Sandstone Oracle
Artifact Creature — Sphinx
Flying
When this creature enters, choose an opponent. If that player has more cards in hand than you, draw cards equal to the difference.
- CMC
- 7
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- C
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- The List
- Price
- $0.18
- EDHREC rank
- #4183
Sandstone Oracle lands as a 4/4 flyer and refills your hand to match the opponent with the most cards — a meaningful swing in the late game when your hand is empty. The seven-mana price tag is steep, but Tannuk, Steadfast Second decks cheat that cost down enough to make it a genuine staple rather than a budget filler.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Tannuk, Steadfast Second
Tannuk, Steadfast Second recurs and cheats out expensive artifacts, and Sandstone Oracle is exactly the kind of high-cost, high-impact artifact that rewards that engine — a free refill stapled to a 4/4 body is the payoff Tannuk is built to assemble.
Herigast, Erupting Nullkite
Herigast, Erupting Nullkite reduces artifact costs based on damage dealt, which pulls Sandstone Oracle's seven-mana ask down to a realistic mid-game play and pairs the draw effect with a relevant attacker in a shell that wants both.
Belbe, Corrupted Observer
Belbe, Corrupted Observer generates bursts of colorless mana from opponents taking damage, and Sandstone Oracle is a natural sink — seven mana is trivially reachable in a Belbe turn, and the card-draw refuel keeps the deck from stalling after dumping its hand.
Rakdos, Lord of Riots
Rakdos, Lord of Riots discounts colorless artifact creatures based on damage dealt to opponents, often making Sandstone Oracle cost two or three mana, which turns a slow seven-drop into an efficient mid-combat refill.
Sami, Wildcat Captain
Sami, Wildcat Captain rewards running large creatures that can attack profitably, and Sandstone Oracle fills both roles — it swings in the air while restocking the hand, which is exactly the kind of card-advantage body aggressive Sami builds want.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Sandstone Oracle is a Commander card through and through — the symmetry-breaking draw effect is calibrated for multiplayer, where someone almost always has a full grip you want to match. In Legacy and Vintage it's legal but irrelevant; seven mana for a 4/4 that might draw you four cards is laughably slow in those formats. Oathbreaker could support it in the right shell, but the effect is less reliable in a two-player context where hands are frequently low on both sides. Stick to Commander, specifically in artifact or cost-reduction decks where the mana hurdle disappears.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.18 bulk tier
At $0.18, Sandstone Oracle is bulk — easy to acquire as a throw-in or a quarter-bin pickup. For a card with genuine competitive applications in popular commanders, that price is unlikely to stay this low indefinitely, but buy it for the effect, not the speculation.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Tannuk, Steadfast Second
- Herigast, Erupting Nullkite
- Belbe, Corrupted Observer
- Rakdos, Lord of Riots
- Sami, Wildcat Captain
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.