Sphinx Tribal

[mmcgeach]

Sphinx Tribal.

Are you tired of delver decks?  Me too.  Go play this deck online and crush delver, and pretty much everything else, too.

This list started out as a way to combat delver by leveraging a series of interlocking synergies that delver lists generally have no answers for.  It turns out, most decks have few answers for these strategies.

List:

3 chalice of the void
3 trinket mage
3 show and tell
1 notion thief
3 consecrated sphinx
1 sphinx of the steel wind

4 force of will
2 arcane denial
2 flusterstorm

2 dig through time
2 dack fayden

1 echoing truth
1 tinker
1 demonic tutor
1 ancestral recall
1 time walk
1 yawgmoth's will
1 time vault
1 voltaic key
1 sensei's divining top

2 ancient tomb
2 cavern of souls

1 tolarian academy
1 library of alexandria
3 underground sea
2 volcanic island
4 scalding tarn
1 polluted delta
1 island

5 moxes
1 black lotus
1 sol ring
1 mana crypt


Core synergies:

Chalice of the Void.  Play this on 1.  This list has very few 1 CMC cards.  And also, very few 2 CMC cards so chalice@2 is also a real possibility.  Chalice is an extremely powerful card, and one that blue decks can leverage if they want to.

Trinket Mage.  He can find Chalice of the Void.  Plus black lotus.  Mostly he's used as a mana accelerator in this list.  Usually you want to find lotus, and use that to power out one of the larger threats.  

Ancient Tomb.  This lets you play turn-1 chalice@1 more often, also it speeds up the turn you can play three-mana threats by 1, and frequently the six-mana threats, too.  Also, insane against shops; gives you an out to a lot of "unbeatable" hands they might have.

Consecrated Sphinx.  I've realized that this is one of the most powerful cards you can have in play.  And it only costs 6.  This deck aims to play it with lotus by turn 3.  Sphinx basically invalidates all your opponent's attempts to out card-advantage you.  There's really a pretty small list of stuff Sphinx loses to.  Also note that most removal that hits sphinx has CMC=1 (REB, swords), so Chalice@1 with sphinx in play is usually game.

Show and Tell.  This also lets you get Sphinx out quick.  There's almost nothing that trumps Sphinx that is normally played (griselbrand is sort of a wash, blightsteel can be awkward), so Show and Tell into consecrated sphinx is pretty much always safe.  (Jace is one card that's annoying vs. sphinx, but Jace can't be put into play off Show and Tell).  Although, I still side them out against oath.  Also this lets the deck run a fatty utility package, or at least Elesh Norn in the sideboard, and then use S'n'T (or trinket->lotus) to cast them.

Cavern of Souls.  This basically always names "sphinx."  I only name "human" when I'm trying to stick a notion thief.  Consecrated Sphinx off cavern is usually game over.  With a mox and an ancient tomb this can happen turn 4 pretty easily, which is soon enough in some matches.

Notion Thief.  Any deck with a cavern of souls in it should also have a notion thief.  Stealing card draw wins a lot of matchups.  Note also that this guy is protected by chalice@1 (no REB, no lightning bolt, no swords to plowshares).

Dack Fayden.  In some sense this is a combo deck; so the card filtering with Dack is critical.  Dack lets you assemble the pieces you want in the right order; discarding stuff that is no longer as valuable like extra chalices or cards with CMC=1.  Also Dack is a great combo with both Notion Thief and Consecrated Sphinx (target your opponent).  Plus it protects you against tinker bots, shops golems, and stoneforge mystic equipments.  Jace is a possibility, too, but I think that's one too many threats with CMC >= 4.  Filtering at CMC=3 is really required.

Force/Misdirection/Arcane Denial/Flusterstorm.  All these counterspells dodge Chalice@1.  (Flusterstorm's storm trigger still resolves through chalice).  Misdirection is better in some metas (those with abrupt decay); Arcane Denial is perhaps one of the next-best counterspells here that doesn't have CMC=1 and doesn't have double blue in the cost, which is difficult to support with this mana base.  It's actually after Consecrated Sphinx is in play that I frequently need another hard counters, so Arcane Denial is perfect for that scenario.  If mana drain were a realistic possibility with this manabase, I'd use that.

Sphinx of the Steel Wind.  This isn't Sphinx Tribal for nothing!  Sphinx is the hardest bot for delver to deal with.  Also the lifelink is frequently helpful after all the ancient tombs.

Vault/Key.  We're playing tutors and tinker already, so vault/key is a great win-con.  Note that many delver lists are very light on artifact destruction.

Echoing Truth.  This is a good answer to a lot of things.  Griselbrand, stony silence, grafdigger's cage, omniscience, oath of druids, pyromancer tokens, jace, batterskull, etc, etc.  It's not the absolute best against pyromancer, but it does delay pyromancer a few turns, which lets this deck win with a Sphinx.  

Dig Through Time.  We're playing blue combo-control.  This card is great.


Playing the deck:

Try to stick Chalice@1.  We have literally four cards that have CMC=1.  This is a huge win against basically everything.  Don't stick Chalice=0 unless you really know what you're doing - that said, if you run into traditional storm that's a strong play.  Then try to get a sphinx in play.  Or combo with vault-key (sometimes Show and Tell is required to get voltaic key past chalice@1).  Don't worry if you get behind, Consecrated Sphinx can get you back in the game like nothing else.  Don't be afraid to cast Chalice@2 if you're playing against something with snapcasters and mana drains.

Ideal line:
Turn 1: chalice@1.
Turn 2: trinket mage -> lotus.
Turn 3: cavern names Sphinx.  Cast uncounterable consecrated sphinx.

The deck is basically very strong if it's executing its game plan.  The deck's biggest weakness is just drawing nothing for a while.  The high CMC threats require a high mana count; the Chalices make it hard to run fixing and deck manipulation.  This means sometimes the deck sort of stalls out.  But, eventually landing a sphinx really gets you back in the game in a hurry.


Some Omissions and Considerations:

4th Chalice.  It's important to have one, but probably not two of these, in your hand or in play.  So 3 has been pretty good.  If you play Chalice@1 on turn 1 and it gets forced, that's frequently good enough.  Use the next turn to cast a 3-mana threat, which is now much more likely to resolve.  Playing another chalice@1 and delaying the 3-mana threat is probably worse.

4th Trinket Mage.  He's not actually at his best here, since a lot of what you'd tutor up with him is countered by Chalice; also getting Engineered Explosives for zero removes the chalices.  Mostly he's the blue ritual that gets lotus, so the value of the next trinket mage goes down.

4th Consecrated Sphinx.  God, it's tempting.

Vampiric Tutor.  It's CMC=1.  But maybe worth running anyway.

Thirst for Knowledge.  I cut it for Dack Fayden, which I think is probably right.  The synergy Dack has with sphinx and thief is just insane.

Misdirection.  It's another free counterspell, which could be used in place of arcane denial.  Doesn't hit anything in the shops match, which is one (big) reason I cut them.

Vault/Key.  It's too bad that voltaic key gets stopped by chalice@1.  But I think its still necessary to have this kind of combo win in a lot of matchups.  Still, it's a (little) bit tempting to cut them.

Warning: Don't cut the ancient tombs.  Those are really necessary.  Otherwise this deck isn't likely to have early plays.  Every threat here is CMC >= 3.


Sideboard:

1 notion thief
1 elesh norn
1 trinisphere
1 echoing truth
1 grafdigger's cage
3 ingot chewer
1 pithing needle
2 tormod's crypt
2 hurkyl's recall
1 yixlid jailer
1 mountain

Trinisphere is a key tactic against delver and combo, and part of the reason tinker is so necessary.  Elesh Norn is game over against creature lists, and Dredge.  I had been runing Massacre Wurm, but that won't beat Monastery Mentor.  Notion thief is strong against any kind of blue control list, and can come in for the basic island.  Echoing truth I'm finding I want 2 of against anything with problematic permanents: oath, pyromancer decks, fish, shops, dredge.



As with most of my decks, this deck is a ton of fun to play.  Go forth and try it!  And beat delver!

[The Atog Lord]

This deck is the real deal. When I was in Boston over the holidays, Mike smashed me with it on his way to winning the event in Cambridge. I am very impressed. Mike, thank you for the write-up.

[enderfall]

Interesting deck! I've played Consecrated Sphinx in Chubby Rain's MBC before and I certainly loved playing with it. Interesting to see another take on a deck with Sphinx. Arcane Denial is a strange card to me. It's obviously great with Notion Thief, but you only have 1 of those. How often has Denial been active in situations where Mana Leak would not have been?

Elesh Norn out of the SB is some spicy tech! Certainly a great answer to those Monastery Mentor decks that'll creep up in the near future.

[fsecco]

I love the idea, but can't seem to think how you can deal with the possibility of Show and Tell'ing an opposing Griselbrand against Oath. Do you side Show and Tell out? If not, how do you deal with this?

I mean, I know Sphinx draws 14 if he ever activates Grisel, and Thief is good also, but Grisel can race Sphinx/Thief all day long... can't he? Am I missing something?

[msg67183]

Deck looks strong. Gonna have to test it out.

[ErtaiAdept]

I love the idea, but can't seem to think how you can deal with the possibility of Show and Tell'ing an opposing Griselbrand against Oath. Do you side Show and Tell out? If not, how do you deal with this?

I mean, I know Sphinx draws 14 if he ever activates Grisel, and Thief is good also, but Grisel can race Sphinx/Thief all day long... can't he? Am I missing something?

The race situation is sometimes difficult, but usually with the extra 2 cards you draw every turn, you can find an answer to it before you lose to it.  But as he said in his post, the Show and Tells get boarded out vs Oath.

[MTGFan]

Another person who has discovered the power of Chalice of the Void in a blue-based shell alongside Trinket Mage.

Show and Tell into fatties in this deck is a nice idea but I personally just prefer the flying blue Tarmogoyf (Illusory Angel) as the win condition instead, along with some value dudes like Phyrexian Revoker, Vendilion Clique, and Glen-Elandra Archamage. See the thread I made in the "Creative" section called "Faerie Stompy".

Also, in this type of shell, I've always found one of the main draws is the ability to play Energy Flux in the sideboard, because you have the mana to play it and you don't nearly suffer from it as much as your Shops opponent will.

[H]

It's probably bad, but if you really wanted another Sphinx, there is Prognostic Sphinx.  It wouldn't be often, but sometimes a Scry 3 might be better than a draw 2.  Plus he is 1 less mana, which could make a difference sometimes.

[mmcgeach]

Rich: thanks.  

re: Enderfall:  Yeah, arcane denial is kind of a flex spot at present.  It's good if you have sphinx in play (you draw 5, they draw 2) or notion thief.  One option is to run misdirections instead, which help resolve an early show and tell.  But I was finding that misdirection is too limited and that I needed more hard counters after sphinx was in play.  Also, if you can stick chalice@1 then a lot of what you'd commonly misdirect gets countered (ancestral, lightning bolt, etc).  I haven't tried mana leak here, although I have previously found mana leak to be...  not good.  I've previously used arcane denial and it's ok in the same way force of will is ok: if you REALLY need to counter something then 2-for-1'ing yourself is perfectly fine.  Also its best if you're facing a deck vs which you have a lot of virtual card advantage via their dead spells: like a deck with 12-20 one-drops, and you have Chalice@1; or a deck with maybe 2 possible outs to consecrated sphinx, one of which you're countering with arcane denial. Arcane denial has some side benefits, too, like countering your own stuff to draw 3; which in this deck can be done with chalice@1 for extra value.  (eg: chalice@1 in play, cast sensei's top, stack chalice trigger, hold priority, cast arcane denial targeting sensei's top, draw 3 on next turn.) This kind of play helps dig and filter through the deck, which as I mentioned, lack of filtering is one weakness. Late game, tho, with sphinx or thief in play, arcane denial becomes all upside.

re: Enderfall:  I've also played a lot of mono-blue control.  I kept wondering why I only had 2 sphinx in that list!

re: fsecco: Griselbrand vs. Consecrated Sphinx can go either way.  As ErtaiAdept said, you out draw them for 2 turns while you eat damage, and try to draw into one of your outs: echoing truth; vault-key; or a 2nd consecrated sphinx.  It's not ideal, but it's actually better than most decks vs. oath game 1.  Your gameplan doesn't automatically lose to their gameplan; Griselbrand doesn't automatically trump your deck.  But, you know, I usually side out show and tell vs. oath.

re: msg67183: it is strong.  

re: MTGFan: Yeah, chalice is awesome!  I like that there's multiple ways to use chalice in blue. Your deck is another way to go, for sure.  My feeling here is this; and this is important: Do Broken Things.  That's what I want this deck to do.  Play vault-key.  Tutor for lotus every game.  Cast huge yawgmoth wills.  Tinker for robots.  Show-and-Tell in unbeatable fatties.  This.  Is.  VINTAGE.

re: MTGFan: energy flux: Yeah, if you're mono blue this is pretty strong.  But if you're in red you get Dack and ingot chewer, which is too strong for me to resist.

re: H: Yeah, I thought about Prognostic Sphinx.  I also thought about Sharuum the Hegemon.  I think a 4th consecrated sphinx is probably better than either.  But if you try it out, let me know.

[H]

re: H: Yeah, I thought about Prognostic Sphinx.  I also thought about Sharuum the Hegemon.  I think a 4th consecrated sphinx is probably better than either.  But if you try it out, let me know.

I don't own any Dack Fayden's at the moment, but if I can get a couple, I might try it out.  Come to think of it, I don't own any Prognostic Sphinx either, but I'm sure I can pick one up of one of the Standard kids easily.

[dangerlinto]

I've been playing a simliar list to this for months online.

My list however, doesn't include Trinket / Chalice / Show and Tell (show i guess it's not really quite the same) but the Thief/Sphinx/Dack triumverate is there

However, Arcane Denial I think is cute but ultimately not worth the spots.  I get that drain is a lot less reliable in this deck, and you often want Chalice at 1 so running more pierce or others is a problem.  I'll have to tinker around with that for a week and see what comes up.

Good list though - nice innovation.

[xouman]

Prognostic Sphinx is not just scry 3 vs draw 2; you can draw much more than 2 cards each turn. On the other side, consecrated sphinx survives a dismember, survives a lodestone, finishes the game earlier if beating... While the hexproof can be really valuable, I understand that it's not enough.

Griselbrand can race a consecrated sphinx, but hardly races a sphinx of steel wind.

I love arcane denial with consecrated sphinx. And I just realized it also works with cavern of souls. I just checked it on internet and someone said that cavern of souls makes arcane denial a "ancestral for    more". Otherwise countering a mox mid game is also near thirst for knowledge (worst timing, but cheaper). And of course, arcane denial is a hard counter for 1U, with -1 CA (not comparing to fow or misdirection, but they also mean  -1CA)

While I also appreaciate COTV, isn't gitaxian probe a must-play with show&tell? But thinking a bit more, I'd keep chalice and play some accelerant (grim monolith maybe?) over show&tell.

On the other side, DTT seems one of the worst cards of the deck, only useful in mid game after losing first counter wars, to recover gas. It's a bad card in the early game and this deck is not specially fast filling the grave. 1 dtt + 1 gifts maybe? or just play more +2 gifts?


Nevertheless the deck looks awesome and these ideas wouldn't probably improve it at all

[MisterFoote]

Mike thanks for posting this!  Its a great deck and you have been all over the meta game for sometime.

As a note in support of arcane denial.  It works like ancestral in this deck.  And it counters stuff.  Could easily swap it out, sure.  I, however dont make changes to a list until I test with it fully.  Notion thief and spinx make it fine.  Arcane denial your own spell is just fine too.

[dangerlinto]

Mike thanks for posting this!  Its a great deck and you have been all over the meta game for sometime.

As a note in support of arcane denial.  It works like ancestral in this deck.  And it counters stuff.  Could easily swap it out, sure.  I, however dont make changes to a list until I test with it fully.  Notion thief and spinx make it fine.  Arcane denial your own spell is just fine too.

Arcane Denialing your own extra flusterstorm copy is tech.  But far too often with notion Thief decks I found I had to use the Denial well before I'd landed something that would make the drawback a plus. In a deck who's job is to maintain card advantage superiority, this is not good.  Force of Will is acceptable because it's free.  Paying 1U to put your opponent ahead is not.

While I also appreaciate COTV, isn't gitaxian probe a must-play with show&tell? But thinking a bit more, I'd keep chalice and play some accelerant (grim monolith maybe?) over show&tell.

On the other side, DTT seems one of the worst cards of the deck, only useful in mid game after losing first counter wars, to recover gas. It's a bad card in the early game and this deck is not specially fast filling the grave. 1 dtt + 1 gifts maybe? or just play more +2 gifts?

But then, S&T is so very good with DTT because you can (though of course, not always) get the S&T AND The creature you need.    There's a synergy there that is absent considering both cards in a vacuum.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Mike thanks for posting this!  Its a great deck and you have been all over the meta game for sometime.

As a note in support of arcane denial.  It works like ancestral in this deck.  And it counters stuff.  Could easily swap it out, sure.  I, however dont make changes to a list until I test with it fully.  Notion thief and spinx make it fine.  Arcane denial your own spell is just fine too.

If I'm reading correctly, Arcane Denial says the caster "may" draw 2 on upkeep.  So if you have sphinx or thief out, they can just decline to draw and you get nothing (other than a cantripping 1U hard counter), right?

[mmcgeach]

Good list though - nice innovation.

Thanks much. 

Re: Show and Tell.  Really, and I swear it to be true, not much beats Consecrated Sphinx.  Against an unknown opponent jamming Show and Tell turn 1 for C.Sphinx is absolutely the right play.  A more subtle benefit of S&T in this list is it's mana cost, at 2U, which is just exactly what this deck is accelerating to.  It'd be unusual if you didn't have 2U on turn 2.  But, on the other hand, it's hard to have UU on turn 2.

Re: Arcane Denial.  Its nice to see some people support this card choice right away.  Dangerlinto is right: it is cute, maybe too cute. Xouman is maybe overstating the case for it here, tho: there's not enough cheap things you play uncounterably off cavern to make that line realistic.  OTOH, countering your own stuff to cycle it is fine.  TheWhiteDragon is right that the opponent's draw trigger is a "may" so they probably choose not to draw if you have sphinx/thief.  Which is a huge win, cause you still draw 1.

Dangerlinto: this isn't so much an incremental card advantage deck, as a haymaker deck that has a few huge bombs it'd like to resolve - at pretty much any cost - and then ride those bombs to victory.  I mean, once consecrated sphinx hits play, it doesn't require careful play, baiting, and spell sequencing to attain a card quantity advantage - sphinx just gives it to you.  Arcane denial is basically fine in haymaker-vs-haymaker decks that have a few powerful bombs they want to resolve (yawgwill, tinker, etc); it becomes problematic if you're using it to slow down an opponent by countering stuff that provides an incremental advantage.  That basically doesn't work.

That said, I value your input on Arcane Denial as someone who's played it seriously previously.  I think here the combination of circumstances make it better than it's ever been before, but it might still not be enough.  There's 1) the mana base that doesn't support uu, 2) the sphinx/thief plan that makes it a bonus later, 3) the haymaker deck style, 4) cycling an extra mox or similar to dig deeper into a deck that needs extra digging, 5) cycling your own stuff that is either dead to chalice@1 or uncounterable due to cavern on human.  I mean, if arcane denial is going to work in any deck, this is it.

Re: Dig Through Time:  I haven't thought about cutting this; it's very strong.  Just not super early in the game.  It's probably a turn 4 play, mostly.

[serracollector]

I made a sphinx deck a long time ago but used Lotus Cobra as my accelerant. Im not suggesting that BUT I am curious as to why no draw sevens? Wouldnt Wheel Twister or Windfall or even Jar since you run tinker just be game over? Also even if you dont run draw sevens one card I highly suggest is Phyrexian Metamorph. This card was clutch so often being able to copy my own Sphinx and or any threats my opponent could produce. I really love it tho. Keep up the good work and keep us updated on changes. Try Metamorph and draw sevens. So so good.

[WhiteLotus]

I have tried to make sphinx work in the past via 4 mana drain and 4 trinket mage ramp and while it's tremedously powerful it requires you to run at least 14 counterspells to do it's thing consistently, with 8 counterspells in your deck you can't expect it to consistently draw you an answer every turn. Ultimately it became less effective when people started playing pyroblasts maindeck.

Griselbrand vs sphinx means you can use things like STP or Jace to effectively deal with GB. Vendillion clique has strong synergy with sphinx and show and tell, It happened to me the opportunity to play clique in resp to show and tell take their GB away and use the show and tell to play my sphinx.

[dangerlinto]

Re: Show and Tell.  Really, and I swear it to be true, not much beats Consecrated Sphinx.  Against an unknown opponent jamming Show and Tell turn 1 for C.Sphinx is absolutely the right play.  A more subtle benefit of S&T in this list is it's mana cost, at 2U, which is just exactly what this deck is accelerating to.  It'd be unusual if you didn't have 2U on turn 2.  But, on the other hand, it's hard to have UU on turn 2.

No argument here.  Sphinx is a total bomb.

Re: Arcane Denial.  Its nice to see some people support this card choice right away.  Dangerlinto is right: it is cute, maybe too cute. Xouman is maybe overstating the case for it here, tho: there's not enough cheap things you play uncounterably off cavern to make that line realistic.  OTOH, countering your own stuff to cycle it is fine.  TheWhiteDragon is right that the opponent's draw trigger is a "may" so they probably choose not to draw if you have sphinx/thief.  Which is a huge win, cause you still draw 1.

...

That said, I value your input on Arcane Denial as someone who's played it seriously previously.  I think here the combination of circumstances make it better than it's ever been before, but it might still not be enough.  There's 1) the mana base that doesn't support uu, 2) the sphinx/thief plan that makes it a bonus later, 3) the haymaker deck style, 4) cycling an extra mox or similar to dig deeper into a deck that needs extra digging, 5) cycling your own stuff that is either dead to chalice@1 or uncounterable due to cavern on human.  I mean, if arcane denial is going to work in any deck, this is it.

I agree with all these points (and yes, any player worth their salt just doesn't draw when it would benefit you, so it's never as big a bomb as it seems).  It's hard to gauge becasue I've never tried Chalice on 1 in this style of deck - it can nullify so many advantages more aggresive decks make the 2 cards they get off denial.  And as you pointed out - what else are you going to run?  And I never tried it with Flusterstorm, which I think is the best interaction to turn it into a 1U Ancestral.

Dangerlinto: this isn't so much an incremental card advantage deck, as a haymaker deck that has a few huge bombs it'd like to resolve - at pretty much any cost - and then ride those bombs to victory.  I mean, once consecrated sphinx hits play, it doesn't require careful play, baiting, and spell sequencing to attain a card quantity advantage - sphinx just gives it to you.  Arcane denial is basically fine in haymaker-vs-haymaker decks that have a few powerful bombs they want to resolve (yawgwill, tinker, etc); it becomes problematic if you're using it to slow down an opponent by countering stuff that provides an incremental advantage.  That basically doesn't work.

That's definitely true.  But just as a guess, a single delver slipping through your net means you have to build up 6 mana quick.  I'd need to see how it deals when your opponent is onto your jig and keeps you off 6 mana or keeps you off S&T.  I know that once I laid down a Sphinx in other decks, my opponent would simply never walk into any spell that would let me drain into a sphinx.  here I'd guess they'd just prevent you from hitting Trinket (which you can get around by naming human with Cavern, but then your Sphinx in vulnerable).  

[brianpk80]

This deck is a work of art; it's brilliant and well-thought out.  I love the Elesh Norn in the sideboard.

[TheWhiteDragon]

The trouble this deck will have is vs fish that don't rely on a draw engine (other than bob perhaps) and just plays redundancy out the wazoo.  chalice @1 is rarely a problem vs them, and since they run 4 cavern, chalice at 2 is a minor nuisance at best.  You still get +2 off each of their draw steps, but you are really all-in on S&T because you won't get to 6 mana otherwise most games.  If you land steel-wind, it will be a good thing, but I'd have to think they'll have some answer to it as they always have had to adapt to tinkerbot.  Now, with 4x containment priest available, they have a cheap, human answer to S&T AND Tinker against you.  Spirit of the Labyrinth should also see play in lots of fish decks since it is an absolute crusher to blue's primary weapon - CA. I run 3 in my vintage decks and 4 main in my modern deck.

You should stomp blue.  You're probably on par or at a slight disadvantage vs shops.  I'd think it would be very rough sledding vs any fish deck running white.

[mmcgeach]

This deck is a work of art; it's brilliant and well-thought out.  I love the Elesh Norn in the sideboard.

Well, my goodness.  Thank you, I'm glad you like the deck.

Also, thanks to MrFoote for the support earlier, too.

Re: Draw 7's: I don't know if these are win-more or not.  I sort of think they are.  I hardly ever have trouble closing out a game after a sphinx is in play - although sometimes the sphinx is too little, too late, which can happen against faster aggro decks (like, of course, delver).  I'm not convinced the draw 7's fix that.  But maybe they do?

Re: WhiteLotus: 4 mana drains and 4 trinket mages... that sounds like mono blue control.  I've played that, at any rate.  This deck is a little different; instead of just using counterspells as answers to stuff, it also uses chalice of the void, dack fayden, and echoing truth.  And if that stuff doesn't work, I do like having the vault-key plan to fall back on.

Re: Dangerlinto: Yeah, its possible my win rate with this deck will decrease as people get better at playing against it.  But, getting to six mana to cast a sphinx isn't real hard here.  I usually have six mana by turn 4, w/o using a trinket mage for lotus.  It's true sometimes that's too late, but if you're trading blows through the first three turns, the sphinx sometimes just resolves on 4 and takes it home.  Also, it turns out people use a lot of conditional counterspells that don't hit creatures, so against a lot of lists all you have to worry about is force of will.

Re: Elesh Norn:  Yeah, this or massacre wurm is really needed against delver/pyromancer.  If your whole meta is pyromancer decks, you can main-deck this guy.  And maybe stick another in the board.

Re: vs White Hatebears: It's possible that's a tough matchup, but as near as I can tell those decks have been pushed out by delver lists.  Although, I can tell you that spirit of the labyrinth isn't that great, since you can still draw 1 card off sphinx during your opponent's draw step.  So instead of drawing 3x the cards, you're only drawing 2x the cards your opponent is.  That deck tends to have such weak plays the 2x card advantage is more than enough.  Weak plays meaning, you know, bears.

[enderfall]

I would think just a single EE would shore up the Fish match-up if your meta calls for such a need.

[jcb193]

I played against one of these with two maindeck Hurkyll's.  This deck was very cool to see in action for the first time. I was on shops, and every turn he was dropping some new bomb. 

[healo]

What if you cut few lands and spells (like show/tell) and add the Oath packege? It goes around chalice @1 too.

[mmcgeach]

Re: Oath.

While oathing into Consecrated Sphinx is a decent idea, I think oathing into griselbrand is a better idea.  But maybe I should outline the differences I see between this deck and Oath decks.  Basically, in the Sphinx deck, 1) you can cast your big fatties.  Hard-casting Sphinx (sometimes off cavern!) is totally do-able, thanks to a couple tombs and the trinket mage -> lotus play.  2) you can run Trinket Mage and the trinkets in the deck; which you can't do in an Oath deck, because you can't run any other creatures apart from your oath targets.  3) Chalice of the Void is good in this deck @1; but in Oath you probably need to run a number of 1-CMC cantrips in order to assemble orchard-oath.

Oath decks are a tough match-up for the Sphinx deck, I've found.  I think, basically, Oath is trying to do more broken things than Sphinx is.

Sphinx Tribal is really good against decks trying to play fair, because those fair decks try to stop broken decks with CMC=1 spells.  Sphinx is also good against anything else that dies to chalice of the void and tries to outdraw you, which include a lot of combo decks (and, likely, many new gifts-based builds).  Sphinx is also good against control decks that can't stop an uncounterable consecrated sphinx.

[healo]

Yes, good points.

I overlooked how important Trinket Mage is for this deck. It would probably require Drains to get to 6 mana reliably to cast Sphinx.

I was thinking more like how could this deck go more broken while not hindering itself by playing chalice @1. I think Oath is very good in current meta, even without an Orchard. I'd say almost always a must-counter and having Sphinx instead of Griselbrand, while clearly inferior, is great because it bypasses the Oath hate to some degree - you are able to hard-cast Sphinx pretty easily. So it would lead to a situation where people would go heavy on cages and Oath hate, delaying themself significantly and you would not really care all that much, because you could eventually hard-cast it.

Hard-casting creatures to dodge Oath hate is a bit underrated I believe anyways, because Griselbrand is so prevalent, while beaing almost unrealistic to hard-cast. But other creatures, while not having game winning impact immediately, are pretty easy to cast, like Sphinx and Rune-Scarred Demon.

But losing the Trinket package and all it's utility is probably not worth it. And the fact this deck is build to beat Delver, it doesn't make really sense to add cards that are also good against this matchup. I was toying with Sphinx in my Oath list a bit, so it just naturally poped into my mind.

[rickster]

Played about 10 matches tonight on mtgo. Went 2-2 in the DE.

The card that underperformed for me was dig through time, very rarely was I able to cast it. The card just pitched to force most of the time. This deck plays too many permanents so you're barely going to delve with it. Is there any other card manipulation that you can play in that spot? I'd guess thirst for knowledge can probably replace one dig.

Arcane denial is also really bad unless you have sphinx or notion thief out.

Trinisphere was great in the sideboard. Elesh norn was also amazing, though it's hard to tell when to bring it in. The mentor decks only play 4 mentors, so you don't always see them game 1.

[mmcgeach]

@Rickster:  Thanks for the testing report!  What matchups did you play against?  I'd love to hear more about your experiences with the deck.

I've come to more or less the same conclusion re: dig through time.  I think Gifts is better, as Xouman pointed out.  As the meta moves further away from a 50%-60% delver domination, there might be some adjustments required.  So far, I'm liking:

-1 arcane denial, -1 dig through time;  +2 gifts ungiven

Gifts is stronger draw/value and it can lead to to setting up the various combos (S&T + Sphinx, cavern + thief, vault + key).

-1 sensei's divining top;  +1 lim-dul's vault

Rich Shay made this suggestion; the lim-dul's vault is a pretty good replacement for vampiric tutor that doesn't die to chalice@1.  lim-dul's vault usually costs 2 or 3 life, anyway.

-1 sphinx of the steel wind;  +1 timetwister

the tinker->bot play has only been good against RUG delver; I think the tinker bot is fine in the sideboard, or perhaps left out altogether if the meta moves toward monastery mentor decks.  Timetwister, as Serracollector pointed out, is a real combo-piece here.  Your opponent cannot let it resolve if you have sphinx/thief.  Plus, its good early-game in this deck with all the fast mana, like it is in traditional storm.  AND, it's fine mid-game if you're stalled out, since your chalice@1 and chalice@0 prevent your opponent from going nuts with the fresh 7 you give them.

-1 echoing truth;  +1 chalice of the void

I think going all in on the chalice of the void plan is the right idea.  I thought about leaving that strategy; but its just too strong against too many decks.  Echoing Truth seems to be at its best vs. Oath, but, I can't quite figure out how to win that matchup yet, anyway.

-1 underground sea; +1 basic island

I think this is correct; it provides 3 basics post-board to fetch up vs. shops.


Gifts so far has been really strong (also that's one reason to leave in the singleton arcane denial and dig through time as gifts targets).  Usually just piles like (demonic, time walk, sphinx, force of will) or similar is enough.  Other times you can work out a pile of tutors that let you assemble vault-key or twister-sphinx, which end the game.  Tinker has been ok without the robot; it leads to plays like: tinker away the Chalice@1 to get the vault and then play the key from hand.  Similar plays like tinker away the chalice@0 to find lotus and play yawgwill are also strong.  And Timetwister has basically just been fantastic.

EDIT: also, Rickster, to your earlier suggestion, Thirst is really strong in this list.  I've tested it before, but not specifically as a DTT replacement.  I think, however, switching the one last DTT for a Thirst is probably correct, which should give the deck better early plays at the cost of slightly weaker later plays.  The deck is already bonkers strong late-game.

[Chubby Rain]

I had played a version of this deck in a MODO DE several weeks ago to a 3-1 record and intended to post the list and results here. But then I forgot 

Well, I managed to dig up the tournament results from Wizards atrocious website and here is the list:

3 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
4 Trinket Mage
3 Jace, the Good One

1 Ancestral Recall
2 Dig Through Time
3 Flusterstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Impulse
4 Mana Drain
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker

1 Chalice of the Void
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Trinisphere
8 MoxSoLoCyrpt

2 Cavern of Souls
1 Library of Alexandria
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
3 Island
3 Tundra
1 Tolarian Academy

Full disclosure: I decided to join the event 10 minutes before it began and submitted it with 2 minutes to spare. Needless to say, there wasn't a lot of testing involved and all card choices should be taken with a grain of salt.

Sideboard was:
1 Grafdigger's Cage
4 Disenchant
1 Devout Witness
1 Magus of the Unseen
1 Plains
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Pithing Needle
3 Rest in Peace
1 Tormod's Crypt

Same caveats apply to the sideboard (4 Disenchants is a lot of Disenchants...)

The general theory behind the changes is I decided to make the deck more controlling and consistent but less explosive. Running a 2 color manabase without Ancient Tombs made Mana Drain a realistic play. I thought that the Sphinxes would be a good enough endgame and cut Vault Key as I didn't want dead draws. I cut the Chalices to one because I thought that I never wanted to draw multiple Chalices and upped the Trinket Mage count to 4 so that I could hit the single Chalice (Cage, Top, and EE) more reliably. I added in Trinisphere because I wanted an anticombo card to fetch with tinker and it was pretty good against the field at that time. I thought Jace also complimented what the deck was doing and provided a bridge between the 3 mana spells and 6+ spells. Oh, and I added in Impulse to smooth out draws while providing fodder for Dig Through Time. I thought your list was running far too many permanents to make Dig good and it looks like you reached a similar conclusion.

Sadly, I don't remember that many details. Impulse was surprisingly good and might be something to consider. Trinisphere was insane on a couple of occasions: I got to live the dream of turn 1 Trinisphere on the play (off Mana Crypt) followed by turn 2 Jace. Opponent snap-scooped. I lost to Diophan/Ryan on Delver. I think I got outdrawn game 1 but game 2 I managed to lock him out with an early Trinisphere and Chalice on 1. And then I went through 40 cards without seeing a win condition, whiffing on Dig in the process. So it goes...

I think you are definitely on to something with the deck and it was a blast to play.