Last week I shared what turned out to be a whimsical and lower powered Commander deck built around April O'Neil, Hacktivist. I ended up with an alarming focus on Jace Planeswalkers, and still slightly regret not just brewing up a robot themed list.

Today, I'm going to give you a little whiplash, going from that silly list to a deck that may not be cEDH, but is definitely not pulling many punches.

I'm going to be building in mono-Black and, truthfully, it's the kind of list I probably wouldn't even play in paper for a simple reason: I wouldn't really want to play against it.

Black decks can be a real headache to face off with, especially if the deck is leaning on edict effects, and this list is going to be all about trying to make your opponents miserable. Why on Earth would I brew up such a list?

Because my Commander really wants me to.

Meet Our Commander

Super Shredder is a legendary 1/1 Mutant Ninja Human with Menace and the kind of ability that makes me wish it was in Dimir () so I could run Cyclonic Rift. Whenever another permanent leaves the battlefield, I'll put a +1/+1 counter on Shredder. I may have never seen a better excuse to run tons of removal in a Commander deck.

If Super Shredder were Blue, there are a ton of bounce spells I might run. If this Mutant Ninja Human were Green, I might look at cards that care about the power of your biggest creature, like Overwhelming Stampede, Fungal Sprouting, Traverse the Outlands, and Rishkar's Expertise.

For better or worse, we're in mono-Black, so while there are lots of ways to make this card get big, our main wincon will probably be through commander damage.

Getting Big

Super Shredder should be able to hit play on turn two and accrue +1/+1 counters from regular activity like players cracking Treasure tokens, playing fetch lands, and so on. There are a lot of ways for players to have permanents leave the battlefield just through playing the game even when they aren't playing interaction.

Edict effects are spells or effects that force players to sacrifice a permanent - usually a creature. My Shredder deck is leaning on these as a major theme, running Plaguecrafter, Merciless Executioner, Demon's Disciple, Accursed Marauder, and Fleshbag Marauder. These are all variations on the same theme.

When they enter play each player sacrifices something. Super Shredder doesn't care what leaves the battlefield. At a four-player table, playing any one of these should put four +1/+1 counters on him. I'm also running Grave Pact and Butcher of Malakir, which will have each opponent sacrifice a creature whenever a creature I control dies.

I'm running plenty of interaction that I can control, from Tragic Slip to Ravenous Chupacabra, Defile, Grim Bounty, Feed the Swarm, and Withering Torment. Tragic Slip will serve as a great answer to a creature that is indestructible, as -1/-1 counters should get past that.

Enchantment removal is important, as my main plan is to swing with my Commander and there are plenty of Auras in the game that can take that option off the table. Pulling into Withering Torment will feel fantastic if someone has hit our Shredder with a Lignify or Imprisoned in the Moon.

One-sided board wipes are going to be great for this deck, especially if an opponent has built up a big army. In Garruk's Wake is expensive at , but it will destroy all creatures and planeswalkers I don't control, so that should be enough to put a ton of +1/+1 counters on my Commander.

Toxic Deluge is also in the list along with Massacre Wurm, which will give my opponents' creatures -2/-2 until end of turn and ding them for two life points whenever a creature they control dies.

Massacre Girl might be the most interesting wrath in the deck, as it gives each other creature -1/-1, and then whenever a creature dies this turn it gives each other creatures another -1/-1. I control my own triggers so with Super Shredder and Massacre Girl out, if a creature dies, I get to put a +1/+1 counter on my Commander and give each creature other than the Girl -1/-1.

I'll put Shredder on the stack first and then the +1/+1 counter ability so the +1/+1 counter resolves first, helping to keep my Commander alive.

I'm also running Maha, Its Feathers Night, which makes all my opponents' creatures have a base toughness of one. That pairs nicely with Crypt Rats, an old card with an activated ability where you can pay X to deal X damage to each creature and each player.

Crypt Rats is a 1/1 so it will die if I pay even a single mana into it, but the two cards represent another one-sided board wipe.

Getting this Commander to be big enough to be a problem isn't going to be a challenge. I'm running Tainted Strike to give target creature Infect so I can knock someone out with just ten damage. Most of the time I'll be aiming for 21 Commander damage to get the job done.

Getting Through

There will be times when I can attack and get through because someone only has one blocker. Even with Menace, Super Shredder is likely to need a little help getting through blockers. This is especially true when my friends learn that I'm really pulling out all the stops and running things like Tainted Strike.

Unless they know that's in the graveyard, they'll never want to let Super Shredder through unblocked.

Nonbasic lands are incredibly common in Commander, with each year bringing more nonbasic staples that find their way into our decks. Trailblazer's Boots gives equipped creature nonbasic landwalk, making the creature unblockable if the defending player controls at least one nonbasic land.

Boots, along with Prowler's Helm, which makes a creature unblockable except by walls, might be my best options for equipment as I'll still be able to target it with a card like Tainted Strike.

I'm also running an old enchantment, Dauthi Embrace, which lets us pay to give target creature shadow until end of turn. A creature with shadow can block or be blocked only by creatures with shadow.

Whispersilk Cloak and Silver Shroud Costume both give equipped creature Shroud, which prevents any player from targeting it. That's going to be fine for the most part, as Super Shredder's +1/+1 counters don't involve targeting him, but it will get in the way of adding more equipment.

You may be familiar with the Lightning Greaves shuffle, where you have to move Greaves to another creature to equip something and then move Greaves back. That's why Swiftfoot Boots are often preferable to Greaves as the Boots offer Hexproof, not shroud.

Both Whispersilk Cloak and Silver Shroud Costume make a creature unblockable, which is really what I want to get my Commander through blockers.

Odds and Ends

Making Super Shredder big enough to be a threat probably won't be a big challenge, and it also won't be that difficult to get through and hit someone...

But this deck needs other options to try to win the game, as there will be times when my Commander isn't going to be the wincon I am aiming for. Most of those games will probably just be losses, but it's nice to have something else to lean on when my voltron plan isn't working.

Tombstone Stairwell is an old favorite of mine. This Enchantment will look at the number of Creature cards in each player's graveyard and each turn it will give each player a 2/2 Gravespawn token for those creature cards. The Gravespawn are Zombies and have Haste.

At the end of turn, or if Tombstone Stairwell leaves play, those tokens go away. Over a single turn cycle, that represents a ton of permanents leaving the battlefield, so Super Shredder will probably be big enough to be a one hit kill on my next turn.

If Shredder isn't around, I'll have the option of attacking with my token army, which will hopefully be bigger than anyone else's by now. Of course, if I'm up against players with a lot more creatures in the graveyard, this card just stays in my hand.

Cabal Coffers and Cabal Stronghold are both ways for a mono-Black deck to generate a ton of mana. They each tap to generate one for each Swamp I control. The Coffers costs 2 mana and the Stronghold costs 3 mana to activate, and in the late game these can help me to pour a lot of mana into a spell like Torment of Hailfire.

This Sorcery can be genuinely backbreaking as it will have each opponent lose three life unless they sacrifice a nonland permanent or discard a card, and that will happen X times where X is the amount of extra mana I put into casting this spell.

It's worth noting that all of those sacrificed permanent would put +1/+1 counters on Super Shredder, but if X is big enough and the situation is right, a player might die or even scoop rather than play it out.

I considered leaning heavily into creature recursion combos, but in the end, I decided to throw in a few, but not have them be the focus of the deck. I don't think this deck needs them to win games, but they will certainly help if I get one of them online.

Gravecrawler and Reassembling Skeleton are my main recursion creatures. Gravecrawler is a cheap 2/1 Zombie that can't block and can be cast from the graveyard as long as I control another Zombie. The Skeleton is a 1/1 Skeleton Warrior that we can cast from our hand or return from the graveyard tapped for the same cost of .

Warren Soultrader plays perfectly with Gravecrawler. It's a 3/3 Zombie Goblin Wizard that lets me pay one life and sacrifice a creature to create a Treasure token. That Treasure can pay for Gravecrawler's casting cost, but paying a life will put a limit on how often I can do this.

Both of my recursion creatures will more often be restricted by the mana I have available even if I've got a sacrifice outlet like Phyrexian Altar in play.

If I were to lean into these lines of play more seriously, I would be running cards like Zulaport Cutthroat and Blood Artist, but this build is more of a voltron than an aristocrats deck.

I am running Mirkwood Bats, which will have each opponent lose one life when I create or sacrifice a token. It plays beautifully with Tombstone Stairwell and will also work nicely with Treasure token generators.

Salty Shredder

Earlier I said that I wasn't pulling many punches. The presence of Grave Pact in this list is evidence of that, but I'm not running Sheoldred, Whispering One, or Tergrid, God of Fright.

I could tell you that I wanted to give you some room to move this deck up in power. While that's true, it's also true that I don't love brewing up decks that I wouldn't want to play against and I really don't enjoy playing against Praetors or against Tergrid.

This deck could easily be moved in a few other directions. I didn't include Lashwrithe, Excalibur, Sword of Eden, or a number of other pieces of equipment that are worth considering. If I were leaning towards an artifact tokens Academy Manufactor list I might have included Cranial Plating, but I decided to focus on removal for this list, probably landing it somewhere in Bracket 3 even though I'm not running any Game Changers.

Super Shredder | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Super Shredder

• Creatures (29)
• 1 Accursed Marauder
• 1 Big Game Hunter
• 1 Bone Shredder
• 1 Butcher of Malakir
• 1 Crypt Ghast
• 1 Crypt Rats
• 1 Demon's Disciple
• 1 Fleshbag Marauder
• 1 Gravecrawler
• 1 Grim Haruspex
• 1 Harvester of Souls
• 1 Maha, Its Feathers Night
• 1 Massacre Girl
• 1 Massacre Wurm
• 1 Merciless Executioner
• 1 Mirkwood Bats
• 1 Morbid Opportunist
• 1 Nirkana Revenant
• 1 Pawn of Ulamog
• 1 Pilgrim's Eye
• 1 Pitiless Plunderer
• 1 Plaguecrafter
• 1 Ravenous Chupacabra
• 1 Reassembling Skeleton
• 1 Rune-Scarred Demon
• 1 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
• 1 Skittering Surveyor
• 1 Undercity Scrounger
• 1 Warren Soultrader

• Instants (7)
• 1 Altar's Reap
• 1 Deadly Dispute
• 1 Defile
• 1 Tainted Strike
• 1 Tragic Slip
• 1 Village Rites
• 1 Withering Torment

• Sorceries (7)
• 1 Blood Money
• 1 Feed the Swarm
• 1 Grim Bounty
• 1 In Garruk's Wake
• 1 Shredder's Technique
• 1 Torment of Hailfire
• 1 Toxic Deluge

• Enchantments (6)
• 1 Black Market
• 1 Dauthi Embrace
• 1 Grave Pact
• 1 Phyrexian Arena
• 1 Revel in Riches
• 1 Tombstone Stairwell

• Artifacts (13)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Jet Medallion
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Phyrexian Altar
• 1 Prowler's Helm
• 1 Silver Shroud Costume
• 1 Sol Ringfoil
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 The Darkness Crystal
• 1 The Ozolith
• 1 Trailblazer's Boots
• 1 Whispersilk Cloak

• Lands (37)
• 33 Swamp
• 1 Cabal Coffers
• 1 Cabal Stronghold
• 1 Phyrexian Tower
• 1 Rogue's Passage

Buy This Deck Export text

If you wanted to tune this down, you could easily pivot to a list less focused on removal and play more of a defensive game with cards like Vampire Nighthawk and Darkness to try to keep your opponents at bay.

You'd still probably focus on voltron damage, but it would be more fun to play against. I think you'd drop out Grave Pact, Butcher of Malakir, and a few of the more oppressive cards to rely more on your opponents growing your Commander through the natural back-and-forth of a game.

To tune this up I suspect you'd probably want to look at Sensei's Divining Top, Aetherflux Reservoir, and Bolas's Citadel. Those three cards don't guarantee a win, but they can give you a ton of value if you manage to avoid hitting lands, and you'll get a lot of triggers from Top leaving play again and again.

You might also run Sheoldred and Tergrid, though I don't think this list is going to do a lot in Bracket 4, and you'd probably just pivot to playing K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth if you wanted to play mono-Black cEDH at that level.

Final Thoughts

You may wonder why I started out saying that this isn't the kind of deck I'd probably build and play in paper.

Honestly, I find it incredibly frustrating to play against decks built almost exclusively around removing your stuff. It's just not a lot of fun, though I fully appreciate that it's a great way to win games.

Here's the rub. In casual Commander, it isn't just about winning games. It's about having fun, and your fun isn't the only fun that matters. Most players enjoy playing Creatures and other permanents and not seeing those cards immediately get swept into the bin before their next turn comes around.

If you're going to build this deck or a variation on Super Shredder that is similarly focused around removing your opponents' stuff, I would urge you to have other decks to play as well. I generally don't mind having a single unpleasant game where I can't maintain a board state, but I think it's common courtesy to switch up decks after a game so folks who aren't enjoying the deck have a chance to play against something else.

I do think a Shredder list that solely relies upon natural gameplay to build up +1/+1 counters could be fun and playable in lower-powered, casual groups. I've been thinking about what I'd use to lead a deck with a pile of my favorite casual Black cards, and I feel that this deck could do that quite capably. It might even be fun to play and play against.

Whether you lean into being mean or build Super Shredder as a lower-powered, more friendly deck, I hope you have fun with it.

That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!