Long ago, blue mages had to resort to Mahamoti Djinns to close out games— or worse, resort to other colors for creatures like Serra Angel as an end game flier. Eventually, savvy deckbuilders from the old school,
such as Eric “Danger” Taylor, discovered the value of Tetravus as a victory condition. Removal spells like Swords to Plowshares have always been a bane of big creatures, and Tetravus was the first anti-removal-spell creature, with his ability to split up into multiple bodies.
While the first real “shroud” creatures were green (Autumn Willow, Deadly Insect, and so on) and “unkillable” creatures were white (Blinking Spirit, Ivory Gargoyle, etc), it wasn’t long before blue decided to get into the unkillable game with Rainbow Efreet. Today’s preview card is sort of a Rainbow Efreet—but in true power creep fashion—armed with much better numbers, allowing it to keep up with today’s tougher world. Morphling came next, but without damage on the stack, he is sadly obsoleted.
Many derivatives followed, but the most useful comparison today is probably Sphinx of Jwar Isle, as it’s still legal and represents the minimum bar that a flying, unkillable blue creature would have to overcome to see play. What would it take to outclass a Sphinx of Jwar Isle? What kind of creature could actually be cheaper
and
even harder to kill?
Wow, talk about a card right up my alley! Where to begin?
Well, obviously we’re in the modern era of both power creep and tons of four-drops. As such, the bar is quite high for Argent Sphinx. Fortunately, this isn’t
really
a four-drop; it just has the option of coming down on turn 4 if you need. It isn’t really competing with Jace, the Mind Sculptor, so much as it’s competing with Sphinx of Jwar Isle.
So what are we getting for 2UU, anyway? Well, to start with, Conundrum Sphinx shows that a 4/4 flier for four mana doesn’t impress us anymore, so a 4/3 flier in Lightning Bolt range shouldn’t either. Flying may be at a premium these days. We need to attack planeswalkers as well as get past tokens and good creatures clogging the ground — but why Argent Sphinx? What makes Argent Sphinx better than Conundrum Sphinx? I mean, drawing a card when you attack is nice, right?
The key is that Conundrum Sphinx may have a sweet ability, but it’s an ability that’s not particularly well placed. After all, when you get to keep your 4/4 flier, and you already know the top of your library—especially if it is from Jaceing — you’re not generally in dire need of an extra card. A sweet card, to be sure, but not necessarily the one we want.
Argent Sphinx, on the other hand, cuts straight to the “unkillable, flying creature” niche. It’s applying for the job of “reliable victory condition,” and that’s a niche that
always
needs to be filled. Sphinx of Jwar Isle’s one option available to us….But Argent Sphinx goes a step further in the pursuit of pure control. It can dodge literally
anything.
Sphinx of Jwar Isle is immune to spot removal, but a simple Day of Judgment can take it out. Now, that wouldn’t be so bad — except that usually, the people who want Sphinx of Jwar Isle also want Day of Judgment. Often, a Day of Judgment followed by a Jwar Isle is proceeded by enough action that the Jwar Isle has to stay home anyway.
Argent Sphinx totally reshapes this sort of a game. First of all, Argent Sphinx can enter the battlefield before the Day of Judgment. He may not be quite as big as Jwar Isle, but he can hold off small creatures with ease — plus, he can stop a creature regardless of size with a simple block and blink. A classic shortcoming of Jwar Isle was its weakness against creatures that match up well with it in combat, such as Baneslayer Angel’s first strike or Vampire Nighthawk’s deathtouch. Argent Sphinx has no aspirations of actually fighting these creatures. The game is to block, then disappear. You can keep this up every turn if you like, but the subtle trick is that it won’t come back until your next end step, meaning you can go ahead and Day of Judgment on your turn before it even returns!
Of course, you don’t need to use this trick to protect it from a Day; it just buys you a little time. You can always just blink it out on your turn, spending the mana, then Day before it returns. I recommend trying to save at least a mana (or two, if you can afford it) to protect it, since when it returns, your opponent may try throwing everything they have at it.
Whereas Sphinx of Jwar Isle was a fairly reliable finisher in situations that you had mostly under control, Argent Sphinx’s ability to block and blink creates an impact on the board helping you get more value out of your Days. Additionally, against small creatures, you can produce the equivalent of vigilance by attacking with Argent Sphinx, dealing four, then after combat, blinking it. It costs you a mana, but this will leave your Argent Sphinx untapped and ready to defend on your opponent’s turn in a move very reminiscent of Morphling. The thing you have to remember is that if you use the blink ability on your opponent’s turn, it won’t come back until your end step. In practice, this means that holding off Goblin Guides and tokens works with the vigilance plan, but if you are planning on defensively blinking, it will stop your attack.
It is important to see the improvements over Rainbow Efreet’s ability to fully appreciate Argent Sphinx. Coming back at the beginning of the turn instead of the end meant that Rainbow Efreet would be harder to use with sweepers, plus you would always be vulnerable for a turn to haste creatures (whereas Argent Sphinx is ready to block immediately). Additionally, Rainbow Efreet could never do anything like the vigilance trick. On top of all of this, Argent Sphinx’s body is quite a bit bigger at basically the same cost, not to mention requiring only half the mana to blink.
Ok, so Argent Sphinx is a killer combo with Day of Judgment (and all sorts of sweepers), it dodges removal (even Diabolic Edicts!), and costs less the turn you play it (letting you hold up a Negate if need be). What other ways can we abuse it?
Well, most likely, its primary applications will be the ones I just listed — though some enterprising deckbuilders may take advantage of some of its fringe applications. For instance, its ability to continually leave and reenter the battlefield means that if you get a bonus every time it enters or leaves the battlefield, you can trigger the ability every turn with Argent Sphinx.
Another possible use could be in a deck full of blue fliers with power equal to their casting cost. I see no reason why you couldn’t build a blue skies deck with both Conundrum Sphinx and Argent Sphinx. In such a build, you could even play out your Argent Sphinx without metalcraft just to get the beats in. He makes for a quick clock; if he dies, there are more fliers where that came from, and if you draw one late, he becomes unstoppable with your equipment and artifact mana.
In general, however, Argent Sphinx is about having a creature that is impossible to kill as long as you have blue mana to protect it. Many critics weren’t the biggest fan of Sphinx of Jwar Isle, including one Michael J. Flores, and perhaps with good reason. Jwar Isle is good at what he does, but threats are so dangerous these days, many deckbuilders want their victory conditions to help control the game, not just finish it.
Argent Sphinx certainly offers quite a bit more in that department, but at what cost? Maybe he’s better than Sphinx of Jwar Isle when you can use him correctly, but what does it take to do that?
Well, to start with, Argent Sphinx may come down as a fast beater if you need one, but he doesn’t actually protect himself unless you achieve metalcraft. Getting three artifacts onto the battlefield isn’t a tall order, especially by the fifth or sixth turn when you would generally want to drop Argent Sphinx. Everflowing Chalice is sure to be a popular choice for blue mages, as will all the other targets for Trinket Mage (he’s back!)—Basilisk Collar, Mox Opal, various Spellbombs, Memnite, Chimeric Mass, Brittle Effigy, Elixir of Immortality, Expedition Map, Voltaic Key, and more. Other hot artifacts to have are Ratchet Bomb, Molten Masticore, Prophetic Prism, Crystal Ball, Seer’s Sundial, and Venser’s Journal… Plus, there are all sorts of random artifact creatures or equipment that you might be in the market for.
If your deck is properly constructed, it shouldn’t be difficult to have three artifacts on the battlefield by the time you want to drop Argent Sphinx, especially if you use artifact mana or cantrips, as these often require minimal investment. The greater drawback is that this gives you a weak spot. Your Argent Sphinx may be a totally unkillable war machine, but if your opponents instead attack your artifacts, they can drop you below the mandatory three-artifact threshold. As a result, a key part of playing Argent Sphinx will be having enough artifacts so as to have some backup against players with artifact removal. Fortunately, there is not a surplus of Ancient Grudges or Meltdowns this time around, so the worst sweepers you have to deal with are probably just Ratchet Bombs and Elspeth Tirel’s ultimate.
This doesn’t even factor in the cards available in Extended, as Argent Sphinx is certainly a strong enough card to consider if you are in the market for a reliable victory condition. Additionally, who knows what new metalcraft strategies will emerge? Just remember to keep the Esper cards from Shards Block in mind, as well, as they offer a wide array of other artifacts that many will overlook on account of being colored.
Managing three or more artifacts isn’t the real difficulty. Argent Sphinx’s real cost is that of time. It takes artifacts on the battlefield, extra mana laying around, and a body that isn’t big enough to win every fight. As such, the best way to fight Argent Sphinx is to not care. Argent Sphinx will prove mind-numbingly frustrating for players hell-bent on killing everything they see, but it’s the players who just bash through that will give Argent Sphinx the most trouble. He may be reliable — but like Rainbow Efreet, he is not actually a master of hand-to-hand combat, just a master of avoiding it.
Where does that leave us? When all is said and done, Argent Sphinx is the perfect long-term victory condition for many new breeds of artifact-heavy blue decks sure to arise in post-Scars of Mirrodin Standard. If the format gets too fast, he may not be able to keep up, but if the tools exist to slow the format down, he may be unbeatable. Like so many of the cards in Scars of Mirrodin, he is not to be jammed into every blue deck, but he is an awesomely unkillable victory condition in the
right
decks.
Patrick Chapin
“The Innovator”