Midnight Clock MTG Card

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Midnight Clock serves as a powerful engine for card advantage over time. Once the twelfth hour is reached, your hand is replenished with seven fresh cards, keeping your options open and potentially overwhelming the opponent with a new set of plays.

Resource Acceleration: This card doubles as a reliable resource accelerator. By tapping it, you gain additional blue mana, which can be essential for casting key spells faster than usual or enabling multi-color decks to operate more smoothly.

Instant Speed: Furthermore, the ability to add hour counters at instant speed gives you the flexibility to adapt to the developing board. You can invest in the clock at the most opportune moments without disrupting your overall strategy or missing a beat on your defensive measures.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Midnight Clock doesn’t necessitate a discard. However, one could argue that putting your hope on the shuffling effect as a form of card advantage is risky, as it forces you to potentially discard a hand you have curated throughout the game.

Specific Mana Cost: The mana cost of Midnight Clock is specific, requiring blue magic sources. Decks that do not run blue mana may not find this card viable, which narrows the card’s inclusivity across the various deck types.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a mana cost of three and the need to sink additional mana into its hourly counters, the card can be seen as having a high investment cost. While it does provide a powerful effect, the setup time and the mana required may be too steep when you need immediate board impact or interaction.

Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Midnight Clock serves as both mana acceleration and a hard reset for your hand, fitting seamlessly into control decks or any blue-based strategy looking for a reliability boost.

Combo Potential: With its ability to shuffle the graveyard into the library and refill your hand at the twelfth hour, this card synergizes well with strategies focusing on graveyard manipulation or draw conditions.

Meta-Relevance: In a game state where long matches are prevalent and resources become stretched, Midnight Clock’s capacity to refresh a dwindling hand gives it a solid stance in the current competitive landscape.

How to beat

Midnight Clock presents a unique challenge in Magic: The Gathering, with its ability to shuffle and refresh your hand while ensuring a surge of mana when the clock strikes twelve. To effectively counter this artifact, you’ll want to bring enchantment or artifact removal spells to your game. Cards such as Naturalize or Disenchant are simple and efficient solutions that can dismantle the Midnight Clock before its hourly chime grants your opponent a significant advantage.

Additionally, keeping pressure on your opponent is crucial, compelling them to use mana for other means instead of investing in the clock’s hourly counters. You might also consider leveraging discard spells to force the Midnight Clock out of your opponent’s hand before they have a chance to cast it. Cards like Thoughtseize or Duress are excellent for this strategy, disrupting your opponent’s plans and keeping their pivotal pieces off the board.

Finally, being proactive by dictating the tempo of the game can diminish the impact of the Midnight Clock, as you maximize the value of your turns while restricting your opponent’s ability to set up their powerful payoff. Understanding when to force the action and when to hold back for the right moment becomes the key to mastering the matchup against this ticking artifact.

BurnMana Recommendations

The journey toward mastery in MTG is enriched by clever play and strategic card selection. Midnight Clock stands out as a testament to flexibility and foresight in game planning. Offering card advantage, resource acceleration, and instant speed counter accumulation, it’s a intriguing choice for any blue strategist. Whether fleshing out a control deck or aiming for combo plays, this artifact demands consideration. We encourage you to explore the full potential of Midnight Clock in your decks. Dive deeper into its mechanics and discover how to optimize your gameplay around its unique abilities here at BurnMana.