Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign is a very unassuming commander. 6 cmc 4/4 flyer? What's so special about that? It turns out Unesh fits in a nice sweet spot that's not quite huge stompy creatures that you would expect from something like dragon tribal, yet isn't a typical board flooding tribal deck like fish or zombies. Playing sphinxes allows you to have a strong midrange with decently sized flyers while never running out of tempo thanks to the free Fact or Fiction attached to unesh!
EARLY GAME The general play style of the deck is to get your commander out as quickly as possible to start gaining card advantage, which can be hard considering he costs a whopping 6 mana. This means ramping as quickly as possible using artifacts like Sol Ring, Worn Powerstone, Silver Myr, Solemn Simulacrum, Hedron Archive, and Basalt Monolith. Aside from ramp the earliest creatures you would want to keep in your opening hand are Curator of Mysteries - as he will let you scry when you inevitably overdraw and are forced to discard, Ludevic's Test Subject
- giving you a cheap defender as well as place to dump unused mana at instant speed, and if all else fails Mulldrifter as a turn 3 draw spell. Use the cheap cantrips such as Brainstorm, Preordain, and Ponder to look for these cards.
MID GAME Now that you have unesh out you get to have some fun with sphinxes! You want to use their pseudo card draw to search your deck for Deadeye Navigator. This card essentially becomes a 2 mana Fact or Fiction while attached to unesh, but there are several possibilities to use him for if you have Deadeye Navigator + Hoverguard Sweepers
, Deadeye Navigator + Frost Titan
, Deadeye Navigator + Mulldrifter
, and finally Deadeye Navigator + Palinchron
, the latter should allow for an instant win, but we'll get back to that later.
LATE GAMEIt's been 45 minutes. You have more mana than you know what to do with. There is a giant wall of zombie to your left, and a pile of artifacts creatures to your right. You yourself have a small army of sphinxes ready to hit face. You're in the late game. To keep yourself from dying at this point this deck runs a few things to deter attackers. Cyclonic Rift gives you a huge board advantage, but Evacuation, and Devastation Tide are almost on par due to your sphinxes having valuable etb effects! If you kept up mana for an overloaded Cyclonic Rift, but didn't have to cast it it may be time to bring out the first big finisher of the deck: Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augar. I dont have to say why reducing opponents handsize to 0 is good, or why you want to draw 7 cards every turn! This guy draws a lot of hate so youre going to want to protect him with counterspells. Unfortunately this deck runs a laughably small amount of counter magic for a mono-blue deck, luckily we can increase that number to nearly 60 by casting Kozilek, the Great Distortion. the Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur + Kozilek, the Great Distortion
combo may cost a whopping 20 mana total, but once its out there is very little your opponents can do to stop it. Another combo is Blue Sun's Zenith + Deadeye Navigator + Palinchron
. After creating infinite mana by bouncing Palinchron, you bounce unesh, cryosphinx sovereign(who will either be in your command zone or on the battle field) until you find your Blue Sun's Zenith from your library(if you milled it earlier, simply cast Commit / Memory from your graveyard), cast it for x=100 at target opponent, shuffle it back into your deck, and repeat the process! Infinite mana can also be produced in a similar way with Palinchron + Phantasmal Image
Rite of Replication + Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign
will have opponents separating 30 piles of 4 cards, emptying your library, so for 9 mana you can basically draw your deck, but you will HAVE to win that turn or cast Commit / Memory to avoid death.
other adds
Kefnet the Mindful - you should almost always have 7 or more cards in hand, so his blocking/attacking should always be turned on
Strionic Resonator - similar to Deadeye Navigator this allows you to draw more cards with a sphinx, bounce more creatures, grab an extra land, or net 5 mana if cast with Palinchron
Dig Through Time/Treasure Cruise - despite being amazing in any deck that runs blue, these are especially powerful since you will be filling up your graveyard as you cast your sphinx spells
Endless Sands - the only "sac outlet" in the deck allows you to deter other players from attempting to steal your creatures, and allows you to have them enter the battlefield once again at the perfect time
Keiga, the Tide Star - not a sphinx and not completely necessary for the deck, but it is another deterrent from attacking with big guys or indestructibles
Turn to Frog - I like frogs
Capsize - returns ANY permanent to its owners hand. potentially can avoid shenanigans with Rogue's Passage, or Maze of Ith, while still being able to handle all nonland permanent types
Counterspell / Disdainful Stroke / Mana Drain / Scatter to the Winds / Void Shatter - Counterspell is the go to basic jack of all trades counter magic. Disdainful Stroke is realistically the same thing since you usually only counter big threats. Mana Drain is the primier counter spell as it slows down opponents as well as ramps yourself in the process(I wouldn't recommend actually buying one, there's plenty others that get the job done for less than $50), Scatter to the Winds can give you a surprise blocker tied in with your spell, and void shatter can stop infinite loops requiring grave recursion as well as being immune to pyroblast.
Jace Beleren - generates card draw for the entire table, and with a non-threatening ult most players like to see him stick around for a long long time.
Nevinyrral's Disk - the easiest, and one of the only ways for a blue deck to actually clear the board
Temporal Mastery - I know it doesn't make sense to run a miracle card in a deck like this, but even when payed at full cost it usually well worth it. If not, discard it to the Fact or Fiction effect
Fact or Fiction - Is this sphinx tribal or is this Fact or Fiction tribal?
