Unesh's Sphinx Storm

Commander / EDH Mono-Blue Sphinx Storm

JqlGirl

Sphinxes (16)

• 1x Argent Sphinx
• 1x Atemsis, All-Seeing
• 1x Conundrum Sphinx
• 1x Dazzling Sphinx
• 1x Dream Eater
• 1x Enigma Thief
• 1x Master of Winds
• 1x Mistwalker
• 1x Rescuer Sphinx
• 1x Scholar of the Lost Trove
• 1x Sphinx Mindbreaker
• 1x Sphinx of Foresight
• 1x Sphinx of Lost Truths
• 1x Sphinx of the Second Sun
• 1x Universal Automaton
• 1x Vexing Sphinx

Ramp (9)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Gemstone Caverns
• 1x Grim Monolith
• 1x High Tide
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Saprazzan Skerry
• 1x Sol Ring

Storm (4)

• 1x Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1x Brain Freeze
• 1x Mind's Desire
• 1x Temporal Fissure

Recycling (1)

• 1x Elixir of Immortality

Control (13)

• 1x Conqueror's Flail
• 1x Dispersal Shield
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Imprisoned in the Moon
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Narset's Reversal
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Resculpt
• 1x Stubborn Denial
• 1x Suspend
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Thryx, the Sudden Storm

Clones (10)

• 1x Clever Impersonator
• 1x Donal, Herald of Wings
• 1x Maskwood Nexus
• 1x Phantasmal Image
• 1x Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1x Reflections of Littjara
• 1x Rite of Replication
• 1x Sakashima of a Thousand Faces
• 1x Sakashima the Impostor
• 1x Spark Double

Other Lands (27)

• 1x Castle Vantress
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 24x Island
• 1x Mystic Sanctuary

Hand Size (2)

• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Thought Vessel

Commander (1)

Shenanigans (11)

• 1x Cloudstone Curio
• 1x Crystal Shard
• 1x Dream Halls
• 1x Mana Severance
• 1x Mind Over Matter
• 1x Nexus of Fate
• 1x Omniscience
• 1x Panharmonicon
• 1x Pyre of Heroes
• 1x Thassa's Oracle
• 1x Triskaidekaphile

Big Mana (4)

• 1x Caged Sun
• 1x Deserted Temple
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Turnabout

Cost Reduction (2)

• 1x Sapphire Medallion
• 1x Urza's Incubator

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Maybeboard

Other (1)

• 1x Sphinx Ambassador

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The ELD build of this deck was featured on CFB's 5-Minute Deck Tech:

Sphinx Storm??

Yes, allow me to explain...

UNESH, CRIOSPHINX SOVEREIGN

Unesh is the key to the whole deck. Without Unesh, this deck doesn’t exist and a Sphinx-tribal deck would be a low-tier casual choice, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Unlike some decks where the commander is there to provide colours or a general theme, this deck needs to cast Unesh and keep him on the battlefield in order to really get the party started. Unesh’s cost reduction and ETB Fact or Fiction trigger for Sphinxes is the engine that lets this deck turn into a glorious stormy snowball.

SPHINXES

If we’re going to take advantage of Unesh’s abilities, we’re going to need some Sphinxes to cast. Sphinxes are, on the whole, an excellent set of creatures. All of the blue ones fly, many of them have cool abilities that make the game interesting, and quite a few of them have built-in resiliency against removal. The one downside to Sphinxes is that they tend to be expensive, with a glut of them at 6 and 7 mana. There also just aren’t that many, with only a few mono-blue Sphinxes not present in this deck. A special shoutout to Jwar Isle Avenger, which only costs U to surge out when you control Unesh.

SPHINXES?

Since we’re a bit short on decent Sphinxes, we need to find some reserves. The great thing about Unesh’s trigger is that it triggers when a Sphinx enters the battlefield, so that allows us to take advantage of one of blue’s strengths and use clones and cloning effects to get even more cheap Sphinxes. (And yes, sometimes there might be a non-sphinx we want to copy. Ick.)

STORM

The whole point of the deck (aside from casting cool sphinxes, anyway) is to storm off with one of these spells. Mind’s Desire usually hits another storm spell along the way, Brain Freeze can mill out an opponent or two, and Temporal Fissure can just bounce all the permanents that aren’t yours. Aetherflux Reservoir doesn't technically have storm, but let's be honest, we all know what it's up to... Typically, you’ll be casting these spells with storm counts from about 10 to 30+ or more. Of these, only Resevoir is an instant win, but they’re all a lot of fun to go off with.

RAMP / BIG MANA

When a deck’s strategy depends on having a 6-CMC commander in play, you had better believe that the deck is going to be running its fair share of lands and mana rocks. With a decent draw, Unesh can hit the table on turn 3 reliably, and even on turn 2 with some really crazy draws. In general, though, you want to have Unesh in play by turn 4 to really have any advantage. The ramp cards then serve as extra mana and cheap spells to help the deck churn out more Sphinxes and a higher storm count. Once you have Unesh in play and are getting cards from playing Sphinxes, you want to set yourself up for the late game, and that means you want to really ramp up your mana production with big mana effects. This lets you cast multiple spells each turn and dig closer to your key combo pieces.

COST-REDUCTION

Cost-reducing effects go hand in hand with the ramp to help get Unesh and his cohorts into play as soon as possible. You don’t want or need too much of this sort of effect, though, since it goes to waste beyond a certain point. Ideally, I would like to see one of these cards in hand with one or two pieces of ramp to really set me up well for my first few turns.

MAXIMUM HAND SIZE

When you start to go off with this deck, you get a lot of cards from Unesh’s trigger. A LOT. This makes it imperative to not have to discard any of those cards if possible, so we run enough unlimited hand size effects to ensure that we get one sooner rather than later.

RECYCLING

Unesh’s triggered ability puts just as many cards into your graveyard as it does into your hand. Eventually, your library is going to get a little thin and your graveyard a bit full just from resolving those Fact or Fiction triggers. So we run these cards to allow us to reuse our resources and keep our library full. Why these specific effects? Because they shuffle themselves back into the deck with the rest of the graveyard. (Quest/Elixir), or are (re)usable from the graveyard (Echo of Eons).

CONTROL

Sometimes our opponents don't want us to have a fun sphinx party and try to stop our fun, so we need to run some acknowledgement of this fact and a few efficient ways to stop their spells or remove problem creatures. Thryx is the newest addition to this bunch.

SHENANIGANS

The last set of cards in the deck (other than lands) are the ones that really supplement the engine and let it get quite out of hand. Let’s go card-by-card:

• Cloudstone Curio: Allows you to recur your sphinxes while you're going off if you're getting unlucky with your triggers or just to save mana by using cheaper sphinxes instead of more expensive ones. Also allows use of Mindbreaker Sphinx as a wincon.
• Crystal Shard: Good safety valve to protect or just allow replaying of Sphinxes or clones.
• Mana Severance: When played after a reshuffle effect, this card puts the deck into turbo mode, making sure that there’s nothing but gas left in it.
• Mind Over Matter: The perfect compliment to Unesh’s trigger. Usually best used to untap lands like Nykthos for near unstoppability, it can also be used to tap down opponents’ resources to protect your combo.
• Omniscience: Easy mode. Once Omniscience hits the battlefield, it’s almost impossible to lose unless an opponent hits it with Krosan Grip.
• Panharmonicon/Spark Double: I hear that doubled Unesh triggers are good…
• Thassa's Oracle: A sneaky wincon that can steal games where I have a reasonable board but am not able to storm out.
• Nexus of Fate: If you're not winning with Aetherflux Reservoir, then you need to be able to attack with your sphinx army for the win. Having an extra turn effect that can be recurred once or twice to help close things out is exactly what's needed without getting too over the top.

So that's a brief look at the deck and where it's at. It's a lot of fun and I've put a fair bit of work into making the deck powerful but also still beatable. I look forward to your comments and questions about it.

Top Ranked	Achieved #26 position overall 4 years ago Achieved #19 position in Commander / EDH 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Mono-Blue 4 years ago
Date added	6 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	13 - 0 Mythic Rares 46 - 0 Rares 11 - 0 Uncommons 6 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.61
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Copy Clone, Elemental 4/4 UR, Shapeshifter 2/2 U, Spirit 1/1 W
Folders	To Build, JqlGirl's EDH, Build, edh themes, fun decks edh, definitely, Favorite Commander Decks by the TappedOut Community, Tribal