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Five Hundred Year Diary

Legendary Artifact — Book Clue

Five Hundred Year Diary enters tapped.
{T}: Add {U} for each Clue you control.
{2}, Sacrifice Five Hundred Year Diary: Draw a card.

CMC
4
Mana cost
{3}{U}
Color identity
U
Rarity
rare
Set
Doctor Who
Price
$1.00
EDHREC rank
#6072
Buy on TCGplayer
Five Hundred Year Diary card art
Five Hundred Year Diary turns every Clue token into a repeatable mana sink that replaces itself, and Filigree Sages can untap it to let you draw multiple cards a turn off a single artifact. The catch is the four-mana activation cost, which means Jenny Flint // Madame Vastra and other Clue-heavy engines are the only homes where that price tag doesn't sting.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Jenny FlintMadame Vastra

Jenny Flint // Madame Vastra

48.6% of decks · synergy 0.48

Jenny Flint // Madame Vastra generates a Clue on every attack from a tapped creature, which means Five Hundred Year Diary consistently has fresh tokens to crack for cards without dipping into your mana budget too hard.

02
Morska, Undersea Sleuth

Morska, Undersea Sleuth

40.8% of decks · synergy 0.39

Morska, Undersea Sleuth rewards you for sacrificing Clues and other artifacts, so Five Hundred Year Diary slots in as a card-draw engine that feeds the same sacrifice payoffs the deck already wants.

03
Inquisitor Greyfax

Inquisitor Greyfax

37.0% of decks · synergy 0.36

Inquisitor Greyfax pushes vigilance and clue-making together, and Five Hundred Year Diary converts that Clue surplus into card advantage while your creatures stay untapped to keep pressure on.

05
The Rani

The Rani

31.0% of decks · synergy 0.31

The Rani builds around time counters and artifact manipulation, and Five Hundred Year Diary fits cleanly as a recurring draw engine that doubles as an artifact body for the deck's synergy pieces.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern not legal
pioneer not legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

Five Hundred Year Diary is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but its home is Commander — full stop. In Legacy and Vintage, a four-mana artifact that draws cards only when you sacrifice a Clue is miles below the power threshold those formats demand. In Commander, the slower pace and Clue-tribal commanders like Jenny Flint // Madame Vastra make the activation cost acceptable, and the repeatable card draw compounds meaningfully over a long game. Oathbreaker is the one non-Commander format where it could see fringe play under the right signature spell, but the card pool there is narrow enough that it rarely matters.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$1.00 cheap tier

At $1.00, Five Hundred Year Diary sits firmly in budget-inclusion territory — you're not paying a premium for it. Demand is niche enough that the price is unlikely to climb unless a new Clue-matters commander breaks through, so it's a safe low-cost pickup for any deck that wants it now.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.