Upgrading Commander Precon: Living Energy (Saheeli, Radiant Creator)

An Energy precon with Saheeli? That wasn't on our Christmas list, but we'll take it.

Aetherdrift gave us two new Commander precons. We've already discussed upgrades for the Esper precon, Eternal Might, so, today, we'll show you how to upgrade Living Energy !

Let's start with the original list!

Saheeli is an Avishkar (old Kaladesh) inventor known for her incredibly realistic animated constructs. She was once a planeswalker, but lost her spark after the Phyrexian Invasion.

In this version, Saheeli interacts with other Artificers and artifacts. She gives you energy whenever you cast these types of spells.

Then, in your combat phase, she lets you spend up to three energies to create a copy of any target permanent under your control, but it will be a 5/5 with haste, and you'll have to sacrifice it in your end step.

This deck's second commander is Pia Nalaar, a well-known character that many players love. To create energy with Pia, you need to deal combat damage to a player with your artifact creatures. Whenever you do that, you get two energies.

Please note that this effect also takes into account the damage you deal with artifact creature tokens, like Thopters or Serfs.

At the beginning of your end step, you can then use one or more energies to create a flying Vehicle with power and toughness equal to the energy you used. It also has crew 2.

Now that we know both commanders in this deck, let's go through a few key details.

Getting Energy

Even though both commander options in this deck create a lot of energy, we need to play cards that do that too.

The original list includes:

Upgrades

Here are a few cards you can add to this precon:

Besides Gonti's Aether Heart's passive ability, which gives you energy, this card also makes them even more useful by letting you use them to play an extra turn.

Aether Refinery doubles how much energy you get from all sources. If you prefer, you can instead tap this artifact and use one or more energies to create an Aetherborn token with power and toughness equal to the energy you used.

Izzet Generatorium is also quite useful because it increases how much energy you get from all sources, but its effect also draws a card for you if you lost four or more life that turn.

Cards You Can Remove

Powerful Cards

With Saheeli as your commander, you'll create a copy of a permanent you control every turn. This means that you can use three energies to get a Sol Ring or an enchantment, for instance.

Upgrades

Luckily, in this game, there are many powerful artifacts whose effects trigger when they enter or leave the board and, as such, are worth the three energies you need to copy them. Such as:

You'll have to sacrifice the copy you create with Saheeli at your end step. So, for instance, a Wurmcoil Engine copy will go in play, attack, and leave you tokens when it dies. As for Cityscape Leveler, it will go in play with haste and destroy a permanent.

If destroying a nonland permanent or creating 3/3 Wurm tokens isn't good enough for you, then imagine a copy of Portal to Phyrexia. It will force your opponents to sacrifice three creatures as soon as combat starts.

To make your copies even more terrifying, we added two cards to copy tokens to this list.

You'll probably not want to do that, but just the possibility of having them in play next to a Panharmonicon makes it all worth it.

Cards We Removed

Bootleggers' Stash's mana cost is a bit much, and you won't actually want to copy it. Pia and Kiran Nalaar's Thopters are interesting, but you want better permanents to copy in combat.

Territorial Aetherkite is also decent, so you can keep it if you want to. We simply decided to remove it because we prefer to remove or sacrifice other permanents.

Other Additions

The synergy with creating energy is critical even in the original list. So, we decided to add a few cards to make this deck even better in that sense, such as:

Upgrades

Your opponents will have to remove the creatures with absurd effects you'll copy, so Swiftfoot Boots is welcome.

When Wizards of the Coast built this precon, they most likely wanted to focus on ramp that interacts with energy, but this, unfortunately, restricted it a bit.

Instead, we added the classic Kodama's Reach and Cultivate.

Cards We Removed

We wanted to remove artifact lands from this list because, even though they have synergy with other cards, they're vulnerable to Farewell or Merciless Eviction, for instance.

We added powerful cards to finish the game in the list above, but this alternative list includes a few options to make your commander's effect even better, and create even more tokens.

The fact you can have a 5/5 copy of Thought Monitor that enters play and gives you two cards is nothing to scoff at, just like Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer's effect is impossible to ignore. After all, it can turn your 2/1 copies into a copy of the Golem Saheeli creates.

This list also includes a few new cards, like Adrix and Nev, Twincasters, Saheeli, the Sun's Brilliance, and Scute Swarm.

If you're creating a lot of energy, All Will Be One can be your win condition.

Even Living Energy's simpler, "straight-out of the box" version has great synergies. It can also set up explosive turns in a way only a true Temur deck can: they'll either win the game for you, or leave your opponents behind, eating dust.

The upgrades we suggested for both lists include better cards so you can be more consistent against other decks. Cards like Wurmcoil Engine and Portal to Phyrexia definitely earned their slots.

If you love creating tokens, you're in luck: you can use some of the coolest cards to create tokens in this list, like Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer, and the best token multipliers in the entire format.

Some cards are critical if you want to make this deck work, like Nissa, Worldsoul Speaker, whose Landfall ability gives you a lot of energies. Others, like Peema Aether-Seer, are better because they'll catch your opponent off-guard.

With Saheeli's ability, you're free to test different ETBs and focus on the most various mechanics. You can build an artifact deck, an Artificer deck, or simply a deck with your favorite tokens and nothing else.

What did you think of the upgraded list? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below.

We hope our suggestions inspired you to upgrade your deck, and that you always have a lot of energy in your matches (quite literally).

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!