Sneak (You may cast this spell for if you also return an unblocked attacker you control to hand during the declare blockers step. He enters tapped and attacking.)
Deathtouch
Whenever Shredder enters or attacks, another target creature you control gains deathtouch until end of turn.
Shredder is a mono-black aggro/midrange commander that turns small, evasive attackers into removal engines. Use cheap unblocked creatures to Sneak Shredder in (or just cast him), then repeatedly grant deathtouch on attack so your team trades up and pings down opposing blockers and pinging deathtouch synergies. You grind incremental advantage and finish with combat damage backed by drain and reanimation.
Repeatable deathtouch granting makes any creature a fearsome attacker or removal threat
Sneak lets you cheat him in early and reuse evasive attackers for value
Deathtouch enables efficient combat trades and pairs with pingers/trample for board control
Mono-black gives access to the best tutors, removal, and recursion in the format
Single-color means no access to ramp/card-advantage colors and weaker interaction diversity
Effects are creature-dependent—prone to board wipes that reset your engine
Deathtouch grant needs Shredder attacking/entering, so removal-heavy tables blunt the plan
No built-in card advantage; can run out of gas without dedicated draw
Deathtouch makes each ping lethal removal, a flexible Shredder target every turn.
Gravepact
Each deathtouch trade triggers sacrifice, snowballing edicts across the table.
Add fast mana (Sol Ring, Dark Ritual) and top-tier tutors (Demonic/Vampiric Tutor) to assemble Shredder plus a deathtouch payoff faster. Lean into a combat-conversion engine—Walking Ballista, Quietus Spike, and Gravepact—and reanimation like Reanimate to recover from wipes. Tighten removal with Toxic Deluge and Bojuka Bog while adding card draw (Phyrexian Arena, Necropotence) to fuel the grind.
Legendary Creature — Human Ninja
