Tuesday Night Takeover

Saheeli, Sublime Artificer Spellslingers Pauper EDH

“And I’m traveling on planes most will never go.

Art:Saheeli, Sublime Artificer by Wesley Burt

Saheeli is a commander that I stewed on and brewed a ton of different versions of. Saheeli is a really cool commander and one I was extremely excited about, while I originally brewed it as a true artifact deck after talking to the rest of the testing group, they seemed really intrigued on a spellslinger list and being able to copy some sweet damage dealers like Guttersnipe or any of our other damage dealers. Saheeli is a deck that almost never cares about going to combat but loves sitting back and just doing true Izzet things, drawing a ton of cards, and spell-slinging like crazy. Saheeli is a huge part of this deck and can help us a lot against creature decks. This deck is an absolute blast to pilot and I am really excited to showcase this one! Without further ado, let’s get it!

The Deck:

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Saheeli, Sublime Artificer Spellslingers!

Commander (1)
Saheeli, Sublime Artificer

Creatures (20)
Erebor Flamesmith
Firebrand Archer
Goblin Electromancer
Kessig Flamebreather
Reckless Fireweaver
Sunshot Militia
Thermo-Alchemist
Cinder Pyromancer
Guttersnipe
Ingenious Artillerist
Kindlespark Duo
Tempest Angler
Unruly Catapult
Windrider Wizard
Witty Roastmaster
Archaeomancer
Ardent Elementalist
Murmuring Mystic
Pyre Hound
Pyroceratops

Instants (27)
Abrade
Arcane Denial
Behold the Multiverse
Big Score
Brainstorm
Consider
Demand Answers
Dispel
Dissolve
Echoing Truth
First Day of Class
Galvanic Blast
Ice Out
Lightning Bolt
Massive Raid
Metallic Rebuke
Negate
Outnumber
Run Away Together
Searing Blaze
Shatter the Source
Shore Up
Snap
Spell Pierce
Stoic Rebuttal
Unexpected Windfall
Unwind

Sorceries (13)
Distant Melody
Lórien Revealed
Mob Justice
Ponder
Preordain
Ravenform
Reckless Impulse
Reverse Engineer
Shared Discovery
Sleight of Hand
Thoughtcast
Treasure Cruise
Wrenn’s Resolve

Artifacts (2)
Arcane Signet
Izzet Signet

Enchantments (2)
Impact Tremors
Raid Bombardment
Lands (35)
Command Tower
Evolving Wilds
Great Furnace
13 Island
15 Mountain
Seat of the Synod
Terramorphic Expanse
The Autonomous Furnace
The Surgical Bay

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Why Saheeli, Sublime Artificer?

Saheeli is a huge part of our deck and allows us to ramp up our damage and put a lot of additional pressure on our opponents. Saheeli’s passive ability triggers a ton on our turns, and when it’s not our turn, it can position us decently well against aggressive decks or heavy-creature strategies because we have a decent amount of chump blockers. Saheeli’s -2 is also extremely strong for the deck. Being able to turn one of our Servos into a Kessig Flamebreather or Guttersnipe allows us to maximize our damage and end games a lot quicker. Saheeli is an awesome commander and a card we want to have on the field as much as we can. She can become a heavy target, but luckily, we have enough counterspells to back her up and keep her on the field.

Deck Matchups:

Since this is Pauper EDH, there are an absolute ton of things that can tip a game in your favor or out of it. While an archetype may seem favorable, there are absolutely good and bad commanders for our deck to go up against; I have included both these, which were all played among my testing groups using various decks, and I have included the sample size for clarity purposes. This is just meant to be a guide after testing a bunch of games with this deck!

The information below is notes about specific decks that were featured in our testing pods and how we fared against them. Naturally, Pauper EDH is a multiplayer game, so these are just a summary of my notes against different commanders and strategies. When we test these decks we try to test to its strengths and weaknesses to give a full spectrum of what the deck has to offer. Various commanders and archetypes/strategies are used to get the most accurate information.

Commanders, we have a good matchup against:

Glaring Fleshraker Record against Glaring Fleshraker 3-0

This is an amazing matchup for our deck; if we destroy or counter their commander, there isn’t much that they can do, not only countering their commander but countering their big Eldrazi like Ulamog's Crusher and Eldrazi Devastator allows us to just dominate this matchup.

Storm-Kiln Artist Record against Storm-Kiln Artist 3-1

I like this matchup. They really can’t do much without their commander, so if we bounce their commander or counter them we can just slow roll them out of the game, they are definitely more of an artifact deck than we are, but since they are in mono-red they don’t have many ways to protect themselves against us.

Spellheart Chimera Record against Spellheart Chimera 4-2

This is another good matchup, funny enough they are pretty much running the same deck and gameplan as us, we often engage in counter wars but with our heavy effect on bounce, we can bounce their commander and be pretty good, this is definitely a loseable matchup but one I feel confident about. It’s kind of a race since we are running so many of the same cards.

Commanders, we have a tough matchup against:

Savage Ventmaw Record against Savage Ventmaw 0-4

This is a very rough matchup for the deck. This deck has so many creatures that have Trample, and we just can’t do much against them; we can counter their commander and their ramp, but in the long run, they will commit Trample to the board and that spells disaster for us.

Dionus, Elvish Archdruid Record against Dionus, Elvish Archdruid 0-3

This is a rough matchup; they get going so quickly, and even with our Servos as chump blockers, it can be very difficult to get a foothold in this game; they ramp so quickly and can have a decent board established before we can counter any of their stuff. This is a tough one, and we need help from our other opponents to help slow them down; that’s the only way to win this one.

Tainted Observer Record against Tainted Observer 1-4

Infect, Toxic, and Counters, yea this can be a rough one, they have protection for a ton of their creatures, and they are extremely strong in combat, we have almost no ways to stop flyers outside of a few creatures, this is a terrible matchup for our deck, in a game where they stumbled in testing I was able to get a win but if they execute our gameplan good it can be very tough.

Strategy Overview:

Chump blocks only:

We don’t really engage in combat at all outside of chump blocking with our Servos; this is core to the game plan. We don’t ever want to put our damaged creatures in harm’s way, and if a deck is aggressively attacking us, chump blocking is pretty much always the right move.

Bounce and Counter:

Since we have so many bounce and counterspells and casting them helps the gameplan overall, we want to make sure we are taking away the best of the best our opponents have to offer, unless we have a monster use of our mana on our turn we almost always want to keep mana up to bounce or counter a problematic permanent/commander.

Never stop drawing:

We need our creatures to deal our damage for us in this deck, and because of that, we need to find them, while its always nice to have our best creatures in our opening than,d that is obviously not realistic, and because of that, this deck is filled with card draw and going to draw for what we need is key to the gameplan.

Deck Overview:

This section contains information about cards in the deck and how they function within the deck! I also highlighted some of my favorite cards in the deck!

Creatures:

We have quite a bit of creatures for a spellslinger deck, and this is because this is where all of our damage comes from with awesome cards like Guttersnipe, Kessig Flamebreather and Cinder Pyromancer just to name a few, we have a ton of these effects and they are the primary way that we damage our opponents. While that is our primary damage package, we have an awesome cast of support cards like Goblin Electromancer and Murmuring Mystic, which make a majority of our deck cheaper and in the case of Mystic allow us to actually deal with flyers and give us a ton of chump blockers. We also have Ardent Elementalist, which I most often use to grab back counterspells, but grabbing any spell from our graveyard can be very strong. I am a really big fan of Windrider Wizard in this deck as well; since we spellsling so much, being able to continuously draw additional cards allows us to be very strong and keep the chain of damage and spell-slinging going. We do have a couple of creatures that we don’t mind attacking/blocking with in Pyre Hound and Pyroceratops both of these can get extremely big very quickly and allow us to block with the best of them and attack really hard and put additional pressure/damage on our opponents!

Instants:

Since our servos contribute to our artifact count, we get a ton of value out of Metallic Rebuke and Stoic Rebuttal, which are both super good ways to get some really cheap counters, which is something we will never complain about. Since we produce Servos so much, I’m also a huge fan of First Day of Class, which, on the right turn, can allow us to be very aggressive, especially when combined with Impact Tremors or Raid Bombardment. When we have a board built up pretty nicely with our Servos, we can finish opponents off with Massive Raid, which can present a nice chunk of damage to our opponents. Now let’s get down to the counters and bounces we have a ton of both, and being able to bounce or counter opponent’s creatures/commanders allows us to be very strong with cards like Echoing Truth, allowing us to destroy token decks or Counterspell being an insanely efficient spell. We have quite a few draw spells in the deck like Big Score and Unexpected Windfall which can be great ways for us to maintain our card advantage and always have something to say when opponents try to do anything.

Sorceries:

Our card draw doesn’t stop at instant speed; we have a ton of awesome card draw at sorcery speed as well, especially with cards like Distant Melody. Whether we use Servo’s or birds, this can draw us a ridiculous amount of cards. Not all of our draw spells are haymakers but we still have some very efficient draws in Ponder and Preordain. I’m also a big fan of Mob Justice, which is just another way this deck can kill you without us having to go to combat. Since we have so Servos popping up throughout the game we can take advantage of Thoughtcast, Reverse Engineer, and Shared Discovery if you don’t have at least seven cards in your hand while playing this deck you are doing something wrong! We do have a little removal here in Ravenform this is the perfect answer to a problematic creature or maybe one an opponent wants to use in a combo.

Artifacts:

For a deck that looks like it should be focusing on artifacts, our artifact package is pretty lame, we only have two, and both of them are mana rocks. While I love Arcane Signet and Izzet Signet as much as the next guy, these are nothing more than small support pieces for the deck and can help spellsling a little bit more, especially on the early turns.

Enchantments:

We only have two enchantments, but both of them are very good for the deck, I know that Impact Tremors needs no introduction and is a consistent source of damage and with our Servos and birds from Murmuring Mystic can stack up damage pretty quickly. Finishing off with Raid Bombardment feels pretty good in the deck, being able to go to combat and dish out some additional damage can easily take out opponents when they start getting low and since we only have to attack with them and get the damage we can get some additional damage whenever we want.

Strengths of the Deck:

  • We typically have enough chump blockers in the form of our Servos to be decently well-positioned against aggressive decks; while these aren’t great matchups, we can stem the bleeding a bit.
  • We are great against Voltron strategies being able to counter their best permanents allows us to just bully them.
  • Our deck is great at dealing damage without ever going to combat giving us a better matchup against decks that focus on and care about combat.

Weaknesses of the Deck:

  • While we are decent against most creature decks since we are really bad against Stompy strategies or any deck with a heavy focus on trample, we chump block so often that decks with a lot of Trample can run us over.
  • Our deck can be a lot weaker without Saheeli on the field; while we do have counterspells to protect them, they get targeted an absolute ton.
  • We don’t have much graveyard recursion, and we need to protect our pingers/damage dealers.

Deck Stats:

Sample Hands:

Conclusion:

Thanks so much for reading to the end! I know this is kind of a weird deck. It definitely felt weird putting so many cards that synergize with artifacts and then only run two actual artifacts in the deck, but with all of our Servos in the deck, it does work pretty well. This is truly an Izzet deck and allows us to spell sling like crazy, this is absoltyey a great one for all of the Izzet mages out there and I hope you all enjoyed this one as much as I did!