Mono-blue Sphinx Tribal (Unesh) (EDH / Commander)

How to Play

Early Game

This deck revolves around it's commander, and it's commander is a 6 drop. Just play for ramp and don't play too fast; chances are you won't die by turn 6 at a casual table of 4. ideally you'll also have a counter spell on hand in case someone tries to shut down your first cast.

Mid Game

Once Unesh hits the field is when you'll start to really take off. 2 triggers of his ability puts you usually about 4 cards ahead on card advantage alone, and the added benefit is overloading your opponents brains with decision making when they already have their own decks to think about. While the flicker spells are in the deck to keep triggering Unesh's ability, they also work as solid defenses against your opponents removal. What you really want however is to not appear as too much of a threat to your opponents so you can quickly overwhelm them with your end game.

Late Game

Hopefully by this point you've managed a solid board state and gone through most of your deck through Unesh triggers. This should allow you to pull whichever sphinx or spell you might need for the situation in order to lock out a win. While there are a few combos and big plays in the deck, there isn't always a clear win state for this deck. Play to the situation at hand and abuse the trigger abilites of your sphinxes to come out on top.

Weaknesses and Contingencies

Losing Unesh early really hurts you because of how reliant everything is on his ETB trigger, so do what you can to protect him while he's out and when you want to cast him. Even if you can't get him out early it's ok to play some sphinxes in the mean time. Having a 4/4 or 5/5 flyer early with some ramp is like a blue-knock off of a green big creatures deck, and that little bit of 4/4 damage early on can sometimes make all the difference. Graveyard hate also really hurts you, because you'll be putting a lot of stuff into your graveyard and potentially playing out of your own and other's graveyards. Use your own removal spells to keep graveyards open and eliminate obvious threats.

Combo's and Big Plays

• Atemsis, All-Seeing. Surprisingly decent auto-loss trigger on a sphinx. Paired with Unesh's triggers you should have an easy time getting all the cards you need in hand to auto-kill an opponent with her.
• Chancellor of the Spires, Dazzling Sphinx & Sphinx Ambassador. Both of these cards can be game winning when pulling your opponents game winning cards out of their decks. Is Sheoldred, the Apocalypse out with Peer into the Abyss in graveyard? Play Chancellor and kill one of your opponents with another players combo; flicker him to play it again and kill another one since the spell doesn't get exiled from the graveyard afterwards. Or perhaps you pull your opponents Ulamog, the infinite Gyre with Ambassador just to shove your opponents out with Annihilator procs. The possibilities are limited only by what your opponents are playing.
• Rite of Replication. When kicked, with the right target, can also win games outright. Create 5 Terror of the Peaks and watch as each one see's all the others ETB, dealing a total of 100 damage to your opponent.
• Sphinx Mindbreaker is a surprisingly decent mill card. Once it's out it will usually get targeted, but combo'd with Panharmonicon, Donal, Herald of Wings and ghostly flicker will Mill 100 cards from all of your opponents. To play all of these cards at once is a woping 18 mana however, so try to build up to that combo over a few turns if you're going to play it.
• Eligeth, Crossroads Augur + Prognostic Sphinx + Curator of Mysteries. This is an infinite draw combo. Whenvever you would discard, you scry. Whenever you would scry, you draw, and Prognostic let's you discard at will, thus it also lets you draw at will. Pair with Ormos, Archive Keeper and/or Wizard Class to get some insanely beefy creatures; the last thing people expect from a mono-blue deck (that isn't sea creatures).
• Mystic Sanctuary + Capsize + Time Warp. This combo provides infinite turns. Play time warp, then play Mystic Sanctuary as your land-per-turn to get Time Warp back into your hand, and then play capsize with it's buyback cost to return Mystical Sanctuary from the battlefield and put Capsize back in your hand. It's a beefy 11 mana combo, but if you can pull it off it's typically game winning so long as they can't stop it at the onset.