Riddle of the Sphinx: Budget Commander Decks for All Five Elder Sphinxes

Your journey has been long and arduous. It's been a fortnight since you've slept in a bed and even longer since you've had a decent meal. The crunch of freshly fallen snow sounds with each of your labored steps. Alas you travel on, for the survival of your village depends on the success of this quest. The mountain path winds ever on and on.

But behold! Before you appears a great sphinx! Its piercing gaze penetrates your weary soul as it unfurls two massive wings. With a bellowing and insidious voice it speaks!

"All who wish to pass through must answer my most challenging riddle. Prepare yourself mortal!"

At first you stand there shocked. Quickly you realize it would be futile to run and even more futile to try and fight such a monstrosity. You muster up your courage and step forward.

"A…A…Ask your riddle." You manage to stammer out.

The great sphinx flashes a crooked smile and then utters a most perplexing riddle.

"What of the five elder sphinxes released in Magic the Gathering's Reality Fracture is your favorite?"

Choosing a Favorite

This guide will go over five different budget commander decks built around the five new elder sphinxes. Hopefully then, you will be able to correctly answer the aforementioned riddle. In no particular order, let us begin.

The five decks:

Pinging and Stinging — Ingris Stingerquill
The Graveyard is Free Realestate — Uldaros Theorix
Scry Me a River — Denzilore Fatehold
Black Lotus is Legal Now — Kwia Vigorbloom
Cloning My Sphinx to Make Rocks — Aerid Konstrari

Ingris Stingerquill - the Great Pingathon

This is the lowest mana cost of the five and it follows a death by a thousand cuts strategy. Whether this is with aristocrat cards, damage multipliers, or just swinging with a bunch of tokens, Ingris is out for blood. Creatures that benefit from dealing noncombat damage like Chandra's Pyreling, Chandra's Spitfire, and Chandra's Incinerator are all powerhouses in this deck. Master of Barbs is a new card that also puts in a lot of work with how aggressive this deck wants to be.

Classic cards like Impact Tremors and Cavalcade of Calamity are fantastic ways to get more value out of the many weak tokens this deck generates. Tomik, Izzet Sparkmage is also a fantastic addition that essentially doubles all the single damage pings that this deck does so much of.

I threw in a few cards that prohibit lifegain as well because there are times when lifegain gets out of killing range for a deck like this. Stigma Lasher might be the strongest in this grouping because it can simply shut down lifegain for all of your opponents as soon as turn three. A budget card that is absolutely brutal is Grievous Wound. If you have Ingris and a few creatures out, Grievous Wound can take a player from winning to losing (or even dead) within a single combat phase.

This deck leaves out infect because I find it to be an unfun play-pattern but if your pod is ok with that, this can be even more powerful. I also didn't include any infinite mana combos. If you manage to pull off such a combo, Ingris can just make infinite creature tokens with haste on the spot.

Finally, I put in Mishra, Claimed by Gix and Phyrexian Dragon Engine in just for some extra fun. They both work well in the deck and if you can ever pull off the meld, you'll have quite the memorable game.

Overall, Ingris tries to put a lot of bodies on the field and ping each opponent for a lot of damage. This is an aggressive strategy that will hopefully lead you to a swift victory.

View the full deck on ManyTCG: Pinging and Stinging

Uldaros Theorix - the Explosive Graveyard Combo

When I first saw this commander I admittedly wasn't as impressed or intrigued as I was with the other four Elder Sphinxes. My brain immediately went to Gyruda, Doom of Depths and thought Uldaros would just be lesser version of that popular companion, however, there are a few subtle differences.

First of all Gyruda only cares about even mana costs but it also gets to mill you four cards. Uldaros on the other hand cares about total cmc of six or less for spells you get to cast from graveyard. The big downsides of Uldaros are it doesn't provide any mill on its own and it only gets to activate its graveyard ability if it were cast. This means that only clones that are creatures will trigger Uldaros' ability as tokens are never cast.

The primary ways to take advantage of Uldaros' abilities are: storm, spells with no mana cost, and clone creatures. With this in mind, the overall game plan for a deck like this is to first either get a lot of clone creatures into the graveyard with cards like Buried Alive or mill half your library with cards like Singularity Rupture. Once your graveyard is filled with good stuff to cast, then cast Uldaros. With each copy of Uldaros, you will hopefully be able to cast another clone creature and some other spells. The spells with no mana cost like Profane Tutor and Ancestral Vision increase the storm count without adding anything to Uldaros' six cmc limit. Once the storm count is high enough, hopefully you will be able to end the game with Tendrils of Agony. If that spell isn't in the graveyard, there is also a chance to get Gray Merchant of Asphodel on the field and clone him a few times. A final combo would be to get Syr Konrad, the Grim on the field and then mill half your deck with one of the multiple cards that do that.

Can this deck be wrecked by one Bojuka Bog? Probably. But is it crazy when it pops off? Absolutely! There are also ways to make this deck stronger by including cards like Spark Double and Sakashima of a Thousand Faces. I included lesser clone spells because I wanted to keep the budget lower for this deck. Overall if you like spellslingery combo decks, this might be the Sphinx for you.

View the full deck on ManyTCG: The Graveyard is Free Realestate

Denzilore Fatehold - Scrying Your Troubles Away

This is perhaps the first Azorius commander that I'm actually happy exists. Taking such evergreen mechanics like 'Scry' and 'Surveil' and translating that to damage is exactly the play style that Azorius needed. The game plan is simple with this deck. Play evasive creatures that surveil or scry, play your commander, keep buffing the board and hitting your opponents until they're dead.

Heavy hitters in this deck include cards like Proctor of Potential and Gossip's Talent that provide easy surveil engines as well as cards like Thrummingbird and Grateful Apparition that can proliferate your creatures once they're coated in counters.

Running simple bounce spells like Unauthorized Exit and Banishing Betrayal that can also put counters on your creatures are perfect for this archetype. One of the things I love about this format is often draft chaff cards can turn into heavy hitters with the right commander. Beyond that, being able to run a potentially one sided board wipe like Damning Verdict can be game ending in certain matchups.

Cards that give modified creatures keywords like Envoy of the Ancestors are a shoo-in for this deck. Lifelink for your whole board can often buy you enough time to win or bring you back from the brink of death. Additionally, Herald of Secret Streams making your creatures with counters unblockable can be the final nail in the coffin of your opponents.

As far as draw goes, blue does it best. Matoya, Archon Elder feels like it was made for this deck. Cards like Bident of Thassa and Coastal Piracy also provide a lot of gas in a deck that wants to hit with a lot of evasive creatures. Elminster is great for some passive drawing and scrying as well as some solid token generation. Overall the draw package for this deck feels like it's the strongest of the five decks. Plus you can often scry and surveil away cards that you don't want to draw.

What's great is this deck doesn't feel overly controlling like most Azorius commanders can while also being a great budget deck. This currently only costs a little more than $50 to build making this the cheapest of the five decks. In spite of the low budget, it doesn't even feel like it had to take a hit as far as power goes.

View the full deck on ManyTCG: Scry Me a River

Kwia Vigorbloom - The Black Lotus Bonanza

Now I've talked about this commander already a little in my previous article. The game plan here is quite simple. Play some ramp, play some Soul Warden like creatures, then play Kwia to make lotuses. Once you've created enough lotus tokens, create a lot of tokens with cards like March of the Multitudes, Storm Herd, or Finale of Glory. That many creatures should hopefully let you finish out the game. If that doesn't work, cards like Cathars' Crusade and Dollmaker's Shop // Porcelain Gallery should buff your board enough that you can win.

Cards that let you gain life on your opponents' turns are MVPs in this deck. Optimally you could make four black lotuses per turn cycle. Authority of the Consuls, Sunscorch Regent, and Shattered Angel all serve this purpose well. Beyond that, this is a fairly straightforward deck to pilot. It makes a lot of mana and with mana comes tokens and more life.

For some options that are less budget friendly, Craterhoof Behemoth is an all star for ending games. Enduring Vitality and Cryptolith Rite are great ways to produce a lot more mana. Finally, Mirari's Wake is a favorite of mine that not only buffs your board a little but it also doubles the amount of mana your lands produce.

View the full deck on ManyTCG: Black Lotus is Legal Now

Aerid Konstrari - Clones Equal Ramp

So when I first saw this card, I thought of Roxanne, Starfall Savant. Now Roxanne is better in some ways and worse in others. Her meteorite tokens are better and making tokens on attacks can be very handy, but with little evasion Roxanne decks primarily hope to recast her once she dies. Roxanne's mana doubling for artifacts is hard to beat though. Konstrari creating heartwood tokens upon dying is subtle enough of a difference that it makes for a slightly alternate archetype than Roxanne. Yes, both like token doublers and big mana spells but Konstrari you can easily get out turn three and then begin duplicating for more mana as early as turn four. Perhaps my favorite part of this deck was it felt like there was plenty of room for me to add exactly what I wanted and then some. I could justify adding cards like Sunbird's Invocation and Hit the Mother Lode just for extra value and fun.

The main difference between a Roxanne deck and a Konstrari deck is the duplication. Jaxis, the Troublemaker, Rionya, Fire Dancer, and Devastating Onslaught are all great ways to duplicate Konstrari, and create multiple heartwood tokens when the duplicates enter and die to the legend rule. If the deck can continually generate more and more heartwood tokens, the commander or other cards in the deck can do the rest.

Slotting in cards like Unnatural Growth, Gratuitous Violence, and Full Throttle are our primary types of game ending cards here. Doubling power, doubling damage, and adding extra combats are the true ways for any good Gruul deck to claim victory.

Theoretically, with enough token doublers and cards like Mana Reflection, you could go infinite with Konstrari. I didn't include any token doublers because this is a budget build but it is technically possible to make six or more mana with each activation of the commander. Nyxbloom Ancient would be a fantastic addition if you have the budget for it.

View the full deck on ManyTCG: Cloning My Sphinx to Make Rocks

Conclusion

To be honest, Aerid Konstrari is my personal favorite of the five but they are all really cool and interesting new commanders. Building around each of them was a fun challenge and I would recommend each of you try your hand at building your own versions of your favorite Elder Sphinx decks. Also, if you access TCGplayer from ManyTCG while ordering your cards, that's just one way to support us here while doing something you were probably gonna do anyway. Thank you all so much for your continued support and I hope you have a great day!