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Unwinding Clock

Artifact

Untap all artifacts you control during each other player's untap step.

CMC
4
Mana cost
{4}
Color identity
C
Rarity
rare
Set
Commander 2018
Price
$21.40
EDHREC rank
#548
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Unwinding Clock card art
Unwinding Clock untaps all your artifacts on each opponent's untap step, turning every mana rock into a mana doubler and every activated artifact into a repeatable engine — for free, at four mana, with no ongoing cost. The ceiling is absurd: pair it with Nevinyrral's Disk and you hold the table hostage every turn cycle, or drop it into a Shorikai, Genesis Engine deck and your Vehicles and rocks reload the moment each opponent starts their turn.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Shorikai, Genesis Engine

Shorikai, Genesis Engine

70.2% of decks · synergy 0.60

Shorikai, Genesis Engine runs Unwinding Clock because Shorikai's own activated ability costs mana and taps the commander itself — with the Clock in play, every opponent's untap step refuels your mana rocks and gives Shorikai another activation window before your own turn even arrives.

02
Saheeli, the Gifted

Saheeli, the Gifted

62.7% of decks · synergy 0.59

Saheeli, the Gifted reduces artifact costs and floods the board with artifact tokens, so Unwinding Clock turns her already-dense artifact base into a mana engine that recharges on three separate untap steps, effectively tripling the productive turns her rocks see per full rotation.

03
Urza, Lord High Artificer

Urza, Lord High Artificer

66.4% of decks · synergy 0.55

Urza, Lord High Artificer turns each artifact into a blue mana source, so Unwinding Clock doesn't just untap rocks — it untaps the entire artifact board and multiplies the mana Urza generates on subsequent activations, compounding the advantage on every opponent's turn.

04
Memnarch

Memnarch

64.5% of decks · synergy 0.53

Memnarch's steal ability demands enormous amounts of blue mana, and Unwinding Clock ensures every mana artifact refills between turns, letting Memnarch threaten activations on each opponent's upkeep rather than waiting a full rotation to reload.

05
Urtet, Remnant of Memnarch

Urtet, Remnant of Memnarch

52.1% of decks · synergy 0.50

Urtet, Remnant of Memnarch cares about Myr artifacts specifically, and Unwinding Clock untaps the Myr mana producers each opponent turn so Urtet can threaten its untap-all-Myr trigger with fresh resources every step of the way.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

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

Unwinding Clock is a Commander card in practice — the multiplayer structure is exactly what makes it broken, since three opponents mean three additional untap steps per rotation. In Legacy and Vintage it's legal but sees virtually no play; four mana for a static effect that only shines across multiple turns is too slow for those formats, where games end before the Clock pays off. Oathbreaker is the one other format where the multiplayer math applies, and artifact-heavy Oathbreaker builds can exploit it the same way Commander decks do. Anywhere the game is one-on-one or ends on turn three, Unwinding Clock is a four-mana do-nothing.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Budget Alternatives

Cheaper options that do most of the same work

There's no true budget equivalent — the effect of untapping artifacts on each opponent's turn is unique to Unwinding Clock — but Voltaic Key and Voltaic Construct cover the single-target untap angle at near-zero cost, letting you recur one key rock or combo piece per turn rather than the whole board. If the goal is maximizing artifact mana, leaning into additional mana doublers like Doubling Cube or adding more low-drop rocks is a more cost-effective path than trying to replicate the Clock's global effect on the cheap.

Price Context

Current price

$21.40 premium tier

At $21.40, Unwinding Clock sits firmly in premium territory for a four-mana enchantment with no immediate board impact. The price is stable — it's a reserved-list-adjacent staple in a strategy (artifact combo) that only grows in Commander's card pool, so $21 is the floor, not a sale.

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Sources

Mentioned

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