Maybeboard


Intro to the deck

This deck is a passion project of mine within my pod. My first commander deck was The Exquisite Invention Precon with Saheeli, the Gifted as the commander. For a long time it I have learned about magic, rules, and how to build decks and I've brought Saheeli with me. She isn't the best commander, and she won't be winning your CEDH turn 2-4 win games, but she can keep up in faster pods or groups of players, and do some pretty cool stuff. She provides a different playstyle than most izzet decks, and provides a pretty good, consistent, amount of ramp.

The core of this deck where it's at now is the deck equivalent of mixing peanut butter and pickles on whitebread or cheese on jam and toast, but trust me it takes a lot of things that have no right to be together and makes something fun and better than you think. It dabbles in a combination of psuedo combo, big creature deck, and copying creatures. It's been through a lot of iterations, it may not seem coherent at first, but so far this version feels the most consistent and has net quite a few won games.

Basically, the moral of the story with this deck is this
  • You'll play Saheeli and throw as many artifacts on the table as you can
  • You'll clone her or whatever else you need on the table with the clones and shapeshifters
  • When the time is right, you'll pump a hug spell for the win, and if that doesn't work you'll consistently be cheating out things (Blightsteel Colossus),copying the big boy with said clones and swinging for infect lethal or cementing a lead with the others.


I won't lie, there is always more you can do with decks, and I'm willing to bet anyone with a good sense for building can probably poop out a deck better than this one, and I'm always happy to share my thoughts on what I've experienced so far, why I chose certain cards over others, and I'm in fact interested in what people have to say. This deck is tailored to a specific play group, so you'll see things that you can immediately improve if it's something you're interested in, and if that's the case, PLEASE DO, I would love to see someone do better than me and kick even more butt with my pet project commander.

Session 0, My Pod's rules

My Pod's rules So you can understand where I was designing from. You are free to change anything you want if you see more potential in what I've come up with so far.

  1. Blue players get 6 counter-spells.
  2. No land destruction wipes like Armageddon
  3. No 2 card combos that win the game, some 2 card Combos are fine like "I make infinite mana" but if you have no outlet for it within the 2 cards then it's fine. It IS a situational thing in my groups, so it's up to debate. I do run rings/basalt in this deck, but I've been told by my pods it's fine.
  4. Try not to use cards more than 100$ with some exceptions of mandatory commander includes.
  5. Little to no stax, cards that tax players in some way are usually fine, but cards like "Players can't sacrifice" or something, have been phased out since we feel it takes a lot of fun out for everyone else.
  6. Average power level is "if this deck is untouched, it will win around turn 5-7" If Cedh winning at turn 2-3 with 1 mana counterspells flying all over the place is considered a 9 and above, I would say the decks usually are 7.5-9.0. These decks are optimized with your 10-15 ramp, 10-15 card draw, target removal, 2-3 board wipes, counterspells, clear win cons, and ways to achieve it

Saheeli, the Gifted herself

Lets break this commander down, ability by ability.

+1: Create a 1/1 colorless Servo artifact creature token. This is what you'll do 90% of the time when you throw her out, everyone I've seen when they first pick this commander up (including myself) falls into the trap of thinking this is her staple ability, the first 5 iterations of this deck were me trying with all of my might to make this into an artifact spam deck. I mean come on how could it not be? The prebuilt wants you to build it spammy with things like Myr Battlesphere, Maverick Thopterist, Sharding Sphinx, Thopter Assembly and Chief of the Foundry as well, I just said that that's what you'll be doing when you throw her out! Well if you aren't familiar with Saheeli, then let me explain WHY this isn't the ability that you care about, and what you are making a bunch of artifact bodies for in her next ability.

+1: The next spell you cast this turn costs 1 less to cast for each artifact you control as you cast it. This is the reason you are making those bodies. This is the bread and butter of the deck, this is what you want to do, the ramp is awesome, and it more importantly feels awesome. You'll be cheating out things, and then pumping X spells in this deck.

−7: For each artifact you control, create a token that's a copy of it. Those tokens gain haste. Exile those tokens at the beginning of the next end step. This ability is situational, it is good but just in the right circumstances, usually, that circumstance will be if you have 1 of 3 cards out which I will explain later.

Saheeli, the Gifted can be your commander. this ability is useless for this deck, don't even know why it would be relevant in this deck /shrug.

Your win conditions

Mainly I find myself winning in a couple of different ways
  1. The first and biggest one, I get my draw combo with a variation of Etherium Sculptor + Future Sight + Sensei's Divining Top

    then explain to the party

    I draw my deck, then cast all of my 0 cost mana rocks, get my two cost reducers out, then cast the rest of my mana rocks for free, I have 7 counterspells in my hand and a Deflecting Swat, 2 of which are free, I cast rings of Rings of Brighthearth and Basalt Monolith, with Mycosynth Lattice the colorless mana can be spent as any color, I cast cyclonic rift overloaded and or Blasphemous Act to kill all creatures on the board, then I cast Blightsteel Colossus, hammer of purphoros for haste, and all of my clones entering as copies of Blightsteel Colossus, effectively making 3-11 Blightsteel Colossus with haste and swinging everyone for 11 infect damage OR I summon Hellkite Igniter clone him 3 times then hit everyone for flying infinite damage.

    (there are some points of failure with this, in reality a Thassa's Oracle or Laboratory Maniac would be a LOT easier to explain to everyone, I don't go down that way, but you definitely can, it's a single card slot and you got everything else set up for you)


  2. Swinging with Blightsteel Colossus or a different beater such as Hellkite Igniter, or It That Betrays.
    With Blightsteel Colossus you got an 11/11 indestructable with infect and trample, if he is on the field, swing with him. You have a ton of clones to make MORE big boys, it's great and makes people go wide eyed, and funny enough can hide other things you wanna do, like if you got blightsteel and Mycosynth Lattice out, people will be less likely to target Mycosynth Lattice


  3. Pull of a big X draw spell with Mycosynth Lattice on the field. If you get a huge Finale of Revelation with 10 or more off (which you will trust me) unless you get really unlucky, you'll usually have the way you win the game in front of you, or you just get so far ahead that there isn't too much you can do to lose the game from there.

Power Cards

  • Mycosynth Lattice - Saheeli's ability is to make something cost X less, gee if only there were some sort of card that made **everything you own** an artifact, fixed our mana colors, and made every spell colorless effectively making Saheeli's ability go from "make the next thing you cast cost 1-5 less" to "make the next thing you cast cost 15-25 less". This card makes soooo many things in your deck a lot more fun. As well, you can actually politic with this as well.

    Someone wants to snipe Mycosynth Lattice with Naturalize?

    Maybe mention "hey, player 3's commander is actually a LOT juicier of a target for your 2 mana removal since they're an artifact now, don't you think?"

    Or maybe keep an ear out because that blue player with a 3-5 color deck in your pod has been whining because they just CAN'T get that single white mana they need. Fool this player into protecting your Mycosynth Lattice by getting him to beg you to fix his mana for him, make him agree to protect it, and at any opportunity mention "Hey guys, if you don't stop this it's sure gunna suck to get that white mana you need without my Mycosynth Lattice fixing your mana for you."


  • Blightsteel Colossus Here comes the boyyy! The big boy! Best Bold Bouncy Big Blightsteel bashes bothersome blithering blue boys belligerently blaspheming your plans.
    Yeah, you want to get this guy out, then copy him as many times as you can.

  • It That Betrays Like the boy, but makes your friends golgari decks weep.

  • Hellkite Igniter Like the boy, but honestly better in some situations, haste, flying, and huge pumping. If you have infinite mana you will kill someone every turn with this, or hell, if you just have Mycosynth Lattice out you can just pump him to ridiculous levels for 4 mana of any color, and if you have a clone, you can snipe two players.

  • Arcum Dagsson - This guy does work, Saheeli makes sac fodder, he uses it to go grab your stuff. Gunna be real with you too, I'm always grabbing your boy, Mycosynth Lattice, there are few situations you shouldn't, but there ARE situations where you shouldn't, if someone has lots of artifact hate or a naturalize that will ruin your day, maybe mull things over before effectively giving the guy a "kill any permanent on the board," pass.


  • Consecrated Sphinx Really strong card regardless, but CMC wise the price is a liiiittle steep for most decks, BUT NOT FOR US! Got two mana rocks? guess what, now he's 2 and 2 blue, and your rocks will help pay for it! If you get ONE full go around the table with this guy you just got 6 cards, and if your pod is optimized at all you will get soooooo much value out of this guy. Also, you can clone him! if you can get him out then clone him you're literally getting 4 cards every time someone draws one.

  • Mind Spring and Finale of Revelation Quiz question, what is the best thing in any card game? If you answered anything other than card draw, don't worry I forgive you, you're just wrong and are officially uninvited from this guide, go, leave we don't want you in our dumb shenanigans. But Dramaege, if you have lots of man...no shut up, card draw is best.

    For anyone else with 4 braincells who immediately said card draw congrats, now make a guess, if Saheeli pumps spells by # of artifacts, and you have an X spell, what happens when you have 10 artifacts on the field...or 25 artifacts with Mycosynth Lattice, 5 mana rocks, and 6 lands and cast a spell that says "Draw X cards and you have no handsize for the rest of the game."

    Exactly



    This is how you win the game or make your huge comeback. Saheeli can pump X spells, take advantage of that and probably have a counterspell or two in hand when you cast one of those cards.

  • Spark Double - What's better than Saheeli making things cost less? TWO Saheelis making things cost less! This card actually helps a lot since in some situations you'll find you want to do both of her abilities for body blockers or just more artifacts to make her other +1 even better. Even better, all those other clones in the deck can copy him! So you can copy him then copy Saheeli again for THREE Saheelis!
  • This also makes you more resilient to the people removing Saheeli from the board since you have two, and if you need you can use Spark Double's ability to get Saheeli back out

Combo's

Outright win Deepglow Skate + Mycosynth Lattice + Saheeli, the Gifted Actually a pretty cool win con, You DO need Saheeli to have 4 counters but this is how it works.
  1. Have Saheeli out with 4 counters AND HASN'T DONE HER ABILITY FOR TURN FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY I'VE LOST GAMES BECAUSE OF THIS
  2. Mycosynth Lattice out
  3. when Deepglow Skate enters the battlefield, it doubles Saheeli's counters to 8
  4. Saheeli casts her ultimate, making a copy of every artifact on the field, and giving it haste, copying herself
  5. With a new saheeli and Deepglow Skate entering the field, have the ETB for the legend rule trigger first, killing the old saheeli, then have the NEW Deepglow Skate double the counters on the NEW Saheeli, giving her 8 counters
  6. go back to step 4 and repeat step 4 over and over again for infinite copies of EVERY permanent that you had on the field when you did this combo, you now have infinite 4/4 haste creatures through the Deepglow Skate, infinite lands to tap for infinite mana, and infinite any other tool you have.
  7. Swing and win


Infinite mana Basalt Monolith + Rings of Brighthearth

Infinite draw Basically all 4 of these do the same thing
  1. Play Sensei's
  2. Swap the cards
  3. The top is now face up on the top of your library
  4. play it for free off of the library
  5. repeat until you've drawn the deck

Remember pirating is not stealing, it's copying, and you can 3D print your friends stuff with your clones!


Let's you have what you need, but you need 1 extra turn to throw it all down, but you need some bodies, or ramp, or you would kill for a second Basalt Monolith and while looking through this deck you realize we don't have much in the way of blockers, nor ramp, nor whatever else all the cool kids in your pod are running!

Well there is a simple solution to this, pirate their stuff!
Remember kids, you're not stealing if the original person doesn't lose their stuff, and 3D printing is just making one of your own so, pirating is good! - Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain



Rite of Replication - can copy one thing early to mid game, or kick it with saheelis ability for either a game win or huge jump in board state Glasspool Mimic  -Doubles as an island in a pinch Phyrexian Metamorph - An artifact body that feeds Saheeli that you can copy stuff with Spark Double - one of the only clones that can copy Planeswalkers, you'll want to do that most of the time, and from there it opens up your other clones to copy Saheeli from him as well. Metamorphic Alteration - Turn your baby 1/1 servo into whatever you need! Also acts as removal, put it on someone else's commander to turn them into that 1/1 baby servo!

Clones add something very needed in this deck consistency and adaptability, they are usually pretty cheap, and don't make people angry, which for the opening of the game, you want to keep your head down until you can do your big spells. They allow you to push the game as far as your creativity and push it. As well, it keeps CMC costs low, which even though you are cheating things out with Saheeli, you need to set up that board state first, and if you draw a hand of big cost spells that you can't do anything with, your game is going to get ruined pretty quick. Finally, when you do have your board state you want, then those clones become copies of the scary boys, Blightsteel Colossus + Rite of Replication anyone? You may have noticed as well, all of the big scary monsters Blightsteel Colossus Hellkite Igniter It That Betrays Aren't legendary which means you can clone them to your hearts content!

Panel Content

Basically, your life is gunna be harder if players do a couple of things

  1. Play the colors green, blue, and black This isn't saying that you can't play this deck against those colors, but just watch out for specific things such as Black gets planeswalker kill spells more often than not, green laughs at artifacts and any shenanigans you try with Mycosynth Lattice, and blue counters your bajillion X dump draw my deck spells. It's mostly annoying because these colors are most likely to just stumble on an answer to the problem you're presenting instead of having to look for them.
  2. Attack Saheeli I'm gunna be honest, in the 3 pods I've used this deck in I'm actually kind of shocked with how little people actually target planeswalkers, everyone gets so laser focused on killing the other commanders that they borderline forget that Saheeli is yours, as well, who even uses planeswalkers? People from what I've seen don't actively think to have planeswalker kill spells in their decks unless it's attached to something else, but rest assured it gets pretty annoying pretty quickly when a player goes "hey wait guys if I just attack Saheeli, he can't pump X spells for 20+"
  3. Stop your X draw spells You got 2, if you play with blue players and they have enough reasoning to go "oh hey, he's about to pump a spell for 20+ mana" you're gunna have a bad time, make sure to have counterspells at the ready, you may of forgotten because of the allure of Saheeli's clones, big creatures, and the like, but you also are a degenerate counterpell flinging blue player
  4. Kill Mycrosynth Lattice Actually not super bad, just makes you go back from super fun this deck is awesome I'm literally getting away with murder here mode, back down to, I'm building up my next play
  5. Full aggression and creature spam If you're playing with a full on aggression deck, you'll die pretty quick, you don't have a huge board state via creatures, you'll really just be able to maintain if someone throws attacks at you until you do your big thing, but if someone has a chip on their should or is targeting you, there isn't much you can do other than hope for a good clone target

FAQ



Why don't you run Laboratory Maniac or Thassa's Oracle seeing as you even say you win most of the time with infinite card draw?
Answer: I should, probably, but I already have a Thassa's Oracle draw win deck in Chulane, degenerate of draw, and I don't want two decks with the same win condition.

Your side and maybe board are questionable and a little empty answer: in reality, this deck is a copy of a copy of a copy of the original thing, and I had a maybe board of 60+ cards, I ended up deleting it without thinking a while ago, and to be honest I'm happy with where the deck is now, I'll end up throwing more things in the maybe and side boards eventually, but that's where that is at.

If this is a big creature deck you should try to put more big creatures in it!
Fair enough! and I actually have in the past, I used to run this deck with a bunch of dragons and Dragonstorm, as well it used to be an eldrazi deck with all the big boys like Kozilek, Butcher of Truth that used Saheeli as the main engine, both of these are perfectly viable strats! However, I found that it was a little too slow and clunky to play in my pod, if you're pod's level allows for that then go for it, it is super fun.

A lot of the cards aren't super good in general Yes! However, Saheeli makes a lot of the cards that don't normally work in this deck work super well, I've cycled through a ton of cards that went through testing and didn't sit well with me, but weren't bad options.

What's up with Omniscience
Answer: It's a really cool spell that Saheeli makes cost a lot less! Once you get there you'll either boost super far ahead or win the game. Is it the best card? Probably not, swap it out for all I care, but it's fun and Saheeli makes it worth it.

you might of asked yourself "wait, Dramaege, if someone were to counterspell one of your draw X spells and destroy Sensei's, what do you do at that point?"
answer: "haha, yeah."

Your pods rules are pretty dumb... answer: You might think so, and for you and your friends they probably are. Over years of play we're just a bunch of middle age dudes that just wanna do something cool every game regardless of who wins.

Peanut butter and...pickles?
answer: You gotta try it man, tastes similar to what you think, but it's actually pretty good. Jam and cheese on toast actually slaps as a separate note, saw it on a kids show with my daughter and now I have it for breakfast sometimes.

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