matches and runs the night. Two-player teams across the table from each other are the structure in Two-Headed Giant cube draft; it suits a group that wants teams but would rather share a board than pass to an enemy.

FAQ

How many players is a team draft?

Six, in two teams of three, seated alternating. Four-on-four with eight works, with a longer play phase.

Do teammates share cards in a team draft?

No. Each player builds from their own 45 picks. Teammates may help each other build but may not trade cards.

How is a 3v3 team draft scored?

Each player plays each of the three opponents, nine matches total. One point per match win; first team to five wins.

Can teammates talk during a team draft?

Not during the draft. Teammates may talk freely during deck-building and between matches.

Three on three, one evening

Team draft takes the quietest part of cube night, the draft itself, and turns it into the loudest. Every pass is a small act against someone you will play in an hour. The game is the reason. The people are the point.

Subscribe to The Ludarium newsletter for new formats and house rules you can run from the page. If you are in Indianapolis, Cube Commonwealth, our cube group, is relaunching as part of The Ludarium; subscribers hear first when the first night is set.