Blood Clock MTG Card

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Blood Clock offers a unique mechanism to retrieve valuable permanents from the battlefield back to your hand. This can be effectively used to capitalize on enter-the-battlefield effects multiple times, ensuring you have a steady stream of utility and options each turn.

Resource Acceleration: Cleverly navigating the nuances of Blood Clock can accelerate your resources by giving you access to your own permanents repeatedly. This can be especially potent if you are manipulating costs and benefits to gain an edge over your opponent over the course of a match.

Instant Speed: While Blood Clock itself is not an instant, it synergizes well with instant speed plays. It creates a scenario where opponents must carefully consider their moves or risk falling into a tempo disadvantage. Integrating instant speed spells alongside Blood Clock can force opponents to act, making your plays more potent during their turns.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: The Blood Clock can often force players into tough decisions about which card to return to their hand. If no spare permanents are available, valuable board position might be lost.

Specific Mana Cost: Blood Clock requires a mix of generic and specific mana to cast. This dual-color requirement can sometimes complicate casting within mono-colored or color-limited decks.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a casting cost of four mana, Blood Clock occupies a crucial turn in many game strategies. Considering this, some players might find other four-mana options that advance their board state or offer immediate impact more appealing.

Reasons to Include Blood Clock in Your Collection

Versatility: Blood Clock is a unique artifact that can slip into a variety of deck builds, notably those that revolve around recurring permanents for added value or untapping creatures for repeated use. Its ability to return permanents to hand each turn can be exploited in decks tailored to reuse enter-the-battlefield effects.

Combo Potential: In conjunction with cards that have beneficial enter-the-battlefield or sacrifice effects, Blood Clock can be a cornerstone in some powerful combos. This synergy allows players to craft a roundabout engine, triggering abilities consistently throughout the duel.

Meta-Relevance: In formats where the game pace is slower and strategies lean towards value generation, Blood Clock can shine by disrupting opponents’ board states while advancing your game plan. In metagames heavy on creature-based tactics, it can become particularly disruptive.

How to beat

Blood Clock is an intriguing artifact that can potentially disrupt both your and your opponent’s game plans in MTG. It requires each player to return a permanent they control to their hand at the beginning of their upkeep, or pay 2 life. To turn this to your advantage, it is crucial to have a strategy that mitigates the Blood Clock’s impact on your board while maximizing its inconvenience for your opponent.

One effective approach is to incorporate low-cost or value-generating permanents into your deck that can be replayed easily. This way, you minimize the clock’s downside for yourself. Cards with enter-the-battlefield effects or creatures you can cast for a reduced cost can turn the Blood Clock’s ability into a recurring advantage. On the other hand, your opponent may not be as prepared, and the consistent loss of a permanent or life can quickly tip the game in your favor. Forcing them into a tough decision each upkeep can lead to a winning position for a well-prepared player. Keep in mind evasion tactics such as enchantment removal or abilities that nullify triggered abilities. Technical play combined with strategic deck building is key to outpace the Blood Clock’s ticking challenge.