I never understood the love this card gets. It seems unexciting at any casting cost and the flexibility is somewhat off set by it being a guild card.
I would run stroke of genius over this any day as it's much easier to cast and can kill an opponent if you generate a silly amount of mana in the late game. Adding 2 coloured pips just to gain life equal to X is bad IMHO.
It always seems like this cards gets alot of hype cause it was a huge deal in standard, but in cube it always seemed like filler to me.
I like BSZ (or stroke of Genius myself) - Good draw engine + win con for Palinchron + High Tide.
Yah my playgroup really liked Sphinx during Standard/ Modern and the time and it had a bit of the overrun effect where you overvalue the card from all the x=7 times.
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I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Yeah, as someone who played that deck in standard there's a huge nostalgia factor for me. I also include Elixir of Immortality, lol. I don't think the lifegain is nothing, but it's true you've got some heavy restrictions for a small gain.
I agree Stroke of Genius is the most sensible version.
I would run stroke of genius over this any day as it's much easier to cast and can kill an opponent if you generate a silly amount of mana in the late game. Adding 2 coloured pips just to gain life equal to X is bad IMHO.
It always seems like this cards gets alot of hype cause it was a huge deal in standard, but in cube it always seemed like filler to me.
Yah my playgroup really liked Sphinx during Standard/ Modern and the time and it had a bit of the overrun effect where you overvalue the card from all the x=7 times.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
I agree Stroke of Genius is the most sensible version.