In EDH, mana rocks play a crucial role in helping players keep pace with their opponents. In a format filled with gnarly haymakers, being able to use your mana in the early turns to accelerate towards your big plays can make a big difference.
The only downside to most mana rocks, however, is that they sometimes lose their luster in the late game. Having tons of mana and running out of resources to spend it on is an unfortunate circumstance that can come up. One particular trinket, though, does an excellent job alleviating this problem. With a little support, it becomes one of your best possible plays.
Maximizing Midnight Clock
Midnight Clock is the type of card that feels perfectly designed for Commander play. Solely as a mana rock, this artifact isn’t quite up to snuff. It helps make up for this by charging up into a one-sided Timetwister, but in a one-versus one setting, this is a very slow process. Luckily, in a multiplayer setting, accruing twelve Hour Counters won’t take too many turns. As such, even without going out of your way to build around Midnight Clock, the versatile engine has some appeal.
At the same time, it doesn’t take much to make Midnight Clock a more reliable source of card advantage. Any effects that add counters to it can speed the process up significantly. These can range from Proliferate cards like Flux Channeler to counter-doubling effects like Deepglow Skate. Even Seedborn Muse pairs perfectly with Midnight Clock, since untapping your lands lets you funnel all of your excess mana into its activated abilities on each opponent’s turn.
Assuming you can get to twelve Hour Counters unimpeded, there are a number of ways to make the card draw even more rewarding. Obviously, the more you can dump your hand before Midnight Clock goes off, the better. On top of that, though, any cards that pay you off for drawing a bunch of cards at once work like a charm. Getting Alhammarret’s Archive or Teferi’s Ageless Insight in play before Midnight Clock goes off, for example, should draw you enough cards to pull far ahead.
Interestingly, once Midnight Clock’s final ability goes on the stack, another fun thing you can do is blink it out with Ghostly Flicker or Displacer Kitten. You’ll still get to draw a fresh new hand of cards, but Midnight Clock won’t get exiled for good. Plus, its counters will be gone at that point, so you’re free to tick it up all over again with the intention of drawing another seven cards in a few turns! The ceiling on Midnight Clock is extremely high, and things only get better if you put the card in the right Commander deck.
Best Homes for Midnight Clock
As good as Midnight Clock is when paired with some strong tools in the 99, there are a number of legends that reliably make the artifact stronger. Unsurprisingly, this includes Commanders like The Locust God and Watcher in the Water that provide additional value when you draw extra cards, especially because the mana rock helps you cast these beefy threats ahead of schedule. Still, there are a few other Commanders that let you dig a little deeper.
One of the most popular Commanders out there, Obeka, Splitter of Seconds, threatens to get Midnight Clock to strike twelve far in advance in a unique way. The bigger Obeka is, the more upkeep steps you’ll get, and the more hour counters your engine will receive.
On the other side of things, Midnight Clock does a great job enabling Jin-Gitaxias in multiple ways. Casting it triggers Jin-Gitaxias’s middle ability, and after you draw seven new cards, you’ll be in prime position to transform your Commander.
Taking things a step further, in an Orvar, the All-Form deck, any cheap spells that target your permanents, such as Twiddle, allow you to flood the board with Clocks. This not only gives you tons of mana to work with to cast more spells in the short term, but over time, you’ll quickly start to drown in card advantage.
If you’re a fan of Brawl on Arena, Rusko, Clockmaker offers similar upside without you even needing to draw Clock in the first place, since Rusko makes a Clock when it enters. All you need are ways to blink Rusko and your opponent will start to fall behind on both mana and cards. While Rusko technically isn’t Commander legal, the legend did make an appearance in Mystery Booster 2. As such, you may find a play group willing to let you give Rusko a spin, even if it is an almighty powerhouse.
A Cheap Acquisition
While there are a few ways to maximize Midnight Clock, the card is honestly a fair inclusion in any deck that has higher mana value Blue Commanders, or just needs a mana sink in the mid-late game. In a slower format like casual Commander, the chances of successfully pulling off Midnight Clock’s gambit is extremely high, making it rather popular in the format already.
To make things even sweeter, thanks to a series of reprints in Commander Precons, Midnight Clock is a dirt-cheap budget option for your blue decks, only costing 20 cents for a near-mint copy. So long as you have a blue deck that can use a grindy effect like this, there’s little reason not to give Midnight Clock a spin.
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