Right now, Blue and Black are the most important colors in Standard.

The black removal spells like Cut Down and Go for the Throat are the premier kill spells in the format, allowing you to keep pace and deal with almost anything your opponent throws at you with little restrictions. And of course, Sheoldred, the Apocalypse is just lights out against any sort of aggressive or linier deck.

However, just as important on the other side of the spectrum are the Blue counterspells, which are vital in keeping the formats big things under control. Domain Ramp with cards like Atraxa, Grand Unifier and Herd Migration must be answered cleanly, and the same goes for control decks relying on big plays like The Eternal Wanderer and Farewell. Being able to answer these cleanly for only one or two mana with Make Disappear, or prime sideboard cards like Disdainful Stroke or Negate is paramount.

So, what if we just put it all together?

Time Stamps:

03:12 - Match 1

16:36 - Match 2

30:52 - Match 3

Dimir Shredder | MAT Standard | Jim Davis

• Creatures (19)
• 2 Faerie Mastermind
• 2 Phyrexian Fleshgorger
• 2 Razorlash Transmogrant
• 2 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
• 3 Graveyard Trespasser // Graveyard Glutton
• 4 Ledger Shredder
• 4 Tenacious Underdog

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Teferi, Temporal Pilgrim

• Instants (14)
• 2 Cut Down
• 2 Spell Pierce
• 3 Go for the Throat
• 3 Make Disappear
• 4 Consider

• Sorceries (2)
• 2 Duress

• Lands (23)
• 4 Island
• 4 Swamp
• 1 Mirrex
• 1 Otawara, Soaring City
• 1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
• 4 Darkslick Shores
• 4 Shipwreck Marsh
• 4 Underground River

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Disdainful Stroke
• 2 Duress
• 3 Glistening Deluge
• 2 Cut Down
• 2 Malevolent Hermit
• 2 Kaito Shizuki
• 2 Sheoldred's Edict

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I built this deck to maximize these two elements, blending the best midrange elements of Black with the prime counterspells of Blue to build a tempo-midrange deck that can take on the best parts of the format.

At its core are two cards that were largely forgotten before the bans, the excellent recursive 2-drop Tenacious Underdog, and a powerful planeswalker in Teferi, Temporal Pilgrim. With Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki and Reckoner Bankbuster leaving the format, there's both a need for good 2-drops as well as mana sinks and card draw later in the game, which Tenacious Underdog provides, while Teferi was one of the cards being held back majorly Invoke Despair and also provides that card draw element.

This deck is also looking to leverage Ledger Shredder, one of the most powerful cards actually legal in Standard but that also lacks the cheap spell support it has in other formats like Modern and Pioneer which make it a powerhouse. Well, with 10 1-drops and 18 2-drops this deck has a mana curve to support Ledger Shredder, while also having great cards to discard like Tenacious Underdog and Razorlash Transmogrant.

If you're looking for a solution to the current Standard format and love tempo decks, this is a great place to be!