Ever since the first Relentless card was printed way back in 2004, it’s been a firm fan favorite. Nowadays, whenever Mark Rosewater teases that a set contains a card that breaks typical deck construction rules, MTG players get excited. At long last, this teased spoiler for Reality Fracture has been revealed; however, it’s not quite as good as its beloved brethren.
MTG Sphinx’s Approach
At minimum, offering two cards for three mana makes Sphinx’s Approach weirdly okay. While it’s not amazing, this is the going rate on cards like
Quick Study
Quick Study
Draw two cards.
, so it’s definitely not awful, either. Notably, Quick Study does see a fair bit of Commander play, and considering you can run multiple copies of Sphinx’s Approach, it has a definite edge.
Beyond being a solid piece of card draw, Sphinx’s Approach is a Sphinx-typal MTG card through and through. So long as you have three other copies of it in your graveyard when you cast it, you can tutor up a Sphinx and cheat it into play. Considering many Sphinxes in MTG have remarkably high mana costs, this is a very enticing proposition.
As if this wasn’t enough to get excited about, Sphinx’s Approach has insane synergy with cards like
Sphinx of the Chimes
Sphinx of the Chimes
Flying
Discard two nonland cards with the same name: Draw four cards.
. With this Sphinx letting you discard multiple copies of Sphinx’s Approach for tons of cards, you can easily fill the bin. Hell, with some interesting deck construction, these two can even be a wincon, milling your entire deck for a
Thassa’s Oracle
Thassa’s Oracle
When this creature enters, look at the top X cards of your library, where X is your devotion to blue. Put up to one of them on top of your library and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. If X is greater than or equal to the number of cards in your library, you win the game. (Each {U} in the mana costs of permanents you control counts toward your devotion to blue.)
win.
Realistically, running Sphinx of the Chimes as a secret Commander definitely isn’t the best strategy, but it is technically viable. Sphinx’s Approach is a tutor, after all, so you could realistically run a deck with 60+ copies and a few ways to reshuffle the dead Sphinx into your deck. As funny as this is, using Sphinx’s Approach within a dedicated Sphinx Typal deck seems like a much better idea.
Notably, thanks to
The Ur-Sphinx
The Ur-Sphinx
Eminence — As long as The Ur-Sphinx is in the command zone or on the battlefield, other Sphinx spells you cast cost {1} less to cast.
Flying
Whenever one or more Sphinxes you control attack, each player mills that many cards. For each player, you may cast a card that player milled this way without paying its mana cost.
, this typal archetype finally has a solid Commander. Previously, the now remarkably expensive
Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign
Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign
Flying
Sphinx spells you cast cost {2} less to cast.
Whenever Unesh or another Sphinx you control enters, reveal the top four cards of your library. An opponent separates those cards into two piles. Put one pile into your hand and the other into your graveyard.
was the only option, and that wasn’t very powerful. Now, however, building around this archetype isn’t a total death sentence.
A Potential Problem
Right now, Sphinx’s Approach feels like an incredibly fun MTG card to build around. Not only is Sphinx Typal hotter than ever before, but the Sphinx of the Chimes combo is wonderfully silly. As good as it is now, however, it might end up being one of the lesser-played Relentless cards.
While it’s impossible to tell what the future of MTG holds, Sphinx support has typically been very rarely printed. As such, once the Reality Fracture hubbub subsides, interest in this card could easily fade. This might not happen if it becomes a regular Commander staple, but that’s sadly not guaranteed.
Unfortunately, this makes predicting the price of Sphinx’s Approach difficult right now. Historically, some Relentless cards, like
Hare Apparent
Hare Apparent
When this creature enters, create a number of 1/1 white Rabbit creature tokens equal to the number of other creatures you control named Hare Apparent.
A deck can have any number of cards named Hare Apparent.
or
Cid, Timeless Artificer
Cid, Timeless Artificer
Artifact creatures and Heroes you control get +1/+1 for each Artificer you control and each Artificer card in your graveyard.
A deck can have any number of cards named Cid, Timeless Artificer.
Cycling {W}{U} ({W}{U}, Discard this card: Draw a card.)
are surprisingly expensive, selling for a couple of dollars each. Others, like
Tempest Hawk
Tempest Hawk
Flying
Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, you may search your library for a card named Tempest Hawk, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle.
A deck can have any number of cards named Tempest Hawk.
, however, are under $1 and closer to being Draft chaff.
Ultimately, as always, we can only really wait and see what happens to Sphinx’s Approach once it’s released on October 2nd. From what we’ve seen so far, however, this new Relentless card definitely looks fun, so it’ll be well worth looking for in your booster packs.
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