Not on a guitar
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cards look incredibly cool, and they also make me hungry.
The Magic: The Gathering | TMNT crossover brings with it a huge chunk of new cards, and I can’t help but feel like most of them are for the sickos among us who play Commander. If you’ve been paying attention for a while then you’ll already know that one of the most exciting new options from the set is the fearsome Super Shredder, who we’re going to explore in our MTG Commander deck guide.
This is our Commander Bestiary series where we dive into everything you want to know about Magic’s legendary creatures. We’ll talk a little bit about the lore of TMNT before covering Super Shredder’s role in Commander.
Who Is Super Shredder In Magic: The Gathering
Super Shredder is the enhanced and mutated version of Shredder–the central antagonist of TMNT. He’s a fearsome ninja warrior in his own right, complete with all sorts of blades and weapons at his disposal, as well as an army of evil ninjas.
Super Shredder
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mythic
As Super Shredder he’s a far larger and scarier version of an already evil and intimidating villain.
Super Shredder’s Strengths
Super Shredder’s a two-mana black 1/1 with menace that gets a +1/+1 counter on it whenever another permanent leaves the battlefield. Frankly, this ability’s so cheap that you can plonk it down on Turn 2 and end up with a monstrous Commander thanks to cards like fetch lands. It’s even better if you actually build into strategies that support Super Shredder’s effect.
Being two-mana means that Super Shredder’s often getting into play ahead of most other Commanders, and while it’s easy to kill early on it’s also shockingly simple to buff up by keeping a few treasure tokens lying around. Menace helps a fair bit on that front too as it makes Super Shredder even more of an issue for your opponents to deal with.
Super Shredder’s Weaknesses
Super Shredder has no protection so it’s pretty easy to remove. That’s especially true if you play it early with no way to make it stronger. As a result one of the best cards for this deck is The Ozolith, as it lets you keep hold of the +1/+1 counters if Shredder dies, but the card is so expensive at this point that I just can’t recommend buying it for most people. It’s a shame this card doesn’t have trample or another useful keyword.
The Best MTG Commander Archetypes for Super Shredder
Super Shredder’s at its best in Voltron decks, aristocrat decks, or removal-heavy decks. You’ll want plenty of ways to remove permanents from the battlefield, and you’re going to want to give Super Shredder some ways to get damage through no matter what, whether that’s using trample, deathtouch, flying, or unblockable. You can also play it in a mono-black good stuff deck, which is an archetype that gets stronger with every new set.
The Highest Synergy MTG Cards You Should Play With Super Shredder
If you’re looking to mostly brew your own deck, but you’d like a little bit of inspiration, I definitely recommend these cards:
- Pitiless Plunderer
- Braids, Arisen Nightmare
- The Darkness Crystal
- Archfiend of Depravity
- Black Market
The Best Infinite MTG Combos You Can Play With Super Shredder
There are a lot of combos in mono-black, but for your purposes you’ll want something to leave the battlefield often. You’re going to want a zombie on the battlefield, one black mana spare, Gravecrawler in the graveyard, and Phyrexian Altar in play too. From here you can cast Gravecrawler, sacrifice it to get one mana thanks to the Altar, trigger Super Shredder, and then just keep going. It’s nice and simple.
How To Play Super Shredder In Commander
Mono-black decks are some of the most fun in the format. Not only do you get a wide range of excellent removal, but you get plenty of cards to bring things back from the dead and some of the most powerful lands in the format. That is, assuming you don’t mind buying yourself a Cabal Coffers and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. Still, even without those you’d be amazed at how quickly you can get a deck like this going.
You want to focus on maximizing the number of cards leaving play, and that’s why Pitiless Plunderer is such an excellent choice. This four-mana creature makes a treasure token whenever a creature you control dies, effectively doubling the rate at which your cards leave play. Braids, Arisen Nightmare is a three-mana card that lets you sacrifice a permanent in your end step and then makes everyone else do so too. If they don’t sacrifice a permanent they lose life and you get to draw a card.
The Darkness Crystal is a four-mana artifact that makes all of your black spells cost one less mana, exiles other player’s creatures when they die, and you gain two life. You can also put one of those creatures into play by tapping it and paying six mana, which is amazingly powerful at instant speed.
READ MORE ABOUT TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES
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Archfiend of Depravity is a five-mana flying creature that makes everyone else choose two creatures in their end step to keep while the rest of their creatures are sacrificed. This is an excellent tool to control the board, and that’s especially true if you can keep it alive for a few turns. Finally, Black Market is a five-mana enchantment that gets a counter on it whenever a creature dies, and then gives you black mana equal to the counters on it in your first main phase.
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