Ticking Gnomes
Artifact Creature — Gnome
Echo 
(At the beginning of your upkeep, if this came under your control since the beginning of your last upkeep, sacrifice it unless you pay its echo cost.)
Sacrifice this creature: It deals 1 damage to any target.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- C
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Eternal Masters
- Price
- $0.04
- EDHREC rank
- #27596
Ticking Gnomes enters, deals 1 damage to any target, and then sits as a 2/2 artifact creature for three mana — functional, forgettable, and completely outclassed in nearly every shell that wants any of those three things. The only context where it earns a slot is alongside Zimone, Mystery Unraveler, where the enters-the-battlefield ping becomes a repeatable resource rather than a one-time afterthought.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Ticking Gnomes is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but competitive relevance in Legacy and Vintage is effectively zero — those formats have no interest in a three-mana 2/2 with a single point of incidental damage. In Commander it finds its narrowest but most defensible home in decks that loop or flicker artifacts for enters-the-battlefield value, where the ping stacks into something meaningful. Outside of dedicated synergy builds, it is a bulk card in a format that has better options at every point on the curve.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Zimone, Mystery UnravelerYedora, Grave GardenerTicking Gnomes
Infinite LTB; Infinite death triggers; Infinite damage; Infinite sacrifice triggers; Infinite green mana; Infinite landfall triggers
View on Commander Spellbook ↗Price Context
Current price
$0.04 bulk tier
At $0.04, Ticking Gnomes is deep bulk — the kind of card you pull from a common box without a second thought. The price reflects the demand accurately and is unlikely to move unless a specific commander breaks the card into a combo staple.
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Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.