As I looked through the Legendary Creatures from Reality Fracture in preparation for my second column for this set, I was struck by the new cycle of 2/c Sphinxes. Before I go any further, I should note that the plural of Sphinx is "Sphinges," but in modern English "Sphinxes" is commonly used.

Sphinxes in Magic: The Gathering have been around for decades, but we've never been able to build a 5/c Sphinx deck until Reality Fracture. In truth, even now we won't have a true 5/c Sphinx Legend, but I've got a plan for that.

I want to be in five colors because this set has a cycle of five 2-color Sphinxes that give us our first two Green Sphinxes, in Gruul and Selesnya colors.

Aerid Konstrari and Kwia Vigorbloom both have Flying. Kwia also has Vigilance, Lifelink, and Ward 2. Aerid makes Heartwood Tokens and can pump itself equal to the number of Artifacts I control. Kwia has me create Lotus artifact tokens when I gain life, though only once each turn.

Sphinxes are usually in Blue and are often found in Azorius or Esper colors. Reality Fracture rounds out the cycle of five cards with an Azorius Sphinx, a Rakdos Sphinx and a Dimir Sphinx.

They all have Flying. Denzilore Fatehold also has Flash and rewards me for Scrying or Surveilling by putting a +1/+1 Counter on each Creature.

Ingris Stingerquill can win games outright with infinite mana, but in this build, it will just let each Creature I control push out one damage to each opponent when they attack. For , I can create a 2/2 Colorless Wizard Soldier token named Cadet, and my team will gain Haste. Uldaros Theorix has an enter the battlefield (ETB) trigger where if it was cast, I'll exile one nonland card of each card type from my graveyard. I can then copy those cards and cast any number of them with total mana value six or less for free.

Choosing Our Commander

These five Legends have little in common, but for some reason, I couldn't resist the urge to slap them all into a list and see what I'd get. The big question is what I'd be able to use for the deck's Commander.

Normally, I'd be going with the obvious choice, Reality Fracture's The Ur-Sphinx, a Legendary Sphinx with an Eminence ability that reduces the cost of all other Sphinx spells. It also has a powerful attack trigger that will mill each player and let me cast spells for free from among the milled cards. It's a heck of an ability, but The Ur-Sphinx is a 3/c card and wouldn't let me run all my shiny new two-color Sphinxes.

There are a lot of good Sphinxes in Magic, so I briefly considered Niv-Mizzet, Guildpact. This 5/c Dragon Avatar would have me deal X damage to any target, have target player draw X cards, and have me gain X life, where X is the number of different color pairs from among permanents I control that are exactly two colors.

It's a cute idea, but as I looked through my options I saw too many 1/c and 3/c Sphinxes I wanted to run for Niv to make sense as our Commander.

The card I ended up going with was Morophon, the Boundless. This Legendary Shapeshifter costs seven to get out of the Command Zone but has all five colors in its color identity.

It's a Changeling, so it has every Creature type. When it enters I'll choose a Creature type (Sphinx) and spells of that type will cost less to cast. That reduction only affects the colored pips in a Sphinx's casting cost, so The Ur-Sphinx, which normally costs would just cost six generic mana to cast. Aerid Konstrari, which costs , would cost a meager , as Morophon's cost reduction would remove from its casting cost.

I'd have loved The Ur-Sphinx to be a true five-color Legend, but there's an argument that Magic doesn't need more 5/c Commanders. It's also true that each of the five Legends shown at the top of this column could lead really interesting decks on their own.

Five separate Sphinx decks is well beyond the scope of one column so I'm going to stick to my guns and build a deck devoted to the cards in this new five card cycle along with as many other good Sphinxes as I can dig up.

Multicolor Sphinxes

One major concern when picking Sphinxes to run in this list was how much cost reduction I could get out of my Commander. While Morophon might not come down until the mid-to-late game, I do want to be able to drop a bunch of Creatures on my next turn.

Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign might be my best potential cost savings with Morophon in play. This Sphinx has Flying, Vigilance, and Menace. When Yennett attacks I'll reveal the top card of my library and I may cast it for free if its value is odd. If I don't cast it, I get to draw it instead.

Roughly half the spells we've got here have an odd mana value and can be cast for free with a Yennett attack trigger, but getting card draw is nice too.

Elenda and Azor is a Legendary Creature card with 6/6 body and Creature Types of Vampire Knight Sphinx. It's got Flying and Ward 2, it can draw cards, and create 1/1 black Vampire Knight tokens with Lifelink.

Enigma Sphinx is another Esper Sphinx. It has Flying and Cascade, so it lets us reveal cards from the top of our library until we come to a nonland card that costs less than its seven-mana casting cost. When Enigma Sphinx is put into my graveyard from the battlefield, I'll put it into my library third from the top.

There are a bunch of Sphinx cards with in their casting cost, and Morophon, so Morophon will save me three mana on each of them. Sphinxes are still relatively expensive compared to many other Creatures so cost reduction may help with that.

Monocolored Sphinxes

This deck leans heavily towards Blue, with a decent number of Creatures and cards in just that one color. They'll only get a cost reduction of one, but they are still well worth running in a Sphinx list.

Card draw is going to be really important to help me hit Land drops, draw into interaction, and most importantly, see and play as many Sphinxes as possible. Sphinx of Uthuun is a mono-Blue Sphinx for seven, with Flying and an ETB trigger reminiscent of Fact or Fiction. I'll reveal the top five cards of my library. An opponent will separate those cards into two piles. I'll put one pile in my hand and the other in the graveyard.

Inspired Sphinx is much simpler, with an ETB trigger that will have me draw cards equal to the number of opponents I have. This seven-mana, mono-Blue 5/5 Flyer will also let me pay to create a 1/1 colorless Thopter Artifact token with Flying.

My favorite Sphinx in any deck that leans this heavily into Flyers is Windreader Sphinx. This is another five-mana Flying Sphinx in Blue, this time with a casting cost of .

It has a static ability that whenever a Creature with Flying attacks, I may draw a card. It's a "may" trigger so it's up to me, which means I can't be forced to draw out and lose. It's also a card that doesn't just care about my Flyers. If I'm up against an army of Dragons, I might be in a bit of trouble but, at least when they attack, each one will give me the chance to draw a card.

Tuning Our 5/c Sphinx Deck

This is the kind of list that will sit solidly in Bracket 2, but not because it can't win games. I've shared a few lists like that over the years, but I fully expect this deck to be able to eke out the occasional win.

The problem is simply that we have a lot of high-cost Creatures and our format is constantly powering and speeding up. Power creep is real and, as more competitive players work to game the Bracket System, we're seeing a focus even in lower Brackets at trying to win at the very edge of what the Bracket allows.

Morophon, the Boundless is a seven-mana Creature and while I've got a healthy focus on ramp, card draw, and interaction, I'm still a little nervous that this list will struggle against faster aggro decks.

It can function without its Commander, but its best games will probably happen when I've got the time to play out enough lands and mana rocks to be able to actually assemble a small army of Flying threats. That takes a little time, and not all Bracket 2 games allow you to have a slow start or to be "shields down" in the early game.

You should look at this list as a starting point. If your playgroup is one where this list will fit in nicely, by all means take it and play it without making changes. If you know you'll need early blockers to be able to stand a chance, you might consider adjusting the list to be able to put down some speedbumps that might buy you a little time.

There are more than enough Sphinxes in this list and you could easily drop out a few and have more early-game bodies on the field.

Morophon 5/c Sphinxes | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Morophon, the Boundless

• Creatures (33)
• 1 Aerid Konstrari
• 1 Archive Arbiter
• 1 Birds of Paradise
• 1 Bloom Tender
• 1 Denzilore Fatehold
• 1 Dream Trawler
• 1 Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
• 1 Elenda and Azor
• 1 Eligeth, Crossroads Augur
• 1 Enigma Sphinx
• 1 Enigma Thief
• 1 Esper Sentinel
• 1 Ethersworn Sphinx
• 1 Heartwood Storyteller
• 1 Ingris Stingerquill
• 1 Inspired Sphinx
• 1 Jelenn Sphinx
• 1 Kwia Vigorbloom
• 1 Magister Sphinx
• 1 Medomai the Ageless
• 1 Mulldrifter
• 1 Riddlemaster Sphinx
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Sphinx of Enlightenment
• 1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
• 1 Sphinx of Uthuun
• 1 Stormtide Leviathan
• 1 The Ur-Sphinx
• 1 Uldaros Theorix
• 1 Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign
• 1 Warden of Evos Isle
• 1 Windreader Sphinx
• 1 Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign

• Instants (15)
• 1 Aetherize
• 1 Aetherspouts
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Chaos Warp
• 1 Constant Mists
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Generous Gift
• 1 Heroic Intervention
• 1 Moment's Peace
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Pongify
• 1 Rapid Hybridization
• 1 Sphinx's Revelation
• 1 Swan Song
• 1 Swords to Plowshares

• Sorceries (6)
• 1 Blasphemous Act
• 1 Blasphemous Edict
• 1 Farseek
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Shared Roots
• 1 Vanquish the Horde

• Artifacts (8)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Chromatic Lantern
• 1 Chromatic Orrery
• 1 Fellwar Stone
• 1 Gilded Lotus
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Thought Vessel
• 1 Urza's Incubator

• Lands (37)
• 4 Forest
• 10 Island
• 1 Mountain
• 6 Plains
• 3 Swamp
• 1 City of Brass
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Flooded Strand
• 1 Forbidden Orchard
• 1 Misty Rainforest
• 1 Morphic Pool
• 1 Polluted Delta
• 1 Rejuvenating Springs
• 1 Scalding Tarn
• 1 Sea of Clouds
• 1 Three Tree City
• 1 Training Center

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Lowering the Power Level

While this is a serviceable Bracket 2 list, you might be in a playgroup where you feel the need to tune it down even further. I'm running a decent mana base and you could easily switch to more budget-friendly Lands that enter tapped.

I chose to run Dual Lands that produce Blue, and I'd advise that you keep that in mind as many of our spells include Blue.

You could also drop out many of my "best in class" removal spells and run more mana intensive interaction. By now you may know that I run one-mana removal when it's an option, but you don't have to if you're looking to play an even more casual version of a deck I've shared here.

Increasing the Power Level

If you wanted to increase the power level you might just drop out Morophon and the Sphinxes that have Red or Green pips and run The Ur-Sphinx. I think it's a real banger, and you probably won't have trouble converting this list into a Bracket 3 Esper Sphinx list with The Ur-Sphinx at the helm.

An Esper list would be able to keep Elenda and Azor, Enigma Sphinx, Magister Sphinx, Sphinx of the Steel Wind, and Yenett, Cryptic Sovereign, along with all of the Azorius, Dimir, and mono-Blue Sphinxes I'm running.

If you wanted to stay in five colors, you might throw in tutors and cards that combo with or have great synergy with key Sphinxes in this list. Ingris Stingerquill just wins games with infinite mana and in five colors there are lots of ways to do that.

Medomai the Ageless gives you an extra turn with its combat damage trigger, so Double Strike and cards like Strionic Resonator can double that up to help you get ahead of everyone else. Panharmonicon and Rite of Replication can work really nicely with Sphinxes, as a lot of them have great ETB triggers.

Mana will still be an issue and I don't think you'll be pushing up into Bracket 4, but there is definitely room to power up this list.

Final Thoughts

I was able to get this list into a game and, while it was a three-player affair, I was able to just barely eke out the victory after a slog of a game that ran over three hours. There were multiple boardwipes and I ended up with three quarters of my library in the graveyard, but I got there in the end.

The card most responsible for getting me the win was Ingris Stingerquill. I had gotten my last opponent's life total from the mid-20s to ten thanks to Magister Sphinx's ETB. I had the ability to produce over 24 mana, so in two successive turns I used my Rakdos Elder Sphinx's activated ability to create Hasty Cadet tokens and swing to push out direct damage. They were on a Dr. Who deck and were achingly close to winning the game with Gallifrey Stands.

I'm confident this is a fun list that will be at its best when you have heavy hitters like Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign or The Ur-Sphinx in play. You might be better off just playing Esper Sphinxes, but if I didn't have Red I wouldn't have won that test game on the back of Ingris Stingerquill.

Whether you go with five colors or not, you'll be able to draw a lot of cards and present a reliable threat in the air. Sphinxes are a little mana intensive, so you may struggle against decks that come out quick with a fast aggro threat in the early game.

Before I wrap up, I should note that last weekend was the 2026 Commander Sealed event in Rochester, NY. It's a charity for Trans Lifeline and The Trevor Project and is run by Just Games. They raised $150k and the set of Iron Giant alters I donated to the auction brought in a bit over $250. I went 1-2, and my buddy Mike Gallagher and I had our third consecutive year of going 3-0 in the Sunday morning 2HG draft event.

Commander Sealed was a great time, and while I didn't get as many games in as I'd have liked, it was wonderful to see people and to participate in such a good cause. I'll go back next year, because of the charity aspect and the people running it, and the simple fact that Mike and I need to keep our 2HG win streak going until someone manages to beat us.

That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!