Watcher of Hours
Creature — Sphinx
Flying, ward 
Whenever you remove a time counter from this card while it's exiled, surveil 1.
Suspend 6—
(Rather than cast this card from your hand, you may pay and exile it with six time counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a time counter. When the last is removed, you may cast it without paying its mana cost. It has haste.)
- CMC
- 6
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- U
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Murders at Karlov Manor Commander
- Price
- $0.27
- EDHREC rank
- #9874
Watcher of Hours lands as a 4/4 flier for four mana and immediately removes time counters from permanents you control — that's a meaningful body with a relevant enters-the-battlefield effect stapled on. In suspend-heavy or proliferate shells, and especially alongside Mirko, Obsessive Theorist, the tempo you gain from accelerating your own countdown clocks makes this card earn its slot.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Mirko, Obsessive Theorist
Mirko, Obsessive Theorist mills cards onto opponents and then weaponizes their graveyards, and Watcher of Hours fits the tempo game he wants to play — removing time counters from your own suspended spells lets you threaten the board faster while Mirko keeps pressure on from the command zone.
Alaundo the Seer
Alaundo the Seer loads up suspended spells every turn, making time counter removal an active resource rather than a marginal bonus — Watcher of Hours accelerates the pipeline, getting your cascade chain online a full turn sooner.
Jhoira of the Ghitu
Jhoira of the Ghitu suspends big threats for two generic mana, and Watcher of Hours shaves the wait time on those threats, turning a four-turn clock into a three-turn clock and forcing opponents to answer the Watcher before the suspended haymakers arrive.
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 |
Commander is where Watcher of Hours actually matters — suspend synergies, proliferate engines, and time counter manipulation are almost exclusively an EDH conversation. In Legacy and Vintage it's technically legal but has no competitive foothold; those formats don't run suspend packages that need a 4/4 to accelerate them. Oathbreaker shares enough of Commander's singleton, multiplayer DNA that the card could pull weight there in the right shell, but the pool of commanders incentivizing time counter removal is small. Treat this as a Commander-specific tool.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.27 bulk tier
At $0.27, Watcher of Hours is bulk — you're not paying a premium for anything here. The price reflects narrow appeal rather than power level; in the right suspend deck it overperforms its cost, but demand will stay low enough that the price is unlikely to move.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Mirko, Obsessive Theorist
- Alaundo the Seer
- Jhoira of the Ghitu
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.