Phenax, God of Deception
Legendary Enchantment Creature — God
Indestructible
As long as your devotion to blue and black is less than seven, Phenax isn't a creature.
Creatures you control have "
: Target player mills X cards, where X is this creature's toughness."
4 / 7
- Set
- The List (PLST #BNG-152)
- Rarity
- Mythic
- Mana value
- 5
- Released
- 2021-06-19
- Artist
- Ryan Barger
- EDHREC rank
- #5,010
- Colour identity
- Finishes
- Nonfoil
- Served from
- Local database
Commander bracket
Derived from card traits, not a ruling — bracket rules turn on how a deck intends to use a card. Bracket rules
EDHREC
Combos 27
All 27 combos.
Commander recommendations
Top synergy 50
Played far more in this commander's decks than elsewhere.
- Consuming Aberration
- Charix, the Raging Isle
- Ruin Crab
- Maddening Cacophony
- Tree of Perdition
- Bruvac the Grandiloquent
- Mindcrank
- Wight of Precinct Six
- Duskmantle Guildmage
- Wall of Frost
- Fractured Sanity
- Cruel Somnophage
- Traumatize
- Eater of the Dead
- The Ancient One
- Nighthowler
- The Water Crystal
- Mind Grind
- Fraying Sanity
- Psychic Corrosion
- Drown in the Loch
- Mortivore
- Singularity Rupture
- Visions of Beyond
- Hedron Crab
- Memory Erosion
- Syr Konrad, the Grim
- Dramatic Reversal
- Thousand-Year Elixir
- The Walls of Ba Sing Se
- Hover Barrier
- The Mindskinner
- Tasha's Hideous Laughter
- Fleet Swallower
- Caelorna, Coral Tyrant
- Silent Arbiter
- Mesmeric Orb
- Bonehoard
- Sphinx's Tutelage
- Nephalia Drownyard
- Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker
- Sire of Stagnation
- Didn't Say Please
- Unstoppable Plan
- Thought Collapse
- Court of Cunning
- Sewer Nemesis
- Propaganda
- Glimpse the Unthinkable
- Zellix, Sanity Flayer
Most included 50
Highest share of decks running them, distinctive or not.
- Island
- Swamp
- Sol Ring
- Consuming Aberration
- Command Tower
- Arcane Signet
- Ruin Crab
- Charix, the Raging Isle
- Maddening Cacophony
- Mindcrank
- Sunken Hollow
- Bruvac the Grandiloquent
- Drowned Catacomb
- Dimir Signet
- Tree of Perdition
- Drown in the Loch
- Fractured Sanity
- Counterspell
- Duskmantle Guildmage
- Wight of Precinct Six
- The Water Crystal
- Cruel Somnophage
- Singularity Rupture
- Watery Grave
- Traumatize
- Talisman of Dominance
- Wall of Frost
- Syr Konrad, the Grim
- Nighthowler
- Mind Grind
- The Ancient One
- Psychic Corrosion
- Bojuka Bog
- Eater of the Dead
- Fraying Sanity
- Propaganda
- Dimir Aqueduct
- Hedron Crab
- Visions of Beyond
- Choked Estuary
- Shipwreck Marsh
- Memory Erosion
- Mortivore
- Dramatic Reversal
- Temple of Deceit
- The Mindskinner
- Nephalia Drownyard
- Darkwater Catacombs
- Tainted Isle
- Thousand-Year Elixir
Format legality
Rulings
- 2013-09-15
Hybrid mana symbols, monocolored hybrid mana symbols, and Phyrexian mana symbols do count toward your devotion to their color(s).
- 2013-09-15
If an activated ability or triggered ability has an effect that depends on your devotion to a color, you count the number of mana symbols of that color among the mana costs of permanents you control as the ability resolves. The permanent with that ability will be counted if it's still on the battlefield at that time.
- 2013-09-15
Mana symbols in the text boxes of permanents you control don't count toward your devotion to any color.
- 2013-09-15
Numeric mana symbols (
, 
, and so on) in mana costs of permanents you control don't count toward your devotion to any color. - 2014-02-01
If Phenax is a creature, it will grant itself the activated ability.
- 2014-02-01
If you activate the ability Phenax grants to creatures you control, the toughness of the creature is calculated as the ability resolves. If the creature is no longer on the battlefield at that time, use its toughness when it was last on the battlefield.
- 2014-02-01
If you tap Phenax to activate the ability it grants itself, and Phenax is no longer a creature but still on the battlefield as that ability resolves, no cards will be put into the target player's graveyard. Similarly, if Phenax isn't on the battlefield as the ability resolves and wasn't a creature when it left the battlefield, no cards will be put into the graveyard.
- 2020-01-24
As a God enters the battlefield, your devotion to its color will determine whether any replacement effects that affect creatures entering the battlefield apply to that God. Because replacement effects are considered before the God is on the battlefield, the mana symbols in its mana cost won't be counted when determining this.
- 2020-01-24
Counters put on a God remain on it while it's not a creature, even if they have no effect.
- 2020-01-24
If a God is attacking or blocking and it stops being a creature, it will be removed from combat. It won't rejoin combat if it resumes being a creature later during that combat.
- 2020-01-24
If a God stops being a creature, it loses the type creature and the creature type God. It continues to be a legendary enchantment.
- 2020-01-24
If an effect causes a God to lose all abilities, its ability that causes it to stop being a creature still applies if appropriate.
- 2020-01-24
The abilities of Gods function as long as they're on the battlefield, regardless of whether they're creatures.
- 2020-01-24
The type-changing ability that can make a God not be a creature functions only on the battlefield. It's always a creature card in other zones, regardless of your devotion to its color. It's always a creature spell while it's on the stack.
- 2020-01-24
When a God enters the battlefield, your devotion to its color (including the mana symbols in the mana cost of the God itself) will determine if a creature entered the battlefield or not for abilities that trigger whenever a creature enters the battlefield.
- 2020-01-24
Your devotion to two colors is the number of mana symbols among mana costs of permanents you control that are the first color, the second, or both. If an effect counts your devotion to two colors, a hybrid symbol that is both of those colors is counted just once.