Ethersworn Sphinx
Artifact Creature — Sphinx
Affinity for artifacts (This spell costs 
less to cast for each artifact you control.)
Flying
Cascade (When you cast this spell, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card with lesser mana value. You may cast it without paying its mana cost. Put the exiled cards on the bottom in a random order.)
- CMC
- 9
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- UW
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Modern Horizons 2
- Price
- $0.32
- EDHREC rank
- #9169
Ethersworn Sphinx lands as an 8/8 flyer with cascade — a free spell stapled to an evasive beater — and in the right shell you're not paying eight mana for it at all. Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign puts it into play off the top for free, which turns a steep rate into a game-warping one.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign
Ethersworn Sphinx is a premier Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign target: it's an odd-CMC card that hits for free off Yennett's attack trigger, then cascades into a second free spell on the way down — two spells for zero mana is exactly what that deck is built to do.
Mendicant Core, Guidelight
Mendicant Core, Guidelight decks run Ethersworn Sphinx as a high-end cascade payoff — the artifact typing plays into the Esper artifact synergy package, and cascade into a midrange artifact or interaction piece compounds the value on an already large body.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Ethersworn Sphinx is a Commander card through and through — the cascade trigger and raw size are built for the singleton, high-mana environment where eight mana is reachable and free-spell engines like Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign are common. In Legacy and Vintage, it's technically legal but competes against faster, cheaper threats and sees essentially zero play. Modern is the same story: eight mana doesn't get reimbursed there the way it does in Commander, and cascade at that cost isn't competitive. Stick to 100-card formats.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.32 bulk tier
At $0.32, Ethersworn Sphinx is bulk — the cost of entry matches what it sees in competitive play, which outside of dedicated Yennett shells is low. Bulk rares with narrow homes tend to stay cheap, so there's no reason to expect upward movement.
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Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.