MTG analysis: RF sphinxes
It’s been a while since I did a review on MTG critters, and as Reality Fracture’s story has wrapped up I feel like reviewing the elder sphinxes from the set (which didn’t appear in the story proper; such a waste).
Denlizore Fatehold
We start with the white/blue sphinx, the dean of Hexhaven’s Fatehold. Wheres Arcavios’ Lorehold focuses on the conflict between history as random (red) and history as a march towards perfection (white), Fatehold takes the latter position and doubles down on it, as this college specialises in altering the future.
The design of Denzilore is rather abstract, having wings made of scrolls and three books as heads, that the legends article informs look towards the past, present and future. The elder sphinxes have arms in addition to their lion legs, making them a kind of centaur; this is a design element I’m ambivalent about.
Uldaros Theorix
The blue/black sphinx represents the college of Theorix. Whereas Quandrix revolved around the conflict of applying mathematics to the real world (green) or to study their abstractions (blue), Theorix doubles down on the latter, creating downright unnatural equations that summon monsters from other dimmensions.
I like Uldaros more cheetah/antelope like body, which contrasts heavily with the humanoid hands. The wings are basically plates and a tad less elegant than Denzilore’s scroll wings, but they too communicate that these sphinxes aren’t natural beings.
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Ingris Stingerquill
The opposite of Arcavios Silverquill, which focuses on the conflict of communication being used to uplift others (white) or denigrade others (black), Stingerquill is all about being the meanest, most hurtful motherfucker around. Ingris does have flavor text in Break Under Pressure in that its implied she’s a sadist, but her role is to make sure her students can defend themselves, making it a case of a “not fully evil” black character.
Her’s is by far my favourite design. The inverted batwings add a ton of originality and personality to this constantly cursing mad gal.
Aerid Konstrari
Our only non-binary sphinx (come to think of it, being in red/green they’re the furthest away from Jace’s blue alignment. Interesting…) rules over the Konstrari. Whereas the Prismari debated about art being perfection (blue) or emotional self expression (red), the Konstrari double down on art being expressive by focusing on constructing artifact beasts.
Aerid is by far the most bestial of the sphinxes and the one I consider closest to what a sphinx should look like. Their hands are even barely noticeable, being part of their mane. The wings are still rather weird, and seem to be made of wood.
Kwia Vigorbloom
Our final sphinx rules over Vigorbloom. Wheres Witherbloom was about nature being defined by death (black) or by propagation (green), Vigorbloom doubles down on the later, since Vigorbloom college openly claims to be about “invasive healing” and its students “heal” others by surgically grafting plants to the poor bastards. Of course the primarily white-aligned faction is the most terrifying of the bunch.
Kwia herself is creepy in a biblically accurate angel way. She has these tiny arms in constrast to her leonine lower body, has a face concealed among strutures which I can only assume are plant tumours and her wings are malformed rafts of vegetation. Ingris is my favourite, but Kwia comes a second close.
