One of the key themes for upcoming MTG set Reality Fracture is the Echoverse, a parallel reality populated by color-shifted versions of famous Magic characters and locations. On Wednesday, Wizards of the Coast revealed the cards for five Elder Sphinxes, powerful magic users who rule over Hexhaven College, the Echoverse mirror to Strixhaven. They’re big, flashy legendary creatures who are going to be very popular as Commanders – and perhaps the flashiest of all is Kwia Vigorbloom, a white green Sphinx whose party trick is to create Black Lotus tokens!
Well, to be more accurate, the tokens she creates are simply called ‘Lotus’ tokens, but they function just the same: each one is a colorless artifact you can tap and sacrifice to create three mana of any one color. Kwia creates one each time you gain life, but there is a big limit on this ability: it can only trigger once per turn. This means there isn’t an easy way to set up an infinite loop, though if you find a way to repeatedly flicker her you’ll be off to a good start.
Still, this all feels like complaining that my lobster is too buttery. Kwia is a 6/6 flyer with vigilance, lifelink, and ward 2, and if you’ve got a Soul Warden in play when you cast her she’ll immediately refund you half of her six mana cost by making a Lotus. Add in a Panharmonicon effect and you’ll ramp away with the game.
If you want a more lasting kind of ramp, Aerid Konstrari is your Sphinx. This red green commander only costs four mana, and in a certain sense doesn’t suffer from commander tax. That’s because when they enter and when they die you create a Heartwood token, a mana rock that taps for red or green.
Aerid has a six mana ability which creates another Heartwood, and gives Aerid +x/+0 until end of turn, where X is the number of artifacts you control. Starting as a 5/4 flyer, you only have to give Aerid a Sword of X and Y or a Whispersilk Cloak and you’re looking at a pretty fast kill by Commander damage.
Denzilore Fatehold is the white blue Sphinx, and the simplest of the bunch. This is a four mana 3/4 flyer with Flash, and a triggered ability – whenever you scry or surveil you put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you know. Go wide with fliers, take all the creatures that let you draw cards when you put +1/+1 counters on them, and find cheap ways to scry. Profit.
The cheapest and weakest of the Sphinxes is Ingris Stingerquill, a mere 1/4 flyer in red and black for just three mana. Don’t be fooled – Ingris has a triggered ability that means whenever a creature you control attacks, that creature deals 1 damage to each opponent. Ingris can also create 2/2 colorless Wizard Soldiers and give your whole board haste for four mana, so she can support her own game plan without attacking herself.
My thoughts immediately turn to damage multipliers like Mechanised Assault and Embermaw Hellion, though their damage buffs only apply to red creatures and therefore not the Wizards Ingris is making. If you’re up to a deckbuilding challenge, taking Obosh the Preypiercer in the Companion zone is also pretty compelling…
The final Sphinx, the blue black Uldaros Theorix, is great for experienced and inexperienced players alike. When you cast him and he enters, you can exile up to one nonland card of each type from your graveyard, and cast up to six total mana’s worth of them for free. Whether you’ve got a carefully crafted graveyard combo, or you just want to pitch six mana demons into your bin and resurrect them, Uldaros will support you.
Which of these five do you most want to build around, or do you think they’ll be better in the 99? How do you think they stack up against the Strixhaven Elder Dragons? Let us know in the Wargamer Discord community!
Source: Wargamer
