Illus.: Ryan Pancoast
Saheeli Rai is a brilliant inventor from the plane of Kaladesh. Specialized in creating artifact creatures her creations are famous for their form and function. On her home plane, she is regarded as one of the brightest inventors of her age. Enjoying competition, she's wholly supportive of the efforts of other inventors, happy to share advice, a kind word, or an encouraging smile. She thrills at the prospect of innovation, with the love for facing other inventors in tournaments. (mtg.gamepedia)
Her character does perfectly fit in the blue and red color pair. While the blue mana is known for intellect, omniscience and technology, the red mana pushes in for emotion, action and freedom. The connection between this two colors is their full-hearted and passionate search for something new. The thirst for knowledge is based on curiosity, creativity and pure progress. The Izzet League on the plane of Ravnica represents the blue/red guild, their members are seeking for the unknown and not primary for might at all costs. And so it‘s nearly the same on Kaladesh. The mana energy floats into creations, always inventing and discovering something with their own hands. Saheeli Rai is one of them and her character shows additional all signs of a very warm-hearted and reliable human being. With the ingenuity of a gifted she is constantly working on a special project.
Making the artwork of this card: Show
Let’s take a closer look to the main character’s card. Saheeli, the Gifted is a Planeswalker-card with casting costs and comes into play with 4 loyalty counters. When she enters the battlefield there are already some artifacts on the board, in best case some mana rocks. So it‘s possible to play her on turn 2-4 and create immediately a Servo token to protect her. Don’t leave her without any other creature alone on the battlefield. Like every planeswalker card she does shine when she has no fear of attackings against her. Moving on to her abilities we see the following:
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+1 Create a 1/1 colorless Servo artifact creature token.
+1 The next spell you cast this turn costs less to cast for each artifact you control as you cast it.
-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.
Saheeli, the Gifted can be your commander.
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Okay, the last sentence on the card is the reason why I’m sitting here typing the description for this deck, but this ability is very important to mention at least. There are 2 abilities which + 1 her loyalty counter and one ultimate effect for -7. In my opinion this card does perfectly represent Saheeli. She can create some artefact tokens without special features as well as develop and invent something great. All 3 abilities are useable features, but they won’t win you the game on their own. It’s more like a supporting act who helps the deck to be brilliant. Like other EDH decks this one doesn’t rely fully on the commander, but it’s always useful to have her on the board. In translating her text into understanding the card I prefer this:
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+1 Create a weak, but useful token to protect the commander. Gives you an additional artifact on the battlefield.
+1 Exciting. Big Mana Rock. Affinity ability. It’s possible to play a card with high mana costs very early. Helps to build a steady game presence. You need many artifacts on the battlefield to get more mana out of this ability. No additional effects.
-7 Enter- and/or Leave-the-battlefield effects profit from her ultimate. Don’t let her die just for this ability except it’s unavoidable for strategic reasons. Not game winning.
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This commander card has many ways to build around. The best way to play this commander is to understand the basic ideas behind it. „Tokens“, „Affinity“ and „Copy“ are the 3 main words to describe Saheeli. Those are the lanterns lightening the way of playing this deck. All abilities are summarized as artifact effects and this shows any player who plays Saheeli, the Gifted the right direction for building an EDH deck with her.
