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Midnight Clock card art
Live Play Data

Midnight Clock

{2} {U} · Artifact · Outlaws of Thunder Junction Commander (OTC)
4%
Live Inclusion
Buy on TCGplayer
Times Brought
563
Decks Running
306
Median Cast Turn
5.0
Drawn → Played
64%
Format
Multiplayer 1v1

Midnight Clock sits in 4% of Playgroup Live Commander decks tracked so far, with a median first-cast turn of 5.0 and 64% of drawn copies reaching the battlefield.

Midnight Clock appears in 306 of the 8244 Commander decks tracked on Playgroup Live, an inclusion rate of 4%. That puts it in a narrow slice of blue-identity decks that want both mana fixing and a slow-burn hand-reset engine on a single card.

When drawn, 64% of copies reached the battlefield before the game ended. Median first cast lands on turn 5.0, with the middle half of casts falling between turns 3 and 7. Players don't tend to slam it immediately: only 35% of drawn-and-cast copies were played the same turn they were drawn, and the median copy sat in hand for one turn before being cast.

The commander distribution is notably spread across blue-heavy lists: Ovika, Enigma Goliath leads at 17 tracked decks, with Obeka, Saheeli, and Y'shtola each in the 8-9 deck range. No single commander dominates. 267 distinct players have brought Midnight Clock to a tracked game, and the single heaviest contributor accounts for just 5% of all instances, so the data reflects a broad cross-section of the player base rather than one prolific grinder.

At a glance
  • 4% of tracked Commander decks include Midnight Clock
  • T5.0 median first-cast turn across tracked games
  • 64% of drawn copies reached the battlefield
  • 55% battlefield stickiness once cast
  • 267 distinct players have brought Midnight Clock to a tracked game
  • 31% draw rate per game when in the deck

First-cast turn

n=110
1%
T1
12%
T2
12%
T3
20%
T4
9%
T5
38%
T6-9
8%
T10+
Median 5.0 P25 4 · P75 7 · max 21
On curve 25% (13 / 110 cast on T3) Cast same turn as drawn 35%

The "good card" funnel

564 brought · 267 players
Brought to game
564
Ever drawn
172
Reached battlefield
110
Still on board at game end
60
64%

Of 564 Midnight Clocks brought to games, 172 were drawn, 110 of those were cast, and 55% of cast copies were still on the battlefield at the point the game was recorded.

≥ -11.4pp

Players who cast this card win 19% of the time (n=105) , vs 23% when it never left the library (n=326).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 40% (n=58) — about the same as leaving it in the library. Those players survived long enough to draw it, so the gap above is about the card resolving, not just about surviving.

Observed gap -3.6pp; 95% confidence interval -11.4pp to +4.2pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

192 instances
3.6%
Library
31.3%
Battlefield
22.4%
Graveyard
18.2%
Exile

Most Midnight Clocks that never get drawn stay in the library, a structural fact of 100-card singleton. The exile bucket is notable: those are copies that successfully fired their twelve-counter trigger, shuffled a hand and graveyard, and drew seven cards before exiling themselves.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

Ovika, Enigma Goliath leads the commander list at 17 tracked decks, but the spread across blue-inclusive commanders from Izzet to Esper to mono-blue shows Midnight Clock has no single natural home.

Card text
Midnight Clock card

Midnight Clock

{2} {U}
Artifact
{T}: Add {U}. {2}{U}: Put an hour counter on this artifact. At the beginning of each upkeep, put an hour counter on this artifact. When the twelfth hour counter is put on this artifact, shuffle your hand and graveyard into your library, then draw seven cards. Exile this artifact.
Outlaws of Thunder Junction Commander (OTC) · Rare · Illustrated by Alexander Forssberg

Frequently Asked

How often is Midnight Clock drawn in a Commander game?
Across 548 tracked multiplayer Commander games where Midnight Clock was in a deck, it was drawn 31% of the time. That reflects both its singleton nature in 100-card decks and game length. Of 172 total drawn instances, 64% were cast before the game concluded.
What turn does Midnight Clock typically hit the battlefield?
Median first-cast turn is 5.0, with the 25th-to-75th percentile range spanning turns 3 through 7. The distribution is relatively flat through the mid-game: a cluster of early casts on turns 2-4 for players who drew it in their opening hand or ramped, and a long tail out to turn 21 for late-drawn copies. Only 25% of casts landed exactly on-curve for a 3-mana card, which mostly reflects how rarely it shows up in opening hands rather than players choosing to hold it.
How sticky is Midnight Clock once it resolves?
55% of cast copies were still on the battlefield at the end of the tracked game segment. That is lower than many artifacts, which makes sense: Midnight Clock exiles itself the moment it fires its twelfth-counter trigger and refills your hand with seven cards. A copy that leaves the battlefield via its own trigger is a success, not a removal hit.
Does casting Midnight Clock correlate with winning?
This is an early signal, not a definitive conclusion. The cast win rate sits at 19% across 105 observations, compared to 23% for games where the card stayed in the library across 326 observations. The delta is directional but the standard error overlaps zero, so treat it as a hint rather than proof. Multiplayer Commander's 4-player baseline is 25%, so both buckets are close to parity.
Which commanders run Midnight Clock most often on Playgroup Live?
Ovika, Enigma Goliath leads with 17 tracked decks, followed by Obeka, Splitter of Seconds and Saheeli, Radiant Creator at 9 each. The spread across Izzet, Grixis, and mono-blue commanders reflects the card's appeal to any blue deck that wants incremental mana and a mid-game hand refill. No single commander archetype monopolizes the data.
Is Midnight Clock legal in the formats I play?
Midnight Clock is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, Timeless, Brawl, Duel Commander, Gladiator, and Oathbreaker. It is not legal in Standard, Pauper, Pauper Commander, or Premodern. All legality data comes from Scryfall metadata.