Super Shredder Aristocrat Treasures

Commander Overview

Super Shredder is just an insane commander, since it gets bigger and bigger whenever any permanent leaves the battlefield, because of this we can get shredder huge quick, Shredder is one of the biggest and best attackers in our deck and commander damage kills are a great option for this deck, since we are focused on Aristocrats we don’t always get commander damage kills and are much bigger fans of the slow bleed with cards like Marionette Master, Mirkwood Bats and Nadier's Nightblade combining those with Shredder can make us a huge force to be reckoned0 with and tough to deal with. Super Shredder is one of those commanders that you either deal with or die and most opponents try to deal with it, but never fear we have cards like Not Dead After All and Supernatural Stamina to bring them back sure they come back smaller but in this deck getting them big is quite easy.

How to Play the Deck

Playing the deck is pretty straightforward: make our opponents sacrifice their best stuff, put as many counters on Shredder as we can, and control the pace of the game and the board. This deck is ok for a player of any skill level. It’s not a super complicated deck, and if a new player has played even a couple of games, they should be able to understand it. Controlling the board is one of the biggest aspects of this deck, and using cards like Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos allows us to devastate our opponents’ boards while increasing Shredder’s power, since Shredder can get big so quickly we typically are pretty aggressive with them since they are often the biggest creature on the board.

Synergy’s in the deck

We have to primary synergies in the deck, the primary one is the aristocrat gameplan with Shredder and cards like Grave Pact and our treasure package with cards like Grim Hireling, Warren Soultrader, and Mirkwood Bats/Nadier's Nightblade. These packages work together throughout the whole game and support the overarching gameplan of getting Shredder big and controlling the board. If we can control the board and have Shredder out, we can set up some very easy one-shots.

Phases of the Game

Early-Game: Things get started for us very quickly in the early-game, one of the big benefits of having a commander that only costs two mana, almost always Super Shredder is our turn two play, getting them out early so they can reap the rewards of things dying is great, if your opponent plays an Evolving Wilds Shredder will get a counter, playing out some of our support stuff at this stage of the game is great too.

Mid-Game: Our gameplan really doesn’t change at all but by this stage of the game we typically have the means too ruin our opponents boards with effects like Grave Pact and get a ton of treasures off of Orochi Soul-Reaver or Grim Hireling, we are pretty aggressive in this deck and by the mid-game Shredder is typically pretty big so we swing aggressively with them too.

Late-Game: In my testing games, I didn’t make it to the late-game often, as we get huge so quickly, and even if we do reach the late-game, we are pretty good at hitting hard and limiting the amount of creatures our opponents have on board, so it can be easy for us to attack freely. The core gameplan doesn’t change in the late game, but if we fall behind, we can get a lot of value out of cards like Toxic Deluge or Damnation to reset the game since we can build back very quickly.

Card Breakdowns

Ramp

We are not great at ramping, but we are in mono-black, and luckily our commander only costs two, so we aren’t super hurt if we don’t get Sol Ring or Arcane Signet, although games where we have a little bit of ramp can be a lot more explosive. Crypt Ghast is by far the best source of ramp in our deck and is a great way to dump our whole hand on the board.

Card Draw/Card Advantage

We have some very consistent sources of card draw in the deck like Phyrexian Arena, which is just pure efficiency and consistent card draw with almost no drawbacks. The one life every turn is absolutely worth it. We also have Deadly Dispute and Village Rites, which not only trigger Shredder but give us easy card draw, and in the case of Deadly Dispute, we get some treasures which also trigger Shredder. It is truly all about pumping up Shredder and hitting hard.

Removal

We are good at removal, Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos can easily dominate a game if we get them out and continue to pump up Shredder, and when our opponents have no creatures because they had to sacrifice them all, we can swing hard and go in for the kill. We also have a couple of board wipes in the deck. Damnation is a great option if we have fallen behind and need to reset the game. Toxic Deluge is a very interesting card in this deck. If Shredder is big enough, we can deluge our opponents’ board and keep Shredder alive and buff them up even more. Toxic Deluge is a lot more than a kill spell in this deck. We also have some cheap sources of single-target removal like Infernal Grasp and Defile, which in this deck are basically removal with a pump spell attached since we can buff up Shredder.

Protection

We aren’t very strong at protection, but do have a couple of ways to bring key creatures back, like Not Dead After All and Supernatural Stamina. I mostly use these on Shredder because they are a tremendous removal magnet for our opponents, which isn’t surprising. Still, something we have to be ready for, but even if Shredder dies, it doesn’t matter that much since they are cheap and don’t become uncastable until Shredder has died multiple times.

Utility / Support

Let’s go over some of my favorite cards in the deck; all of these cards worked in my testing games! Pawn of Ulamog and Pitiless Plunderer are two of the best cards in the deck, and not only work well with some of our additional damage dealers like Mirkwood Bats, but they can trigger Shredder a ton of times easily while providing us mana benefits. Reassembling Skeleton is another great card, and it’s something we sacrifice over and over again and just keep bringing back to trigger Shredder or something like Dictate of Erebos or Grave Pact. Since our opponents’ graveyards are pretty full, often we can get a lot of value out of Shark Shredder, Killer Clone and steal our opponents’ best creature to use as a blocker or even just another thing to sacrifice. Our deck would be nothing without our sacrifice outlets, and we have some great ones like Viscera Seer, Warren Soultrader, and Ashnod's Altar, which are all great options that synergize perfectly with the deck.

Mana Base

Since Shredder only cares about a permanent leaving the battlefield we are running quite a few lands like Obscura Storefront, Maestros Theater and Evolving Wilds/Terramorphic Expanse which we only use to grab swamps but we can trigger Shredder, this is especially good in the early-game since it can be an easy boost for something we are already doing. We also have Bojuka Bog, which can be a great way to remove an opponent’s big graveyard before we cast something like Living Death.

Win Conditions

Combat is our primary win condition, but we do have Revel in Riches, which I was able to pull off in a couple of testing games. Getting ten treasures is quite easy to do in this deck. We also have a couple of non-combat ways to win with Mirkwood Bats, Nadier's Nightblade, and Marionette Master as well as a few other sources.

Strengths of the Deck

Super Shredder is an insanely tough commander to deal with and they are an amazing attacker.

We are very good at controlling the board, even if an opponent has a go-wide strategy we can still ruin their board easily.

Weaknesses of the Deck

Super Shredder is a huge removal magnet. I would expect them to die quite a few times throughout the game. They are an address now or die now commander.

Token decks can be bad matchups for us; they typically have so many tokens that it can be tough to deal with their army even with something like Dictate of Erebos.

Deck Testing/Matchups

I tested this deck against three different decks

Game 1: Vs Baylen, The Haymaker. Matchup Record: 2-4

While I was able to sneak out a couple of wins if they have a huge board and something like Cathars' Crusade, it can be very tough for us to deal with. We often don’t have a huge board presence, and they can hit us very hard. Keeping Baylen off the field so they can’t get the mana benefit is one of the best things we can do in this matchup.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Infernal Grasp, Ashnod's Altar and Blood Money.

Game 2: Vs Super Shredder. Matchup Record: 2-2

The mirror match is very interesting for this deck, and it really comes down to speed and who gets their board control out faster. Mulligan’ing for a very aggressive hand is key in this matchup.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Toxic Deluge, Sheoldred's Edict and Supernatural Stamina.

Game 3: Vs Tidus, Yuna's Guardian. Matchup Record: 4-1

Tidus is a great matchup for our deck. They can build up as much as they want, but it all comes crashing down when we sacrifice a bunch of stuff and destroy their board. We don’t stray from the normal gameplan here: control the board and hit hard with Shredder.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Marionette Master, Disciple of the Vault and Obsessive Pursuit.

Conclusion

Thanks so much for reading to the end! I hope you all enjoyed it! Super Shredder is one of the most hyped commanders coming out in TMNT and after playing them I totally buy all of the hype, they are an amazing commander and truly feel like a mono-black deck and being a pure mono-black is a ton of fun at least for us, I will admit that my opponents enjoyment of this deck was quite low but i did have a blast.