I recently pulled Abhorath and Cthyryzyx from chests, and I’ve experimented with the Sphinx in arena… but I don’t think I’ve figured out an effective way to use them.
My impression of these is that the shuffle is basically a roll of the dice that could make things really bad for you if it sets up matches for the opponent, or could get you a few extra mana if you’re lucky and there’s nothing better to do. Am I missing something?
Abhorath’s ability is interesting, and I like it for refreshing the board when there isn’t any more of the mana I need. It’s nice to get matches as soon as the pieces drop (especially multiple skull attacks) but it generally seems too risky since I’m handing a fresh board to the other team unless I get lucky and match 4 as the board populates. Is the mana refresh and attack bonus worth the risk?
You are not missing anything.
Sphinx isn’t dangerous as it gives you an extra turn.
Abhorath is a gamble, as he doesn’t shuffle but clears the board, so you can get an extra turn as well as you could leave a dozen free turn for your ennemy.
Chtyzyx-or-whatever-the-name’s shuffle is plain bad as it will never give you an extra turn while he may leave a nicely set up board for your opponent.
Edit : forgot your question on Abho - as he refresh his health, most of the time, it’s not that risky, especially when, later, you get his “huge” trait, allowing him to get more max health, thus more sustain
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I’ve generally only found (untraited) Abhorath useful as a glass cannon type troop. Even supporting him with barrier or entangle, you are going to give your opponent skulls, and sooner rather than later, double skulls which will kill him for using his ability. Best case, you’ll drop a match yourself as the board refreshes and be able to severely wound or kill off a troop in the process (though not likely if the opponent is using a stoneskin troop in front). It is always a very risky play. With good use of Huge/Arcane, or some life buff support though, he should improve drastically. I’ve found him pretty unsuitable to use for just refreshing the board (Gorgotha and even Carnex are much better at this), you are generally trying to get the advantage back by healing and gaining attack and hopefully run the board with some skull hits.
The board jumble from Cthyryzyx, on the other hand, is almost certainly going to put you in a worse position than you started because you have no chance to keep the turn after casting. Best case, you ruin every single match that would give your opponent a chance to fill (not likely) worst case, you give them skulls, match 4/5’s, or both (much more likely).
Sphynx is good to catch those colors if you dont have them, in combination with color converters, so you can continue keeping the turn, but your luck will run out eventually and you will have done a whole lot of nothing except clear gems your whole turn unless you got a bunch of skulls.
It’s a matter of risk evaluation. If every match you could make will give your opponent something good, shuffling the board may improve the situation. However, casting any spell would probably be better than making a match in such a situation, because it would hand that bad board to your opponent, who then has to make a bad match and give you something good. So a shuffle isn’t necessarily worth bringing for that sake.
It may be useful for disrupting a board that you can’t fix by matching or casting another spell. For example, if your opponent has a transform ready, and the board is set up to give them extra turns when they cast it, you may be able to break up the colors with a shuffle.
He gets stronger with his Huge and Sacrifice Traits. Fully-Traited, he is a pretty decent tank.
A good exploder will practically reset the board with much more benefit to offset the risk 
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