Hello and welcome to Commander Bites!

Today we are going to be taking a look at Saheeli, Radiant Creator!

Saheeli is a four mana 4/4 with whenever you cast an artificer or artifact spell you get an energy counter. At the beginning of combat on your turn you may pay three energy and when you do you create a token that’s a copy of target permanent you control, except it is a 5/5 artifact creature in addition to its other types and has haste and you sacrifice it at the beginning of the next end step.

Game Plan

Energy counters are an interesting design space that was used, proved to be too strong in Standard, and has been relegated to ancillary products to help bulk out the archetype because there is a lot of interesting space to play in.

Having a Commander that cares about Artificers and artifacts to help create energy counters is good, the only hiccup being that we need to cast them rather than rely on them entering the battlefield. This means we are leaning more towards having a lot of utility artifacts that can provide good entering the battlefield value, rather than good stuff artifacts.

Support

Since we are playing with energy counters, we need plenty of ways to get a bunch of them as often as we can.

Izzet Generatorium can now be considered a staple for energy based decks because if you would get one or more energy counters, you get that many plus one energy counters instead and you can tap it to draw a card, but only if you spent four or more energy counters this turn.

Another card that we benefit massively from is Aetherflux Conduit with whenever you cast a spell, you gain a number of energy counters equal to the amount of mana used to cast the spell and if you tap it and pay fifty energy counters then you draw seven cards and then you may cast any number of spells from your hand without paying their mana costs.

As far as other utility artifacts we can make use of, Unstable Amulet is pretty good for us because when it enters we get two energy counters and whenever we cast a spell from anywhere other than our hand we deal 1 damage to each opponent and we can tap and pay two energy counters to exile the top card of our library and we can play it until we exile another card with Unstable Amulet.

Fabrication Module puts a +1/+1 counter on a creature we control whenever we get one or more energy counters, Cryogen Relic draws us a card when it enters and leaves the battlefield and we can sacrifice it to put a stun counter on a tapped creature, and of course Ichor Wellspring draws us a card whenever it enters or is put into a graveyard from the battlefield.

Esika’s Chariot is an interesting card to consider with Saheeli’s ability, with the downside that it is a legendary Vehicle meaning only one stays, but when it enters we still get the additional Cat tokens and if it attacks we can create a token that’s a copy of a token we control. If the token copy is the one we control, then we can let the Legend Rule sacrifice the one that will be sacrificed at the beginning of the end step so we always have an Esika’s Chariot to copy later.

As far as Artificers go, Reckless Fireweaver is one that will really help us out in the long run because whenever an artifact enters under our control then it deals 1 damage to each opponent. If we happen to be getting a lot of artifacts in play, then this can be especially lethal.

Threefold Thunderhulk can be one of these artifacts because it enters with three +1/+1 counters on it and when it enters or attacks we make a number of 1/1 Gnome artifact creature tokens equal to its power, which when copied by Saheeli will make eight Gnome tokens when it enters and another eight when it attacks. We can even keep the main one to sacrifice the token copy to give itself more +1/+1 counters.

Setbacks

We are a slow rolling deck that will accumulate value fairly slowly. which means that we can be susceptible to decks that are trying to win as fast as possible.

While we may be able to hold off the aggro decks for a little while, we will also struggle with combo decks because our deck isn’t as interactive as we would like. We do have access to counter spells and burn spells that also work well with our energy, but as one would expect, we need to keep a close eye on our energy so it isn’t gone to waste.

Ideally we have a good bank of energy counters that we can use as we need them, but some situations will call on us to spend those energy counters. This is more of a psychological thing, but we may feel pretty stingy about spending our energy counters, when we really may not be able to afford to do so.

We cannot be afraid of spending energy, and we also cannot spend our energy too willy-nilly, and that can be a tough call to make. Would you have won the game if you spent one more energy on an Aether Spike or Galvanic Discharge? Maybe, but you could have also use that energy for a Gonti’s Aether Heart that you copied so you may potentially have multiple turns or a Lightning Runner for multiple combat phases.

Energy counters create a lot of decision points, which can potentially delay your turn or provide decision paralysis for a newer player, which may be one of the reasons why energy has been seen in supplementary products and not in Standard.

Bracket Rating: 3

I do think that Saheeli has access to some interesting combinations of cards that can do a variety of things. I think that what’s holding the deck back is the potential complexity of the deck with all the decision points that can be made as well as getting as much energy as possible to do so.

Getting a good bank of energy can take a few turns, and could set you behind against faster aggro decks or combo decks. I do think that Saheeli can work well in bracket 3 for an experienced player or a player that wants to try a more complicated deck to get better at the game, though I can see newer players struggling to get the hang of the deck.

Thank you for reading, see you all tomorrow!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual