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Building a Standout MTG Combo with Dead Reckoning

Dead Reckoning is a deceptively simple black sorcery from Worldwake: for {1}{B}{B}, you may put a target creature card from your graveyard on top of your library. If you do, Dead Reckoning deals damage equal to that card's power to a target creature. That is the kind of spicy, upside-loaded tech that makes grinders and experimental decks sing. It blends graveyard manipulation, top-deck control, and efficient removal into a single, elegant play pattern 🧙‍♂️🔥. The challenge—and the fun—is turning that one line of text into a repeatable, race-the-clock game plan that threatens to out-nerve your opponents with one well-timed swing.

“Many venture out to hunt for treasures. Others lie in wait to hunt the hunters.” — flavor text on Dead Reckoning

Core idea: control the top, punch through with power

At its heart, a Dead Reckoning combo deck wants to stack the deck in your favor. You fill your graveyard with creature cards that boast high power, then you use Dead Reckoning to yank one of those beasts from the graveyard to the top of your library at the precise moment you need it to land a devastating blow on a single target creature. It’s a tension between acceleration and restraint: you don’t always want to burn Dead Reckoning early, because you’re fishing for a top-deck hit that can swing the board in a single shot. By pairing Dead Reckoning with reliable graveyard-filling and top-deck manipulation, you create a workflow that can close games even when you’re behind on boards or mana. And yes, the moment you land a 7/7 or 8/8 from the graveyard onto the top with a well-timed Reckoning, you’ll hear the collective pop of eyes widening around the table 🎲⚔️.

Key engine pieces: filling the yard, tuning the top, and recouping value

• Graveyard-filling spells: Entomb and Buried Alive lay cards into the yard. Buried Alive, in particular, can set up a multi-card graveyard engine so you can fetch any number of targets over the course of the game.
• Top-deck manipulation: Sensei's Divining Top, Scroll Rack, and similar effects give you the control you crave. This is how you reliably ensure that the chosen creature is the one you reveal (or simply draw) when you cast Dead Reckoning.
• Reanimation and recursion: Reanimate, Exhume, and similar black-based reanimators give you extra resilience. They don’t directly fuel the top-deck trick, but they ensure your board presence survives and that your graveyard stays stocked with game-changing targets for later Reckonings.
• Powerful targets in the graveyard: The deck thrives when you’ve got a roster of high-power creatures in the yard. Any big, scary creature will do—the bigger, the more dramatic the payoff when that power translates into damage on a real creature on the battlefield.
• Clock and blockers: Don’t forget to account for removal and disruption. The combo deck isn’t about boards at 1:1; it’s about forcing a choice on your opponent—either lose a key creature to a sudden blast or give you time to line up the next Reckoning strike.

Concrete sequencing: how the combo lays out in practice

Start by building your graveyard with a few large targets. In a typical game, you might entomb a 6/6 or 7/7 for later, and Buried Alive can set up a two- or three-card graveyard stack to ensure you’ve got options. When the moment comes, cast Dead Reckoning and pick your target creature card from the yard. If you’ve stacked the top of your library with the chosen target, you can burn damage directly onto a blocking creature or a high-priority threat. The power value is the multiplier here: the larger the power of the card you pull from the graveyard, the more leverage you gain on the battlefield. If your top card is a 5/5, you’re delivering a clean 5 damage to a creature; a higher-power card can reach lethal thresholds quickly, especially when your opponent’s board is teetering or their life total is just a couple of swings away. This is the essence of the approach: turn a graveyard into a direct, one-turn finisher through top-deck manipulation 🧙‍♂️💎.

In practice, a stable list balances defense and offense. You want enough disruption to stop an opponent from racing you, a reliable way to fill the yard, and enough top-deck manipulation to turn Dead Reckoning into a recurring finisher. A common rhythm is: mill or tutor into a graveyard with high-power targets, use top-deck tech to prepare the next Reckoning, then repeat as needed. The flavor is cinematic—the black mana feel, the slow grind, and then a sudden, devastating payoff when the right creature lands on top and the damage lands where it hurts most 🎨🔥.

Flavor, art, and the meta fit

Dead Reckoning’s lore of hunters and hunters of hunters fits a deck that plays around notice-and-punish. The Worldwake set, with its rugged, adventurous tone, provides a perfect backdrop for a strategy built on patient planning and explosive finishes. The card’s common rarity belies its punch in the right shell—the kind of piece that shines in a thoughtful, self-contained combo package rather than a brute-force stall deck. In formats that reward graveyard play, Dead Reckoning becomes a dynamic engine for psychological warfare: you threaten a lethal top-deck every turn and force the game to twist around your exact timing. That tension is what makes this deck sing, and it’s exactly the kind of thing MTG fans crave when the stars align and the top card does not fail you 🧙‍♂️⚔️.

Where to start building

For players who want to experiment, start with a lean core: Dead Reckoning, a couple of graveyard-fillers (Entomb, Buried Alive), a few reanimation spells for resilience, and top-deck tutors to guide your draws. Then add a handful of big creature targets to your yard, plus some interaction to handle opposing combos or aggro pressure. It’s not about bonkers speed right out of the gates; it’s about controlling the rhythm of the game and delivering the knockout blow when your engine has you set up. And when you pull it off, the table will remember the moment—your opponent’s look of disbelief is priceless 🧩🎲.

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