My Small Khans of Tarkir block cube, designed as a tweaked flashback for the block constructed environment.

This is quite a focused take on the Tarkir Block model! I've made a couple of choices that I think contribute better to the draft environment while very much retaining the spirit of Tarkir, but the cube as a whole very much follows its inspiration closely. The cube is designed to be accessible to newer drafters, and while it's more complex than a typical set draft, the power level, consistent mechanics and theming should allow players new to cube to enjoy the experience!

The core of the cube is the five Wedge Khans of Tarkir, each themed mechanically around the three-colour archetypes -

Abzan () - +1/+1 Counters Midrange
Jeskai () - Prowess Tempo
Sultai () - Delve/Sacrifice Value
Mardu () - Dash/Raid Aggro
Temur () - Ferocious Beatdown

There is plenty of mana to support this theme - we use duplicates of the 10 gain lands, both the original Tarkir tapped trilands and the Ikoria Triomes, and finally the Tarkir allied Fetchlands. Allied fetches and wedge triomes are incredibly powerful together, and will strongly reward the player for going deep into the faction of choice. We also include the Monuments and the Banners in the -mana rock slots, an Evolving Wilds and the Spirit Dragon lands to encourage players to indulge the possibility for multicolour.

As with Tarkir, there is a lot of playing around in Face-down space, and all colours have Morph creatures that follow the Rule of 5. Morph creatures can fit everywhere but can seem underpowered outside of a linear shell, so we include some pro-colourless effects, and the Simic theme particularly leans in to Morph support and can branch out to other colours easily.

However, the expectation is very much that drafters will base themselves in two colours and reach out, so we also have some dedicated themes in the ten two-colour pairs:

Dromoka (): Counters (combines Bolster, Outlast and Megamorph)
Ojutai (): Skies (Fliers across the curve, good blockers and tempo)
Silumgar (): Sacrifice (Death triggers and Exploit, also fuels Delve)
Kolaghan (): Dash (Aggressive, Hasty creatures!)
Atarka (): Formidible (Ramp, late game upgrades and huge stuff)

Orzhov (): Warriors (Tribal linear aggro)
Izzet (): Spells (Prowess creatures, counter-burn and draw)
Golgari (): Toughness (Solid defenses, big and growing stuff, graveyard value)
Boros (): Tokens ("Going wide" aggression and tricks/overruns)
Simic (): Morph (Modal creatures, colourless/multicolour support, ramp and draw)

In early builds it quickly became clear that the Mardu aggro factions were the decks to beat, and so I've made some decisions not to run several powerful cards to try to slow the format down a touch. We still want to support aggressive themes, but particularly cutting Ankle Shanker and Mob Rule have made for a better experience, and I think Wingmate Roc is perhaps a little too strong for an already deeply supported White.

Balancing in the other direction means looking at Blue, which struggles a bit with the block themes in a cube setting. To give Blue a bit of a boost, I've leaned Red more into the Counterburn space, adding Spit Fire (also boosting the Dragons theme) while upgrading Cunning Strike to Electrolyze, and for Black I've introduced both Skull Skaab and Silumgar Scavenger to help support the Exploit theme.

As with all cubes this remains a work in progress, and I'm also working on a "450 Expansion" build to include the Ultimatums and other relevant effects from Ikoria, and to bring in some of the remaining Tarkir block cards that didn't quite make the cut in this build.