Thaumatic Compass // Spires of Orazca MTG Card


Card setsReleased in 3 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost2
RarityRare
TypeArtifact
Abilities Transform

Key Takeaways

  1. Thaumatic Compass ensures consistent land drops and deck thinning for more strategic draws.
  2. Flips into Spires of Orazca for instant-speed defense, catching opponents off guard.
  3. High initial mana cost can slow early game momentum in exchange for later benefits.

Text of card

, : Search your library for a basic land card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle. At the beginning of your end step, if you control seven or more lands, transform Thaumatic Compass.

"Clearly, it indicates the aetheric azimuth of . . ." —Jace Beleren


Card Pros

Card Advantage: Thaumatic Compass offers a consistent way to sift through your deck, letting you search for basic lands every turn. This repeatable action creates a subtle but constant flow of card advantage, ensuring you rarely miss a land drop while thinning your deck to draw into more impactful cards.

Resource Acceleration: The Thaumatic Compass is instrumental in smoothing out your mana curve. By ensuring land drops, it accelerates your resource availability, which can be paramount in casting high-cost spells ahead of schedule. This asset becomes increasingly valuable in longer games where every land can count.

Instant Speed: One of the key features is its ability to flip into Spires of Orazca at instant speed once you reach the critical threshold of seven lands. This transformation can occur on either player’s turn, providing you with a surprise defensive utility that can protect you from aggressive strategies or disruptive creatures when your opponent least expects it.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Thaumatic Compass demands you to forfeit a land card from your hand to activate its search capability. This cost can set you back if your hand is already short on essential spells or land drops for the turn.

Specific Mana Cost: To activate Thaumatic Compass’s search ability, you need to invest two mana every time. This can be a tough ask in certain situations, especially in multicolored decks that might require mana for other critical plays during the game.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: Thaumatic Compass requires three mana for the initial investment, which doesn’t impact the board immediately. In an environment where early tempo can be key, spending your third turn to play a mana-rock-like card can sometimes be less effective than developing your board with creatures or other impactful spells.


Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: The Thaumatic Compass offers unparalleled utility, seamlessly integrating into control or mid-range decks. It not only provides you with the ability to search your library for basic lands, ensuring land drops, but also transforms into Spires of Orazca, a maze-like land protecting your health total by removing attackers from combat.

Combo Potential: Within a deck geared toward land synergies, this card’s ability to consistently fetch lands can trigger landfall abilities multiple times. Post-transformation, it can save key creatures from hostile removals or unfavorable combats, making it an ideal piece in defensive strategies.

Meta-Relevance: As many decks aim to establish and maintain board presence, the Thaumatic Compass can shift the tide of the game. By ensuring land drops, it upholds deck consistency and, as Spires of Orazca, it serves as a deterrent to aggressive strategies, thus holding significance in various meta scenarios.


How to beat

Thaumatic Compass is an intriguing artifact in the realm of Magic: The Gathering that morphs into Spires of Orazca, a land with the power to thwart enemy attacks. To overcome this strategic piece, it’s essential to employ artifact removal spells such as Naturalize or Disenchant, dismantling the Compass before it can transform. Destroying it post-transformation requires land destruction tactics, or utilizing abilities that strip away the land’s invulnerable status.

Countering the card’s activated ability to search for lands requires instant-speed land removal or stifle effects, cancelling the search and keeping your opponent’s mana development in check. When it becomes Spires of Orazca, denying opponents targets by attacking with multiple creatures or using evasion tactics ensures your most crucial creatures remain unscathed.

Overall, staying a step ahead of Thaumatic Compass demands early interference and flexible tactics to neutralize its land tutor and maze-like defense abilities. Understanding its transformative nature is key to preventing a seemingly harmless compass from becoming your undoing in the diverse and competitive world of Magic: The Gathering.


BurnMana Recommendations

Dive deeper into the world of MTG and harness the full potential of Thaumatic Compass in your deck. Smooth out your lands and pivot effortlessly as the game progresses, turning it into Spires of Orazca for that critical defense. Perfect your strategies and adapt to the evolving meta with this versatile artifact. As avid players and experts, we understand the thrill of optimizing your gameplay. Whether it’s through smart land acquisition or utilizing the transformational surprise, each card you choose can amplify your journey to victory. Expand your collection, refine your deck, and elevate your game. Journey with us for deeper insights and advanced play techniques.


Cards like Thaumatic Compass // Spires of Orazca

Thaumatic Compass is a unique card that resonates well with strategies based around land acquisition and transformation within Magic: The Gathering. Like the versatile Journeyer’s Kite, Thaumatic Compass allows players to search for basic lands, ensuring land drops remain consistent throughout the game. However, Thaumatic Compass has the added benefit of flipping into Spires of Orazca, a land with the ability to protect against attacks, akin to the function of Maze of Ith. The transformation provides a dual utility that’s absent in Journeyer’s Kite.

Comparing it to another utility artifact, we have the Weathered Wayfarer. Both cards act as a tool for land retrieval, but Weathered Wayfarer gives the option to search for any land type, thus offering greater flexibility. Nevertheless, Thaumatic Compass’s late-game value, due to its transformation, is a substantial advantage that Weathered Wayfarer doesn’t possess.

Reflecting on these comparable artifacts and their applications in the game, Thaumatic Compass stands out for its land-fixing capabilities, transformative potential, and defensive boost from its second form. This combination ensures that it holds a unique position among Magic: The Gathering utility cards, offering both early and late-game advantage.

Journeyer's Kite - MTG Card versions
Maze of Ith - MTG Card versions
Weathered Wayfarer - MTG Card versions
Journeyer's Kite - Champions of Kamigawa (CHK)
Maze of Ith - The Dark (DRK)
Weathered Wayfarer - Onslaught (ONS)

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Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Thaumatic Compass // Spires of Orazca MTG card by a specific set like Ixalan Promos and Ixalan, there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.

For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.

Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.

Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the Thaumatic Compass // Spires of Orazca and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Thaumatic Compass // Spires of Orazca Magic the Gathering card was released in 3 different sets between 2017-09-29 and 2023-05-08. Illustrated by Yeong-Hao Han.

#ReleaseNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12017-09-29Ixalan PromosPXLN 249s2015transformblackYeong-Hao Han
22017-09-29IxalanXLN 2492015transformblackYeong-Hao Han
32023-05-08From Cute to BrutePCTB 592015transformblackYeong-Hao Han

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Thaumatic Compass // Spires of Orazca has restrictions

FormatLegality
HistoricbrawlLegal
HistoricLegal
LegacyLegal
OathbreakerLegal
GladiatorLegal
PioneerLegal
CommanderLegal
ModernLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal
ExplorerLegal
PennyLegal
TimelessLegal

Rules and information

The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Thaumatic Compass // Spires of Orazca card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.

DateText
2017-09-29 Removing a creature from combat doesn’t change the fact that it attacked, even though it’s no longer an attacking creature. Notably, raid abilities will still be satisfied if every attacking creature is removed from combat.
2018-01-19 For more information on double-faced cards, see the Ixalan mechanics article (http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/ixalan-mechanics).
2018-01-19 There are many important moments in the story, but the most crucial—called “story spotlights”—are shown on cards. These cards have the Planeswalker symbol in their text box; this symbol has no effect on gameplay. You can read more about these events in the official Magic fiction at http://www.mtgstory.com.

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