When running a cube draft, it’s important to come prepared. One of cube’s biggest selling points is that it’s a hassle-free experience for your players. Drafters should be able to walk in empty-handed and still enjoy the full cubing experience. To make that possible, I bring the following items with me to every draft I host.
A deck-box filled with various dice and chips. Don’t be fooled by its size, this box is like a Horadic Cube. The box easily holds the following contents:
Eighteen spin-down life counters, a handful of D6 dice and ten poker chips.
The poker chips are surprisingly handy. During the draft, we place chips on top of each players’ undrafted cards. There are a lot of cards moving around the table during draft, and it’s easy for players to accidentally grab the wrong cards from their neighbor. Simply placing a chip on the undrafted packs has dramatically cut down the occurrence of procedural drafting errors.
The playing cards are used both for seating assignments and for the initial round pairings. There are other methods for randomizing, but the use of playing cards has been the simplest.
Most importantly, bring a pre-sleeved set of lands! I bring 35 lands of each color, and have never run out of lands of any color during 8-player drafts. You may need to adjust the number based on the number of players at the table and the density of non-basic lands in your cube decks.
Lastly, I pack all of the above items into a Fat Pack box. All told, my “cube bundle” for each draft is a set of three Fat Packs: two for the cube itself, and one for the accessories. I highly recommend Fat Pack boxes, as they are durable, portable, and inexpensive. Many players have extras that they are willing to give or trade away to a budding cuber, and some stores even sell the empty boxes for a reasonable price.