Pointed Discussion

Given so much preparation, by the time this card could mill a respectable amount, a mill deck would've done much more with other investment.

Prototype Portal with a Voltaic Key imprinted on it will help break this puppy.
If you can manage to get out two myr galvanizer and a palladium myr or two you can generate infinite mana and deck someone without having to wait a turn to put counters on it.

Legacy artifact mill decks are going to use these, Power Conduits, and Energy Chambers...along with artifacts that grow counters every turn and others that Proliferate.

Awesome and flavourful artwork

i have to imagine if this ever made even a rustling in legacy, people would start sideboarding gaea's blessing and that would be the end. as for infinite mana combos, i like to think you'd do more with your mana than merely finding convoluted ways to mill your opponent. the fact is that ironically the best mill card (outside of grindstone/painter's servant, of course) is keening stone. this is ironic because it's in the same set as the eldrazi that nullify milling completely.

Such amazing artwork...
But this doesn't really seem like a full fledged winning condition like Keening Stone or Traumatize... But it's utility is much like hedron crab... for that slight mill that we've been seeing...
which is alright, mill doesn't really have much in the ways of utility... Hedron Crab is amazing, but Tome scour? Not enough of an effect for a one-time effect...
but giving mill utility might actually make it viable.... instead of playing control and taking out chunks at a time, we can see more "casual" mill

I'm seeing that people are hating on grindclock for some reason, I play a mill deck myself and was happy to add 2 of these, they work perfectly with a thrummingbird. Send out grindclock and tap for 1 counter, then proliferate with thrummingbird, just landfall with hedron crab and tome scour. I dont even use traumatize or archive trap, I mill just fine. Work with what you got.

Shittiest card I have ever got at a prerelease, absolutely sucked.

if you have two grindclocks on the field can you tap one to put a charge counter on the other?

Sphinx of Jwar Isle, anybody? or perhaps with Oracle of Mul Daya, or even vengevine

In limited, this thing was actually my win-con. I played mono-white with a lot of life gain, chumpers, etc. I'd get it up to about 5 counters before I'd start milling. When your opponent is only playing a 40-45 card deck, it's not hard, especially when you mill their best cards. Probably the worst deck I've ever put together for a draft, but easily the most fun.

Mill is getting some wicked new toys to play with. Now, I need to get some Gilder Barins to break this clock with. I actually want to make a real life Grindclock. I'll make everyone insane.

@bloodghastly: When a card such as Grindclock refers to a "Grindclock" in its text box, it refers only to itself unless it explicitly states otherwise

How about this...gain some life somehow...get an eternity vessel into play early on (master transmuter+mishra's bauble perhaps?)...then dismantle it and put the charge counters on this card...then assist with voltaic key.

Or you could just stick to traumatize, mind funeral and the likes...

My friend has just one of these in his artifact deck, and it's a huge threat, thanks to Unbender Tine, Voltaic Key, and Tezzeret the Seeker.

I remember when he used it against my Unearth deck in a 40-life game. Before my last turn, he milled me so I had only 2 cards left in my library. I unearthed everything in my graveyard and attacked, leaving him at 1 life. During his next turn, he milled away the last card - Dregscape Zombie.

Feel like it should have been uncommon. I don't wanna pull this as my rare in a pack :/ uncommon i wouldn't mind though

This is a fantastic card because it requires no real investment. Just add it as a side win condition to a slow control deck, and bam. Even if your opponent starts winning attrition wars, you will have an advantage when you have the board locked down and all of a sudden your milling them for ten every turn.

I agree. This card does not belong in a milling deck. It belong with proliferate or control, where it can, after the initial 2 mana "investment," proceed to sit and build counters for free until you have a suitable amount (I usually go with 5 or 10), then start decking your opponent for free each turn. A deck could easily be based around this, thrumminbird , and wall of denial , whereby you just sit back and mill for free, possibly adding in some other win condition, and some counterspells to protect it.

So...yeah...it's good...

So sick in a proliferate deck. It gets out of control real fast. :D 5/5

After much playtesting, definitely best in a proliferate control deck rather than any kind of mill deck. Though having that Thrummingbird pick up a Sword of Body and Mind isn't a bad idea either.

This card is preeeetty much sick. In my "Factory" deck, charge counters and porliferate, this thing gets huge. My friend plays a crazy 132 card deck and have milled it all down to nothing in less than four turns on many an occasion.

Maybe it could make an appearance in a proliferate deck after the eldrazis rotate out allowing mill to not be annihilated (no pun inteded) after sideboarding.

I'm working on a deck built around Phyrexian Rebirth and Bonehoard, and this works pretty great with the latter. If you're at a stalemate with no one attacking, get the advantage by milling a few of your opponent's creatures and boosting up the Bonehoard.

Assuming only one Grindclock, your opponent is drawing only one card per turn and you're not milling in any other way, the optimum number of turns to charge is generally 5. It's actually a range of turns, but 5 tends to be within that range. The formula is

y=x+1+((c-x)/x+1)

Where x is the number of turns you charge it, c is the number of cards in their deck to start with and y is the number of turns, including charging turns, that it takes to win. Plot that using graphing software, or any scientific calculator should have a TABLE function. Round all results down to the nearest 1.

If you have two Grindclocks, each of which is on 0 counters, the formula is z=y+(c-x-(x+1)(y-x))/(x+y+1), where x is the number of turns you charge one of the Grindclocks and y is the number of turns you charge the other, and y is the larger number. c is their starting deck size, and z is the total number of turns it takes to win including charge times. With initial deck size 40, you should charge one for 3 turns and one for 2, although you can charge each for as long as seven turns and win in the same time. If one of your Grindclocks has counters on it already the formula is more complicated and I haven't worked it out; if you have three or more Grindclocks there is nothing that three-dimensional mathematics can do for you.

Clock of Omens + Unwinding Clock

My casual artifact deck is going to have some fun! :D

doodily ding dong tick tock
doodily ding dong tick tock
doodily ding dong tick tock
doodily ding dong tick tock
doodily ding dong tick tock

GRINDCLOCK
GRINDCLOCK
GRINDCLOCK
GRINDCLOCK

I'm... ticking... for... the...
GRINDCLOCK
GRINDCLOCK

I should run this in a deck with Clockspinning, just on principle.

I was really, really excited about grindclock. Ordered 4 of them. Put a lot of work into a standard UB control proliferate deck with this as the main win con...

...all of which, I know, was pretty stupid, and competitively it works about as well as you'd think. But man oh man is it ever fun to play.

Nobody's mentioned Energy Chamber or Coretapper?

I'm a huge fan of Millstone, but I have to admit than Grindclock has rendered the old Millstone obsolete. Grindclock's primary advantage is that it doesn't take mana to activate. Yes, Grindclock can take advantage of proliferate, yes Grindclock tends to grind a tad faster, but I would still make an argument for Millstone as viable competition in many cases were it not for the activation cost. Grindclock is the new Millstone.

Why even mention voltaic key? There are a million cards that foster a much more deadly combo with it. Also, it's obvious. Key is so broken, it can pull even shit cards like this into playability. But it's bad magic to rely on an old card to power a new one for combo potential---you should play exclusively with cards that are good on their own, and build synergy together. Using grindclock/key is like trying to take over the world with a potato gun, when you can just nuke it with grindstone, glimpse, jace adept or nemesis of reason. Heck, at the end of the day that memory sluice will mill a lot more for you.

Vorel could break this so good