How many cards are in Khans of Tarkir?

Khans of Tarkir contains 269 cards: 20 basic lands, 101 commons, 80 uncommons, 53 rares, and 15 mythic rares. Premium (foil) versions of all cards are randomly inserted in booster packs.

What mechanics does Khans of Tarkir introduce?

KTK introduced prowess (new) and raid (new as a named keyword), and brought back delve (returning). The set also features outlast (Abzan) and ferocious (Temur) as new clan mechanics. Morph, a returning mechanic players had been asking for, also appears throughout the set.

What are the five clans in Khans of Tarkir?

The five clans are the Abzan Houses (White/Black/Green), the Jeskai Way (Blue/Red/White), the Sultai Brood (Black/Green/Blue), the Mardu Horde (Red/White/Black), and the Temur Frontier (Green/Blue/Red). Each clan represents a different aspect of the dragons that once lived on Tarkir.

Does Khans of Tarkir have any Dragon cards?

No — Khans of Tarkir contains no Dragon creature cards. This is a deliberate creative choice: the dragons of Tarkir were wiped out long before the events of the set, and the five clans each worship a different aspect of those extinct creatures. It was also the first set since Dragon's Maze to lack any Dragons.

What is the story of Khans of Tarkir about?

KTK is set on Tarkir, the home plane of planeswalker Sarkhan Vol. The plane's dragons were killed long ago, and five clans now wage endless war, each venerating a different aspect of the lost dragons. The story follows Sarkhan returning to Tarkir and intersects with planeswalkers including Ugin, Nicol Bolas, Sorin Markov, and Nahiri. The block's time-travel element — which eventually restores the dragons to Tarkir — begins here.

How long was Khans of Tarkir in Standard?

Khans of Tarkir was in Standard for 18 months. Due to post-release changes to the block structure in 2015, it had a shorter Standard lifespan than originally intended.

Khans of Tarkir (KTK): Set Guide & Card List

There's a moment in Magic design history when a set just clicks - where the mechanics, the lore, the draft format, and the competitive landscape all align into something memorable. Khans of Tarkir is one of those sets. Released in September 2014, it introduced five warring clans, brought back a beloved mechanic that players had been asking for, and gave us wedge-colored cards built around some of the most distinct faction identities the game has ever produced.

What is Khans of Tarkir?

Khans of Tarkir (KTK) is the first set of the Khans of Tarkir block, released in fall 2014. It contains 269 cards - 20 basic lands, 101 commons, 80 uncommons, 53 rares, and 15 mythic rares - plus randomly inserted premium (foil) versions of every card.

The set is notable for several reasons right out of the gate. It's the first set since Dragon's Maze to contain no Dragon creature cards, which is a fascinating creative choice for a set steeped in dragon mythology. It's also the foundation of one of Magic's more unusual block structures: a Large-Small-Large arrangement where the small middle set (Fate Reforged) is drafted with both large sets, but the two large sets are never drafted together. That draft structure wasn't an afterthought - it was actually the first design constraint the team built the set around.

Format note: Due to post-release changes to block structure in 2015, Khans of Tarkir had a shorter Standard lifespan than originally intended, spending only 18 months in the format rather than the usual two-year window.

The expansion symbol - crossed swords on a shield - is a deliberate visual echo of Legions, a set from 2003.

Themes and mechanics

Khans of Tarkir is built around five clans, each occupying one of the five enemy wedge color combinations. Wedges themselves were one of the big reveals of the set - Wizards had never done a wedge-centered set before, and it was one of the things players had been requesting for years.

The other major return was morph, the face-down creature mechanic that had been absent from Magic for a long time and whose comeback was telegraphed by Mark Rosewater at Pro Tour Journey into Nyx before the set was officially previewed at San Diego Comic-Con on July 26, 2014.

The five clans and their mechanics

Each clan represents a different aspect of the dragons that once lived on Tarkir, and each gets its own signature mechanic:

| Clan | Colors | Dragon Aspect | Mechanic | Khan | |---|---|---|---|---| | The Abzan Houses | White/Black/Green | Endurance | Outlast | Anafenza, the Foremost | | The Jeskai Way | Blue/Red/White | Cunning | Prowess | Narset, Enlightened Master | | The Sultai Brood | Black/Green/Blue | Ruthlessness | Delve | Sidisi, Brood Tyrant | | The Mardu Horde | Red/White/Black | Speed | Raid | Zurgo Helmsmasher | | The Temur Frontier | Green/Blue/Red | Savagery | Ferocious | Surrak Dragonclaw |

Each clan is identified by a watermark on its cards - a scale, eye, fang, wing, or claw of the dragon, depending on the clan.

A design note worth knowing: Unlike the Shards of Alara, which were each centered on the color that shared both allies, the Tarkir wedges center on one of the ally colors rather than the enemy color at the point of the wedge. The design team found this worked naturally with the clans' flavor. There are also subtle hints scattered through KTK and Fate Reforged pointing toward each wedge having a "least relevant" enemy color - which paid off when Dragons of Tarkir dropped those enemy colors entirely to reveal ally-colored parallel clans in the alternate timeline.

Mechanic breakdown

Outlast ({cost}, {T}: Put a +1/+1 counter on this creature. Activate only as a sorcery.) - Abzan's patient, incremental growth mechanic.
Prowess (Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, this creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn.) - Jeskai's martial-arts-meets-spellslinging ability, introduced here for the first time.
Delve (Each card you exile from your graveyard while casting this spell pays for {1}.) - A returning mechanic, and a powerful one. The Sultai's ruthlessness expressed as fueling spells with the dead.
Raid - Abilities that trigger or improve if you attacked this turn. Mardu's speed philosophy in mechanical form.
Ferocious - Abilities that activate or improve if you control a creature with power 4 or greater. Temur's emphasis on raw, overwhelming size.

Rules note: Prowess was introduced in this set and has since become a keyword staple across red and blue cards throughout Magic's history. It's one of KTK's most lasting mechanical contributions.

Limited and Draft

The draft format for Khans of Tarkir is built around the clan structure in a very direct way. Because each clan occupies a three-color wedge, you're constantly making decisions about which clan to join and how cleanly you can stay in your lane versus splashing a fourth or fifth color.

The presence of morph throughout the set adds a meaningful layer of in-game decision-making. Face-down 2/2s for {3} are everywhere, and reading what your opponent might be hiding becomes its own skill. Since every player knows the set's morph cards, the guessing game has real texture - a face-down creature in Abzan colors means something different than one in Sultai.

Ferocious and raid are mechanics that reward attacking, which tends to push the format toward a somewhat aggressive pace, while delve and outlast reward slowing things down and building up. This tension between clans creates genuinely varied draft archetypes, and the three-color nature of the format gives KTK draft a reputation for being both forgiving (fixing is available) and punishing if you overextend your mana base.

Lore and setting

The world of Tarkir

Tarkir is a plane defined by conflict - warlords and clans locked in a war that has stretched across a thousand years. It's also the home plane of the planeswalker Sarkhan Vol, which is where the set's deeper story takes root.

The central tragedy of Tarkir is that it used to have dragons. All of them were killed long before the events of KTK, and the five clans each venerate a different aspect of those extinct creatures - their endurance, cunning, ruthlessness, speed, or savagery. The plane is, in a sense, a world shaped by the memory of something it lost.

Lore aside: Tarkir was originally developed from a Planechase 2012 plane called Mongseng. After legal issues required a rename, the world was briefly called Khanar - and the first set was going to be called Warlords of Khanar - before a last-minute change landed on the names we know today.

The Magic Story

KTK's story was told through a series of short fiction pieces published during the set's release window, featuring writers including Jennifer Clarke Wilkes, Adam Lee, Matt Knicl, Kimberly J. Kreines, and others. The central thread follows Sarkhan Vol returning to his home plane, with the planeswalkers Ugin, Nicol Bolas, Sorin Markov, and Nahiri also appearing across the story beats.

Key story titles include:

The Madness of Sarkhan - Sarkhan returns to Tarkir and encounters Ugin and Nicol Bolas
Sorin's Revelation - Sorin, Ugin, and Nahiri on Tarkir together
Enlightened - Narset's story, with Taigam and Shintan
Bond and Blood - Anafenza's story
Journey to the Nexus - The closing chapter, bringing Sarkhan, Ugin, Narset, Nicol Bolas, and Zurgo together

The story's time-traveling element - which seeds the block's central premise - becomes fully clear as the block progresses into Fate Reforged and Dragons of Tarkir.

Set legacy

Khans of Tarkir is remembered fondly, and for good reason. The clan structure gave players five genuinely distinct identities to attach to, each with coherent flavor, mechanics, and a named Khan at the center. The five Khans themselves - Anafenza, Narset, Sidisi, Zurgo, and Surrak - became beloved characters, and several have appeared in Magic's story since.

Mechanically, the set's biggest long-term contribution is probably prowess, which has quietly become one of the most important keywords in red and blue aggressive decks across multiple formats. Delve also left a significant mark - several delve cards from KTK and its block became format staples, and the mechanic's power level has made Wizards cautious about revisiting it.

The wedge identity of the set also proved influential. The idea of five three-color factions built around distinct philosophies has been a template that Magic design has returned to in various forms, and Tarkir's clans remain one of the most cohesive faction designs in the game's history.

For Draft enthusiasts, KTK is often cited as one of the strongest limited formats of the mid-2010s - complex enough to reward expertise, but accessible enough that new players could find a clan and learn what it was trying to do.

And for lore fans, the time-travel premise that KTK sets up - a world without dragons, leading to a block that eventually gives it dragons back - is one of Magic's more elegant three-set story structures. The set earns its tagline: Raise your Banner.