Yeah, aggro is a problem but you can race them. Shock is the real problem, IMO.

Anyway, I think my version is complete, the only thing that may or may not change is the Hall of Triumph. Having great fun with this because nobody knows how to play against it.

I've updated my table, above, but obviously full credit for the inspiration goes to Stevo's mate Raoh.

Agree 100%. I put this in a simic deck a couple of weeks ago to prep against DW's white aggro deck and while testing it I realized how great it works. No one ever sees it coming, and it helps against token decks.

I had turns where my opponent thought they were swinging for lethal, I'd cast it, then wipe out 3 guys without losing one.

Safe Passage is of course much better if you have the colours for it though, but if not, Blindness is often good enough.

The Azorius deck I'll post later that he uses carries four of them and also does the Bident trick. It's a weird hybrid artifact/token deck that really shouldn't work, but does.

I was looking at Jkbehm20's Sultai deck earlier and stumbled upon some cool synergy between Dead Reckoning and Viscera Dragger that I hadn't noticed before. Intrigued, I decided to try and brew up a deck that could really take advantage of Dead Reckoning because it's a card that I haven't seen in all my games online and I was excited to play with it. The following list is a complete theory-craft and I had a VERY difficult time deciding what direction I wanted the deck to go in and trimming it down to 60 cards so it could be utter garbage, but I'd like some feedback on the concept. Here it is:

THIRD EDITION BUILD



The core of the deck is the Viscera Dragger and Necromancer's Assistant building a minor graveyard to make sure Dead Reckoning is a reliable removal spell. Then I rounded the deck out with high-power creatures, a lot of which have an easy time finding their way into the graveyard. The two key creatures that made me decide on the high-powered beatdown version of the deck rather than a more controlling route (which is where I was initially headed) are Brackwater Elemental and Phantasmal Dragon. Both are excellent value for the mana cost but are glass cannons that don't stick around for long. Dead Reckoning brings them back for a second round and their high power lets me hit most targets.

Once I'd decided on these creatures, I added the suite of Demons (Tormentor/Shadowborn/Rune-Scarred) as excellent high-powered fliers that are great to cast and great with Reckoning. Then I added Dinrova Horrors as an out to troublesome permanents because I was eschewing counterspells.

I rounded out the curve with Think Twices for card draw with the upside of still being castable if binned by Necromancer's Assistant and Tidehollow Strixes to complement the overall flying plan with the upside of being a great deterrent on defense. For my last slot I debated between Griselbrand and Bident of Thassa and ultimately decided on the Bident because it is a card draw engine with my fliers and the activated ability is pseudo-removal with all my big dudes.

I wanted Graveborn Muse in here, as well, but struggled to find a home for it. I'm hoping that the Draggers and Think Twices alongside the Bident will be enough draw to keep me hitting my drops, but testing will tell. I'm sort-of concerned about Bident not being recoverable through Dead Reckoning whereas the Muse would be, but I think the Bident has a bigger upside so I'm starting there.

I don't think this is going to be a tier-one deck or anything, but I'm excited to try playing with Dead Reckoning. Thoughts and opinions?

EDIT - Okay so after playing the deck to the tune of 5-0, I'm excited by it. Brackwater Elemental and Phantasmal Dragon are superb with Dead Reckoning and just lay on the beats. Unearth is actually really good in this deck because it's cheap and the creatures are quite large for what you pay.

One thing I've noticed, though, is that Think Twice is really bad here. This deck wants to just apply pressure and holding mana open to draw cards isn't something I ever wanted to do after T2. I've cut them all and added the two Muses, Griselbrand, and a Swamp. Decklist updated!

EDIT 2 - Now 8-1 and I'm not sure the deck needs the Bident of Thassa with the addition of Graveborn Muse and I think Griselbrand's casting cost is just a tad too steep. I think I can cut him again, trim the Bident, and drop back to 24 land in order to add more early plays to the deck. I'm thinking about adding three copies of Niblis of the Breath because this deck can have problems with big green trampling fatties. Niblis would allow me to control the board cheaply and force through damage or just tie down a problematic creature that I'm unable to remove. My other thought was to add Dissolve in these three slots as a catch-all but I don't think that's correct because this deck wants to tap out. Thoughts?

Dissolve wont do anything for Terra Stomper in regards to big green fatties is concerned. Other options I can think of are Vapor Snag so that you can push the damage through. Another option could be Switcheroo since your creatures have ways of disappearing from the board (like a Unearthed creatures) but this probably wont be useful against some other decks. Tribute to Hunger could be cashed in too against big fatties.

I've tried to make a deck built upon Dead Reckonig but all my efforts were useless (2 mono black deck, 3 B/U deck).
Now I'll test your deck, Viscera Dragger is a great idea, I don't know how I could not notice it and Phantasm Dragon/Brackwater are a perfect choice. I'll keep you informed about results.

I'm not a big fan of the deck's curve having only eight plays less than three mana; ideally I'd like a minimum of twelve like I had initially but Think Twice wasn't very good. I think I want to cut the Rune-Scarred Demons (because of the cost) and the Niblises (because my three-slot is too crowded). That would open five slots and I'd like to have them all in the 1-2CMC range.

Vapor Snag could be good as Harb said, but I'm also thinking of Cloudfin Raptor as a good early play that has the potential to grow quite large with all the big dudes and Unearth going on here. Quicken is another card I'm looking at as a cheaper cantrip than Think Twice that would let me Reckon at instant speed.

Any suggestions for these five slots?

The more I play the deck, the more aggressive it gets. Here is where I am currently:



The curve looks bad but it's actually 8-8-11-6-3 because Viscera Dragger is a two-mana spell here.

This deck is capable of some ridiculous damage output and the Unearth subtheme keeps Cloudfin Raptor relevant much later than it should be because you don't always need actual cards in hand to trigger Evolve.

Yeah, I went around the combos of dead reckoning and dragger in a mono-black build I was messing with at start of expansion but I was also trying to work in a zombie theme there.

Dead Reckoning is fun at times but other times it is kinda hindering to cut off drawing deeper to deal damage when it could have just been a damaging spell its self. I am eager to hear of the growth of your new build utilizing it here.

I've pretty much got the deck where I want it +/- five cards or less. It can put a lot of power on the board quickly and cheaply and get people in killshot range before they realize what hit them. Then once they do realize, you just Unearth and kill them anyway. You can even outrace the aggro decks, except maybe mono-red.

Unearth has been surprisingly strong, but I wonder how much of that is the fairly low skill level of the opponents who don't realize just how much damage I can do to them if they don't hold back extra blockers. They also tend not to block Brackwater Elemental's first attack, even if I have an air force that threatens to polish them off.

Cloudfin Raptor has been great here, too, because it can grow quite large (I've had a few 5/6s already so far) and the Unearth keeps it relevant later than it should be. The only tricky part I've found is remembering that I have to play out creatures in the first main phase to evolve it because I'm so used to doing combat before casting spells.

The deck isn't top tier by any means and I should probably cut Dead Reckoning for Pestermites or something, but the main theme of big cheap creatures backed by Unearth is quite strong. This is the first deck where I've actually liked Indulgent Tormentor, as well; this deck just does so much damage that untapping with him is usually game over.

Try it out and give me some feedback!

was play testing an Elder's Mastery deck I'm messing around with and just got worked over by your a netdecker playing Hakeem's Reckoner deck. Looks good!

You think someone was playing this list? And it performed well? Cool.

I know two things with 100% certainty:

1) was your list
2) performed very well

Someone from the forums, I imagine. Was it the high-CMC version or the newer Vapor Snag version? The most recent is much better than before and I think it still has potential to get better.

Think it was the previous. The opponent admitted it was your deck lol

I really like this deck! How do you feel about Phantasmal Dragon? Is its susceptibility worth its power?

Without the I would recommend Liliana's Specter here, but it would probably be too slow and clunky.

The thing about Phantasmal Dragon in this meta is that there aren't many cards like Cunning Sparkmage floating around. If your opponent deals with the Dragon it will generally cost them a card and I'm fine with that because of the massive upside if they don't deal with it. His high power also means your Dead Reckonings can kill those annoying Baneslayers that you couldn't otherwise beat.

Regarding Specter, this deck really wants creatures with an average or above-average power to mana-cost ratio and the Specter doesn't have that. If I'm paying three mana for two power then I want some extra value and the discard isn't worth enough to this deck. I'd rather have a Pestermite because it interacts with the board at instant speed and helps force through damage, which is exactly what this deck wants to do.

I'm going to keep the deck as-is for now, though, because I want to give it a solid test before making any more changes.

I like the concept as well. I'm trying a Rakdos version with Hellspark Elemental and Kathari Bomber.

What are your thoughts on bloodghast? I haven't tested the deck but it seems good. Is it the double black cost that stops it?

Yeah, it's the mana cost. I can't curve Raptor into Ghast with taplands and off curve he's not that great. I'd love to bin one off Necromancer's Assistant to just get a free creature, but I think the mana would be too clunky to play it early enough to matter.