Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign
Legendary Creature — Sphinx
Flying
Sphinx spells you cast cost 
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.
- CMC
- 6
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- U
- Rarity
- mythic
- Set
- Hour of Devastation
- Price
- $0.81
- EDHREC rank
- #11067
Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign cuts the cost of every Sphinx you cast in half and fires off a Fact or Fiction the moment each one enters — that's card selection stapled to a cost reducer on a 4/4 flying body. The Celestial Toymaker runs it at a 71% clip for exactly this reason: six mana for a game-warping sphinx tribal engine is the deal, not the tax.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
The Celestial Toymaker
The Celestial Toymaker wants high-impact, high-cost creatures it can cheat or discount, and Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign delivers both halves — the cost reduction snowballs as more sphinxes hit the board, and each Fact or Fiction trigger digs deeper into the engine.
Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign
Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign rewards odd-CMC spells put into play for free off the top, and Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign's printed seven mana cost qualifies — dropping it for free and immediately triggering its enter-the-battlefield selection is exactly the kind of tempo swing Yennett decks are built around.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign is a Commander card through and through — sphinx tribal density exists almost exclusively at that table count, and the Fact or Fiction trigger scales with every subsequent sphinx cast, which requires a critical mass you can only build in a 99-card singleton format. In Legacy and Vintage it's legal but irrelevant; a six-mana do-nothing-until-next-turn creature competes poorly against the interaction density of those formats. Modern and Pioneer share the same problem: the payoff is too slow and too conditional on a creature type that barely exists in those card pools. Commander is where Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign is genuinely powerful, and it's worth building around rather than slotting as a one-of support piece.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.81 bulk tier
At $0.81, Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign sits firmly in bulk territory despite being the centerpiece of sphinx tribal decks. The price reflects narrow demand — it only matters in one archetype — but if sphinx tribal sees any renewed support, this is the card that moves first.
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Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.