Phasing happens on untap, not upkeep and Taniwha's trigger doesn't phase in phased out lands. Paradox Haze doesn't help you here. Instant speed effects and things like Leyline of Anticipation so you can play in response to the phasing trigger are more helpful, as are mana rocks.
patron can play a decent mana denial game as long as you ignore that your general costs 7 and you don't mind annoying people. Mana Breach and Overburden are easy to play around with the general. If you have access to them (no budget, online, proxy, whatever), Back to Basics, Land Equilibrium, and Invoke Prejudice typically play well in EDH. Patron helps enable combo kills with Amulet of Vigor (or another way to untap the lands, like Retreat to Coralhelm + Fatestitcher), land bounce like moonfolk or Storm Cauldron, and mana doublers like High Tide or Caged Sun. Sunder + floating mana typically gets a tablewide scoop unless someone can remove Patron in response.
If you're looking for friendlier Patron, go heavier on moonfolk tribal elements. Adventuring Gear and Flooded Shoreline both play very nicely with the general. Flow of Ideas provides a lot of card draw and you're probably not in a super competitive meta if you're building Patron.
I don't think phasing goes on the stack, so you wouldn't be able to "respond" by holding priority and casting spells with flash during the untap. I'm going off what happens on MTGO with phasing, which I assume they have done correctly.
I don't think phasing goes on the stack, so you wouldn't be able to "respond" by holding priority and casting spells with flash during the untap. I'm going off what happens on MTGO with phasing, which I assume they have done correctly.
Phasing doesn't, but Taniwha has a triggered ability that phases out all your lands on upkeep. That still uses the stack.
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I don't think phasing goes on the stack, so you wouldn't be able to "respond" by holding priority and casting spells with flash during the untap. I'm going off what happens on MTGO with phasing, which I assume they have done correctly.
Phasing doesn't, but Taniwha has a triggered ability that phases out all your lands on upkeep. That still uses the stack.
I don't think that people quite understand just how Taniwha actually works, so it's probably best that you spell it out entirely.
At the beginning of your untap step, your lands phase back into play. You then untap everything. You then go to your upkeep where all of your lands are about to phase out, so you have a brief moment to play things at instant speed before this happens.
It's important to note that Taniwha does NOT give lands phasing, so lands in play during your untap step will NOT phase out. Lands will only be phasing in during your untap step (unless some other shenanigans are afoot like Shimmer), then they will phase right back out again during your upkeep.
If you build your deck to essentially nullify Taniwha's drawback, you basically need to play cards that can a) be cast at instant speed, b) aren't reactive (such as Counterspell) since you won't really have mana up on your opponent's turns, c) only cost one mana given that you will often only have a single land in play during your main phase, or d) run a lot of non-land mana sources.
I don't think that people quite understand just how Taniwha actually works, so it's probably best that you spell it out entirely.
At the beginning of your untap step, your lands phase back into play. You then untap everything. You then go to your upkeep where all of your lands are about to phase out, so you have a brief moment to play things at instant speed before this happens.
It's important to note that Taniwha does NOT give lands phasing, so lands in play during your untap step will NOT phase out. Lands will only be phasing in during your untap step (unless some other shenanigans are afoot like Shimmer), then they will phase right back out again during your upkeep.
If you build your deck to essentially nullify Taniwha's drawback, you basically need to play cards that can a) be cast at instant speed, b) aren't reactive (such as Counterspell) since you won't really have mana up on your opponent's turns, c) only cost one mana given that you will often only have a single land in play during your main phase, or d) run a lot of non-land mana sources.
Also, remember that you'll have all of your lands every other turn because Taniwha itself has phasing.
Using T0 as the turn you play Taniwha,
T1: Untap step, Taniwha phases out. Taniwha isn't there on upkeep, so you get all your lands this turn.
T2: Untap step, Taniwha phases in. Upkeep, Taniwha's last ability triggers and goes on the stack. You can respond to this. After it resolves, you have no more lands this turn.
T3: Untap step, lands phase back in and Taniwha phases out. You have all your lands again.
T2 and T3 alternate indefinitely as long as Taniwha is out after that.
Every odd turn after you play Taniwha you have full access to your lands and you'll never be in the situation where some of your lands are phased out and some are phased in (barring lands having phasing for some other reason). It's also worth noting that Taniwha really appreciates haste if you ever want to swing, because that swing gets forecast two turn before it happens otherwise.
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Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign sphinx tribal can be really cool and it can be as competitive or casual as you'd like.
So there are 42 Sphinxes according to gatherer, but how many of them are good enough to see play and/or are mono-U? Stretching things a bit, I see about 20... but maybe that's all you really want or need?
In my current iteration of Unesh, I run 10 Sphinxes, I think. And that's usually enough. Argent Sphinx is awesome in the deck, as is Jwar Isle Avenger. The rest of the deck is clones, and it tends to win through combo or beatdown. The more beatdown version is more fun (And contains more sphinxes) but the combo version is really good.
The ones I run are:
Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign sphinx tribal can be really cool and it can be as competitive or casual as you'd like.
So there are 42 Sphinxes according to gatherer, but how many of them are good enough to see play and/or are mono-U? Stretching things a bit, I see about 20... but maybe that's all you really want or need?
Though, if I'm being completely honest, Unesh is one of the most boring Mono-U commanders I've ever seen played. Once he resolves, it's basically FoF into sphinxes into more sphinxes into Cyc Rift/extra turn into win.
I'm currently experimenting with an artifact-based control deck led by Nezahal, Primal Tide. Mana rocks to accelerate, Stax cards to slow down the game, and equipment for the voltron win.
The power level can be adjusted based on the stax elements you want to include, but control and slowing the game down ensures it will always be competitive.
I know it's been a couple weeks, so the OP might already be well into brewing the two he or she mentioned, but I thought I'd chime in for others and in case OP is still interested in ideas.
Mono U is my jam, and like the OP, I prefer more unique and/or obscure cards to keep my interest. My first mono U was my second EDH deck ever, and my first that I built from scratch (non pre-constructed): Thassa, God of the Sea. It started out as a fun sea monster tribal, but slowly morphed into a blue devotion control with Thassa as the main finisher. Basically filled it with all the fun weird blue creatures and enchantments to me (and there's many!, mostly a sub-theme of "when ~ deals combat damage to a player" triggers) for devotion to keep Thassa online and then commander damage for wins. Things like Coveted Peacock, Dominating Licid, Shimmering Efreet, Somnophore, Claustrophobia, Lost in Thought, Vanishing, and lots of other uncommon disruption pieces that make opponents either go, "What does that card do? Really? Never heard of it," or, "You're pissing me off that you're holding down my board with a lot of janky commons and uncommons I've never even heard of." Without a sac outlet, an early Claustrophobia or Lost in Thought on a commander can really shut down an opponents deck. I like Thassa because she's actually a relatively blank canvas in what you can do with her - control, aggro, mix, etc.
Next, I built a Talrand, Sky Summoner that was pretty run-of-the-mill "play a bunch of stuff at instant-speed and spam drake tokens". It was fun, but a quintessentially blue reactionary deck that wasn't too unique, so I took it apart to build other stuff.
Then came Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign that I pulled during a pre-release (otherwise I probably would've passed up building him), and it is a blast of a card advantage engine. Sphinx tribal is (or at least was at the time) totally underrated, but as mentioned in an earlier post, playing a 4/5 or 5/5 flyer off-curve for 1UU or often even just UU that also mini Fact or Fiction for you is insane value. If the game goes longer than 30 minutes, I'm burning through that deck pretty quickly and can get pretty close to milling myself out before reshuffling my 'yard into my library, but it's great to actually see nearly all of the 99 cards each game. I totally just threw my list together to not be that competitive with 15 Sphinxes proper, but I've added cards that make cheap copies of those Sphinxes for ETB value like (of which has no shortage in blue) Identity Thief, Rite of Replication, Cackling Counterpart, Fated Infatuation, and Followed Footsteps, but there's tons of others, of course, and all of that seems like plenty of Unesh triggers each game. The rest of the deck is good-stuff blue removal (mass bounce like Wash Out, Inundate, spot removal like Curse of the Swine, Pongify, Rapid Hybridization, and Reality Shift) and tons of artifact ramp and support to keep Argent Sphinx on metalcraft and "hidden" tech like Colfenor's Urn and (the not-so-hidden) Cauldron of Souls to help bounce back from board wipes (of course, having Unesh ETB first so the I get even more triggers!). Totally fun, unique (as far as creature type for tribal goes), and underestimated. With all the mana rocks, Mistform Warchief, and Warden of Evos Isle, I often get Unesh out on T3 and the party begins.
I've been on and off brewing Padeem, Consul of Innovation artifacts for a while since I pulled that at a pre-release too. Unfortunately, mono U artifacts is a "thing" and all the list I keep coming up with aren't terribly unique, but is mostly just made better when the artifacts also have hexproof that they might not natively posses. I think I keep scrapping it because while Padeem herself is uncommon as a commander, the blue artifacts archetype is not. But an option for those looking for that.
I've been on/off brewing Kefnet, the Mindful as well, which seems really fun and a lot easier to keep active than most of his Amonkhet Godly siblings, but looking at my lists it seems like a mirror of my Thassa, God of the Sea deck - control/disruption with an evasive beater for commander damage as the main finisher, with just more instant and sorcery stuff to keep my hand full instead of permanents to keep devotion. I would totally build and go with this if I didn't already have and love my Thassa deck.
Patron of the Moon suggested earlier is relatively more unique IMO, and while I've not brewed it or played against it, I remember seeing a good deck on Commander VS a couple months back that had strong synergies and combos that you can look up for inspiration.
Ixidor, Reality Sculptor seems like a great value engine using a more unique mechanic in morph. I've seen some great combos here and there with him.
I would play Blind Seer for the favor text alone, but also very unique cards to synergize with him.
I've lightly brewed up Taniwha and it seems really fun with all kinds of ways to exploit the board when Taniwha is phased out. A heavy control or even stax-type flavor in there, and having that magic number 7 power doesn't hurt either.
I've also more seriously brewed up Aboshan, Cephalid Emperor. First as cephalid tribal with stax (tap a cephalid to turn off Static Orb, Winter Orb before my turn, etc.), then as a flying-tribal or tribal enabling deck with good beaters to take advantage of his second ability, which is more flavorful considering the lore (he wanted to obtain the Mirari to gain the ability to fly, as depicted in Aboshan's Desire. Either way looks fairly fun and different for me. Would the table underestimate cephalid tribal? Yes, absolutely, since most of them are genuinely terrible cards. Buuuuut, that's part of the fun of it, isn't it?
Lastly, as also mention earlier, the new Nezahal, Primal Tide is looking uniquely promising. Lucky 7/7 that provides some conditional CA and protects himself. Sounds like a new control/stax finisher on the block, but I bet there can be some other fun builds with him. Primal "Tide"? Maybe sea monster tribal, or tribal "water in the card art" or something? That could be deceptively powerful indeed. A 7 CMC commander is tough, but again, at least he can't be countered and you can spend some time to have cards in hand to protect him and even get value on pitching cards with flashback, or reanimation type stuff, etc. Very interesting.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
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-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
Let auto-tutor upgrade the battlefield!
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
I don't think that people quite understand just how Taniwha actually works, so it's probably best that you spell it out entirely.
At the beginning of your untap step, your lands phase back into play. You then untap everything. You then go to your upkeep where all of your lands are about to phase out, so you have a brief moment to play things at instant speed before this happens.
It's important to note that Taniwha does NOT give lands phasing, so lands in play during your untap step will NOT phase out. Lands will only be phasing in during your untap step (unless some other shenanigans are afoot like Shimmer), then they will phase right back out again during your upkeep.
If you build your deck to essentially nullify Taniwha's drawback, you basically need to play cards that can a) be cast at instant speed, b) aren't reactive (such as Counterspell) since you won't really have mana up on your opponent's turns, c) only cost one mana given that you will often only have a single land in play during your main phase, or d) run a lot of non-land mana sources.
Jalira, Master Polymorphist | Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder | Bosh, Iron Golem | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Brago, King Eternal | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Wort, Boggart Auntie | Wort, the Raidmother
Captain Sisay | Rhys, the Redeemed | Trostani, Selesnya's Voice | Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight | Obzedat, Ghost Council | Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind | Vorel of the Hull Clade
Uril, the Miststalker | Prossh, Skyraider of Kher | Nicol Bolas | Progenitus
Ghave, Guru of Spores | Zedruu the Greathearted | Damia, Sage of Stone | Riku of Two Reflections
WiJ
Peasant 540 Cube
Using T0 as the turn you play Taniwha,
T1: Untap step, Taniwha phases out. Taniwha isn't there on upkeep, so you get all your lands this turn.
T2: Untap step, Taniwha phases in. Upkeep, Taniwha's last ability triggers and goes on the stack. You can respond to this. After it resolves, you have no more lands this turn.
T3: Untap step, lands phase back in and Taniwha phases out. You have all your lands again.
T2 and T3 alternate indefinitely as long as Taniwha is out after that.
Every odd turn after you play Taniwha you have full access to your lands and you'll never be in the situation where some of your lands are phased out and some are phased in (barring lands having phasing for some other reason). It's also worth noting that Taniwha really appreciates haste if you ever want to swing, because that swing gets forecast two turn before it happens otherwise.
So there are 42 Sphinxes according to gatherer, but how many of them are good enough to see play and/or are mono-U? Stretching things a bit, I see about 20... but maybe that's all you really want or need?
1 Arbiter of the Ideal
1 Argent Sphinx
1 Cerulean Sphinx
1 Chancellor of the Spires
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Conundrum Sphinx
1 Curator of Mysteries
1 Glyph Keeper
1 Guardian of Tazeem
1 Master of Predicaments
1 Prognostic Sphinx
1 Sharding Sphinx
1 Sphinx Ambassador
1 Sphinx of Jwar Isle
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
1 Sphinx of Magosi
1 Sphinx of the Final Word
1 Sphinx of Uthuun
1 Windreader Sphinx
Jalira, Master Polymorphist | Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder | Bosh, Iron Golem | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Brago, King Eternal | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Wort, Boggart Auntie | Wort, the Raidmother
Captain Sisay | Rhys, the Redeemed | Trostani, Selesnya's Voice | Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight | Obzedat, Ghost Council | Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind | Vorel of the Hull Clade
Uril, the Miststalker | Prossh, Skyraider of Kher | Nicol Bolas | Progenitus
Ghave, Guru of Spores | Zedruu the Greathearted | Damia, Sage of Stone | Riku of Two Reflections
The ones I run are:
Argent Sphinx
Chancellor of the Spires
Consecrated Sphinx
Glyph Keeper
Guardian of Tazeem
Jwar Isle Avenger
Prognostic Sphinx
Sphinx of Lost Truths
Sphinx of Uthuun
Vexing Sphinx
WiJ
Peasant 540 Cube
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
Don't forget the secret best Sphinxes in an Unesh deck: Shapesharer, Amoeboid Changeling, Mothdust Changeling, and of course, Mistform Ultimus. Getting mini-Fact or Fictions for only U or 1U is nothing to sneeze at.
Though, if I'm being completely honest, Unesh is one of the most boring Mono-U commanders I've ever seen played. Once he resolves, it's basically FoF into sphinxes into more sphinxes into Cyc Rift/extra turn into win.
It has some really neat interactions such as Inspiring Statuary and Whirler Rogue with Howling Mine, Winter Orb, Static Orb, and the equipment package.
Also features some great graveyard interactions and mechanics like Disciple of the Ring, Vizier of Many Faces, Dig Through Time, and Artful Dodge to make use of spells discarded to protected Nezahal.
The power level can be adjusted based on the stax elements you want to include, but control and slowing the game down ensures it will always be competitive.
My deviantART; if you're interested in alters, PM me!
Mono U is my jam, and like the OP, I prefer more unique and/or obscure cards to keep my interest. My first mono U was my second EDH deck ever, and my first that I built from scratch (non pre-constructed): Thassa, God of the Sea. It started out as a fun sea monster tribal, but slowly morphed into a blue devotion control with Thassa as the main finisher. Basically filled it with all the fun weird blue creatures and enchantments to me (and there's many!, mostly a sub-theme of "when ~ deals combat damage to a player" triggers) for devotion to keep Thassa online and then commander damage for wins. Things like Coveted Peacock, Dominating Licid, Shimmering Efreet, Somnophore, Claustrophobia, Lost in Thought, Vanishing, and lots of other uncommon disruption pieces that make opponents either go, "What does that card do? Really? Never heard of it," or, "You're pissing me off that you're holding down my board with a lot of janky commons and uncommons I've never even heard of." Without a sac outlet, an early Claustrophobia or Lost in Thought on a commander can really shut down an opponents deck. I like Thassa because she's actually a relatively blank canvas in what you can do with her - control, aggro, mix, etc.
Next, I built a Talrand, Sky Summoner that was pretty run-of-the-mill "play a bunch of stuff at instant-speed and spam drake tokens". It was fun, but a quintessentially blue reactionary deck that wasn't too unique, so I took it apart to build other stuff.
Then came Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign that I pulled during a pre-release (otherwise I probably would've passed up building him), and it is a blast of a card advantage engine. Sphinx tribal is (or at least was at the time) totally underrated, but as mentioned in an earlier post, playing a 4/5 or 5/5 flyer off-curve for 1UU or often even just UU that also mini Fact or Fiction for you is insane value. If the game goes longer than 30 minutes, I'm burning through that deck pretty quickly and can get pretty close to milling myself out before reshuffling my 'yard into my library, but it's great to actually see nearly all of the 99 cards each game. I totally just threw my list together to not be that competitive with 15 Sphinxes proper, but I've added cards that make cheap copies of those Sphinxes for ETB value like (of which has no shortage in blue) Identity Thief, Rite of Replication, Cackling Counterpart, Fated Infatuation, and Followed Footsteps, but there's tons of others, of course, and all of that seems like plenty of Unesh triggers each game. The rest of the deck is good-stuff blue removal (mass bounce like Wash Out, Inundate, spot removal like Curse of the Swine, Pongify, Rapid Hybridization, and Reality Shift) and tons of artifact ramp and support to keep Argent Sphinx on metalcraft and "hidden" tech like Colfenor's Urn and (the not-so-hidden) Cauldron of Souls to help bounce back from board wipes (of course, having Unesh ETB first so the I get even more triggers!). Totally fun, unique (as far as creature type for tribal goes), and underestimated. With all the mana rocks, Mistform Warchief, and Warden of Evos Isle, I often get Unesh out on T3 and the party begins.
I've been on and off brewing Padeem, Consul of Innovation artifacts for a while since I pulled that at a pre-release too. Unfortunately, mono U artifacts is a "thing" and all the list I keep coming up with aren't terribly unique, but is mostly just made better when the artifacts also have hexproof that they might not natively posses. I think I keep scrapping it because while Padeem herself is uncommon as a commander, the blue artifacts archetype is not. But an option for those looking for that.
I've been on/off brewing Kefnet, the Mindful as well, which seems really fun and a lot easier to keep active than most of his Amonkhet Godly siblings, but looking at my lists it seems like a mirror of my Thassa, God of the Sea deck - control/disruption with an evasive beater for commander damage as the main finisher, with just more instant and sorcery stuff to keep my hand full instead of permanents to keep devotion. I would totally build and go with this if I didn't already have and love my Thassa deck.
Patron of the Moon suggested earlier is relatively more unique IMO, and while I've not brewed it or played against it, I remember seeing a good deck on Commander VS a couple months back that had strong synergies and combos that you can look up for inspiration.
Ixidor, Reality Sculptor seems like a great value engine using a more unique mechanic in morph. I've seen some great combos here and there with him.
I would play Blind Seer for the favor text alone, but also very unique cards to synergize with him.
I've lightly brewed up Taniwha and it seems really fun with all kinds of ways to exploit the board when Taniwha is phased out. A heavy control or even stax-type flavor in there, and having that magic number 7 power doesn't hurt either.
I've also more seriously brewed up Aboshan, Cephalid Emperor. First as cephalid tribal with stax (tap a cephalid to turn off Static Orb, Winter Orb before my turn, etc.), then as a flying-tribal or tribal enabling deck with good beaters to take advantage of his second ability, which is more flavorful considering the lore (he wanted to obtain the Mirari to gain the ability to fly, as depicted in Aboshan's Desire. Either way looks fairly fun and different for me. Would the table underestimate cephalid tribal? Yes, absolutely, since most of them are genuinely terrible cards. Buuuuut, that's part of the fun of it, isn't it?
Lastly, as also mention earlier, the new Nezahal, Primal Tide is looking uniquely promising. Lucky 7/7 that provides some conditional CA and protects himself. Sounds like a new control/stax finisher on the block, but I bet there can be some other fun builds with him. Primal "Tide"? Maybe sea monster tribal, or tribal "water in the card art" or something? That could be deceptively powerful indeed. A 7 CMC commander is tough, but again, at least he can't be countered and you can spend some time to have cards in hand to protect him and even get value on pitching cards with flashback, or reanimation type stuff, etc. Very interesting.
Hope this is helping ya, or someone else!
Current EDH
UThassa, God of the Sea devotion control
WRGTana, the Bloodsower & Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa partners weenie tokens
UUnesh, Criosphinx Sovereign Sphinx tribal
WUTaigam, Ojutai Master tokens on the rebound spellslinger
GRhonas the Indomitable green creature beats
UGRashmi, Eternities Crafter ETB tribal
Retired EDH
WURGKynaios and Tiro of Meletis group hug
URThe Locust God draw swarm
UTalrand, Sky Summoner funsies blue spells
WBObzedat, Ghost Council life gain/drain
@turtlerock I am almost finished brewing Patron of the Moon, Taniwha and Heidar, Rimewind Master.
Nezahal, Primal Tide seems like very interesting, I'm definitely keeping an eye on him, but he seems to be a typical U good stuff commander.
I thought about Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign, but besides a few sphinxes, the deck is typical U.
I have been interested in sea monster tribal but personally, i don't find that any of the current commanders are what i'm looking for at the moment.