Blood Clock
Artifact
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player returns a permanent they control to its owner's hand unless they pay 2 life.
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- C
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- The List
- Price
- $1.11
- EDHREC rank
- #15254
Blood Clock forces every player to return a permanent to hand at the start of their upkeep — which punishes opponents and rewards anyone running permanents that want to reenter the battlefield. The tax becomes free with something like Wormfang Manta, where bouncing your own piece is the point, not the penalty.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Blood Clock is a Commander card through and through — four players paying the bounce tax every turn means the effect compounds fast, and the format's abundance of enter-the-battlefield creatures gives you plenty of ways to profit from it. In Legacy and Vintage it's technically legal but sees no meaningful play; the formats move too fast for a four-mana artifact with a delayed, symmetrical effect to matter. Oathbreaker shares Commander's multiplayer DNA and the same ETB-dense environment, so the logic carries over there as well.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$1.11 cheap tier
At $1.11, Blood Clock sits in firmly budget territory — cheap enough to slot in experimentally without much commitment. It's a niche card with a small but dedicated audience, so the price is stable rather than a bargain waiting to spike.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.