Sphinx of the Steel Wind

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Highlander Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Sphinx of the Steel Wind

Artifact Creature — Sphinx

Flying, first strike, vigilance, lifelink, protection from red and from green

sylvannos on Hoax Storm v2

11 months ago

@FireMind42: Yeah in that case, you'll want to go for Underworld Breach or Paradoxical Outcome (or something weird with both). I'd lean more towards Paradoxical Outcome because it lends itself better to straight U/R Storm. Not to mention, it opens up Displacer Kitten + Coveted Jewel shenanigans. Then you won't have to rely on rituals so much (Desperate Ritual, Goblin Electromancer, and Seething Song are especially awkward). You can then fit more artifact mana and draw spells.

You'll still want Bolas's Citadel because you're never going to actually spend black mana to cast it and the card is just the nuts in Storm. Memory Jar is always fun with Hullbreacher and Narset, Parter of Veils, but Bolas's Citadel is like Yawgmoth's Will and Yawgmoth's Bargain in one card that can be Tinker'd for (especially with Sensei's Divining Top, Brainstorm, and Ponder). You'll still need Sphinx of the Steel Wind in your sideboard, which is another card you're never going to actually cast.

Since you don't want Monastery Mentor, you'll have to get by with Laelia, the Blade Reforged. Sometimes you'll want to Grapeshot. Sometimes you'll want to Brain Freeze. Sometimes you'll want to Empty the Warrens. Other times, you need something that can get big quick and an easy way to do that is Laelia, the Blade Reforged, Treasure Cruise, and Dig Through Time. She's mostly for Underworld Breach, but I'm not sure you'll need that with Paradoxical Outcome.

I also don't know how I forgot to mention Mind's Desire in my original post. That's the reason to play pure U/R Storm in Vintage LOL. Personal Tutor may also have a potential spot somewhere in this list. It grabs Tinker, Grapeshot, Time Walk, Mind's Desire, and draw 7s. I'd even consider it over the second copies of Past in Flames and Grapeshot.

sylvannos on Hoax Storm v2

1 year ago

To start with, there's a few cards that have better Vintage equivalents. Overmaster and Spell Pierce should be the 3rd. and 4th. copies of Force of Will. Leftover space from cutting those can be Red Elemental Blast, Pyroblast, or Flusterstorm. You don't need Faithless Looting because we have Paradoxical Outcome, Sensei's Divining Top, Gush, Dig Through Time, Treasure Cruise, and Brainstorm to choose from. Merchant Scroll also belongs in here, because you can use it to grab Ancestral Recall at the very least. Usually you want it to make sure you have protection in hand by grabbing countermagic.

Library of Alexandria isn't good in this deck. And you're not the type that needs 8x sources, so Steam Vents can go, along with a few copies of Volcanic Island (1 or 2). Replace all of these with four copies of Scalding Tarn and basic lands. Or even just play 6x fetches. You need to be able to shuffle after using Brainstorm, Ponder,and Sensei's Divining Top.

From here, you have a solid U/R Storm shell. However, I wouldn't play straight "Modern U/R Storm, but Power 9" dot dec. 2 mana is a lot for Goblin Electromancer, there are easier ways of winning than Grapeshot, and so on. The question then becomes "Where to go from here?"

Hope this helps! Welcome to MtG's oldest and greatest format.

wallisface on Elder Dragon Conduit

1 year ago

Fair enough. I still think my other comments were valid (You have too-high odds of hitting an Arbor Elf off of Transmogrify, and your deck is trying to play two distinctly different gameplans, where it would most certainly be stronger if it was build to accomodate just one of these archetypes).

As far as more budget-friendly creatures to Transmogrify into, some good options include Serra's Emissary, Stormtide Leviathan, Sphinx of the Steel Wind, Terastodon, Inkwell Leviathan, and Sepulchral Primordial. Personally from that batch i’d say Serra's Emissary and Terastodon feel the strongest - though whatever you go with, I think it’s more important to not have Arbor Elf in your deck messing with your win odds. There are loads of ways to ramp without needing creatures - and there are loads of ways to easily make creature tokens to Transmogrify without risk.

legendofa on When did you start playing, …

2 years ago

I started playing with the first Portal, kinda. That was the first set I got cards from. I spent the next few years off and on, getting bits and pieces of collections from people who were leaving the game or offloading bulk commons and uncommons. (I managed to get both Pardic Firecat and Diligent Farmhand and had no idea what Burst meant. I thought it was some action, like untapping, that the rules later dropped.) I started digging in a little deeper in Time Spiral block, then really jumped in with Alara. Since then, I've been either in deep or sitting out.

Favorite block is Alara. It was the one that I really got in with (if you missed that two sentences ago). I usually prefer multicolor builds to monocolor builds, and I wasn't in for most of Apocalypse and Ravnica. It has a unique and deep setting insert Return to Alara screed here. And the cards are just cool: Maelstrom Archangel, Godsire (Secretly pandering to the OP? Never!), Progenitus, Wall of Denial, Conflux, Sphinx of the Steel Wind, Lich Lord of Unx... Add in stuff like Ad Nauseam, the Cascade mechanic, and Noble Hierarch, and the introductions of Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker, Sarkhan Vol, Tezzeret the Seeker, and Elspeth, Knight-Errant, and it had something for everyone. Planeswalkers were still brand new, and colored artifacts were a shocking and semi-controversial twist.

I don't like the one-set model. I understand that the three-set model and even two-set model had general dropoff after the first set, but the current model is too much, too fast. The mechanics are underdeveloped and unsupported. (In agreement with "it's always been that way" doesn't make it a good thing. I'm still waiting for Provoke to come back.) The planes are either shallow, limited in scope, or "open for exploration when we return" which may or may not happen.

The biggest and most disappointing change for me, though, is the official website. It used to have multiple articles a week: Making Magic, Savor the Flavor, From the Lab, Building on a Budget, Arcana, Card of the Day, theme weeks, it was all fun. Now, it's a couple of third-party articles, occasional short stories for the lore, and a bunch of promotion and self-advertising.

With my "it was better in my day" out of the way, I think the fundamentals of the game are in good shape. Aside from some cosmetic differences and minor rules updates, it's still the same game I was playing fifteen years ago, and there's a lot to be said for that. Sure, there's been some power and complexity creep, but aside from a couple of high-profile missteps that aren't totally without precedent (Urza block -> Mirrodin Affinity -> Zendikar Caw-Blade -> Throne of Eldraine/Ikoria), it's been well controlled compared to other popular TCGs. A deck from five, ten, twenty years ago can still find a home at least at the casual tables.

macdeath on Vintage PO

2 years ago

-1 Underground Sea is asking for trouble to cast the key black cards. This type of deck can struggle against Wasteland + Null Rod decks, relying on Mox Opal and 1 Underground Sea is not where you want to be.

-Thassa's Oracle does not belong in the deck whatsoever and neither does Noxious Revival. You are already packing Tendrils of Agony and Time Vault which are much more suited to the deck. Noxious Revival is just worse than Snapcaster Mage especially in a deck with Paradoxical Outcome

-Seat of the Synod is usually only played to make Thoughtcast / Thought Monitor viable. It makes the deck super soft to Null Rod effects.

-Urza, Lord High Artificier is okayish but worse than Monastery Mentor or Tinker>Sphinx of the Steel Wind. Also, Urza's Bauble is pretty bad in Vintage.

LandoLRodriguez on The Lost Art(ifact) of Keeping a Secret

2 years ago

Changes, 02Nov2021:

Normally I like to go through the changes I make as one-for-one tradeouts, providing a rationale for why I'm taking this card out and putting this other one in. In this case, however - being that I haven't updated this deck in years - I'm changing out nearly a quarter of the deck, so making those one-for-one explanations doesn't make a ton of sense. This was the first commander deck that I ever attempted to build, and looking back at the original build, I think I spread myself a little thin on the the themes I wanted to run, so this overhaul is mostly about becoming more focused in what I want to accomplish, so instead of looking at individual switches, these are more-or-less the themes I'm either trying to drop vs. the ones I'm trying to reinforce.

Out:

Counter-magic/tempo: (Counterspell, Render Silent, Jace, Unraveler of Secrets, Capsize). Targeted removal (Utter End, Vindicate, Ethersworn Adjudicator). The overall idea here is going to be that I don't want to stop you from playing your cards. I don't want to kill your nice stuff. I want you to get your cards into play. That way I can take them.

Pillow Fort: (Ghostly Prison, Propaganda). This is a theme that wants entire decks built around, not just a couple of its cards sprinkled into another archetype altogether.

Inferior mana rocks: (Manalith, Darksteel Ingot, Thran Dynamo). These aren't bad cards really, but I can do better

Big creatures that first-time-commander-deck-builder me wanted to include just cuz they're Esper: (Sphinx of the Steel Wind, Sphinx Sovereign). Again, not bad cards really, but they're expensive and not entirely on-theme.

Inferior lands: (Temple of Deceit, Temple of Enlightenment, Temple of Silence, Dromar's Cavern, Esper Panorama). The temples I felt were the weakest of the dual lands I'm running. Between the lands that are going in, the fact that all these changes are bring my average mana value down 0.2 points, and the amount of mana rocks I'll be running, not only am I improving some of these lands slots, but I'm also running 2 fewer lands.

Other: Diabolic Tutor to be replaced by a better tutor effect for this deck. Merciless Eviction because while I still like board wipes, I don't wanna exile everything. Leyline of Anticipation. This one pains me a little, I may try to find a spot to get this back in sometime in the future. Acquire because there's not a guarantee that there'll be a good target for this. I'd hate to spend the mana just to steal someone's Sol Ring.

Telerik on [Modern] Mardu Reanimator

2 years ago

Hi legendofa. I also considered Sphinx of the Steel Wind , I think you can pick any one of them, they serve a similar purpose in my opinion. This is a secondary reanimator target anyway, because Archon of Cruelty is the best choice in many scenarios.

About Collective Brutality : Bone Shards also discards but costs one less, and it also hits planeswalkers. I think it's the better choice, "mana value"-wise. But I did not fully test it yet, I also had it in the deck at first.

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