Making Upgrades to the Creative Energy Commander Deck

Posted on July 17, 2024

If you were playing competitive Magic back in 2016-2018, you're probably familiar with a very specific boogieman of the time: energy.

Energy decks absolutely dominated the Standard environment of the era, leading to a number of bans during the tenure of the Kaladesh block. At first, the energy decks lost Aetherworks Marvel as a way to lead to less variance-heavy games. Then, after several months of absolute dominance over the meta, energy saw further hobbling in the takedown of Temur Energy by removing both Attune with Aether and Rogue Refiner from the format.

The way energy completely dominated the Standard environment of the era all but ensured that the mechanic wouldn't be coming back anytime soon. It was too volatile and ultimately proved to be somewhat difficult to balance. To put it back into a Standard environment again risked causing similar issues - particularly given the fairly parasitic nature of energy as well. And so it lay dormant for several years until Modern Horizons 3. The set is chock full of all kinds of new energy cards fit well for the Modern format - and is tearing things up a bit in the Jeskai Energy lists - but Wizards took this a step further by creating a whole Commander precon centered around the mechanic.

With Satya, Aetherflux Genius, the Creative Energy deck is headed by a great way to get tons of energy with ease. Not only just energy either, but a whole ton of creature tokens every turn! They might not stick around, but there's tons of value to be found all around here. Today, we're going to look and see what ways we can approach upgrading a deck centered around such a unique mechanic. First, though, let's check out the decklist!

Creative Energy Precon | Commander

Commander (1)
1 Satya, Aetherflux Genius

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This deck's gameplan is twofold. The main aspect is naturally the energy angle. It's basically doing what it says right on the tin, providing use of tons of energy generating cards and giving players new ways to do so when it was previously only seen in the Kaladesh block. The other less noted aspect, though, is how it generates token copies of creatures. This allows you to do unique and interesting things with your creatures and get even better value out of your value generators.

Now, we can talk about value creatures all day here. They're pretty much a dime a dozen when it comes to modern Magic design, so instead let's start with something a bit more tricky: energy. Prior to this year, there was only one place to go for energy cards, and that was the aforementioned Kaladesh block. Given that there were only two sets utilizing the mechanic and one of them was a small one, there's admittedly not a ton to pull from. By my count, there were only 45 cards within the Jeskai color identity and many of them just aren't anything to write home about.

Take cards like Aether Chaser, Aether Swooper, and Eddytrail Hawk for example. All of these were absolute Limited all-stars of the time. When it comes to energy inclusions for a deck like this, however, they're simply not a good fit for the Commander play experience. It's worth mentioning then that those are the good cards! For every one of those you'd run into a Thriving Ibex or an Aether Meltdown which isn't going to do much, and as a result, most of the actually worthwhile cards from the block are already in the precon itself. About the only cards I'd consider are Dynavolt Tower and Electrostatic Pummeler, which again, aren't quite as good here as they were back in their original competitive settings.

Instead, I'd look to something a bit more recent: Universes Beyond: Fallout. I realize that Universes Beyond is a hot button topic and it makes it hard to enjoy things for some people, but with as little access to energy as there is out there, it's what we've got. As it happens, the Jeskai deck for the set (titled Science!) focused heavily on energy as its main mechanic and included a whopping sixteen new cards utilizing energy. Even better, while Kaladesh block had to focus on using the mechanic for Constructed and Limited, this deck was instead focused on much more Commander-centric designs instead.

A benefit to these designs is how many of them are both great for energy synergies as well as, frankly, ignoring the Universes Beyond angle. Consider, for example, Brotherhood Scribe and Automated Assembly Line. Both are great at fueling your energy plays while also providing great outlets for said energy. Even better, if you don't care so much about Fallout as a property, they can be taken as Magic things fairly easily. Even if the "Brotherhood" bit of Brotherhood Scribe is an actual thing from those games, it can just as well be applied to something Magic-oriented like the Brotherhood of Gix.

If you don't mind Fallout or Universes Beyond, it gets even sillier the things that you can pull from. HELIOS One is an awesome option to add into your lands, as it's a way to continually generate mana while also providing you some better options in your mana base (seriously, it's rough. More on that in a bit). With how many non-basic lands get utilized in games of Commander, playing The Motherlode, Excavator can help a ton too. It also provides you one hell of a great target for Satya to copy, as it basically supercharges your energy count every turn. Plasma Caster is another fantastic way to generate energy, and can even act as some solid removal as well, which is always welcome.

These are only a couple of the cards that stood out to me when going through the cards from the set. I could easily talk about all of them, but at some point it's probably just easier for you to check out the list of cards for yourself and then pick and choose what you want to get. That or you can simply buy the entire precon alongside this one and cannibalize it toward this deck or vice versa. I believe CSI fellow author Stephen Johnson is writing a piece on that deck's secondary Commander Liberty Prime, Recharged using cards from Modern Horizons 3 so check that out too when it comes out if you'd like a take on the inverse approach here.

And speaking of Modern Horizons 3, I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up the energy cards found in the main set as well. I believe most of the truly relevant ones from the main set are already here. Solar Transformer, Scurry of Gremlins, Izzet Generatorium, Unstable Amulet, Amped Raptor - all here! What isn't here are some of the bigger payoff that Wizards considered might have more of a Constructed impact. See cards like Aether Revolt, Guide of Souls, and Wheel of Potential which all do really powerful things with energy and are nowhere to be found in the deck. There's also Volatile Stormdrake and Wrath of the Skies which are proving to be strong competitive playables that also work stupendously here in Commander. Thankfully, each of these are fairly affordable right now, making them easy inclusions for an upgrade!

What may not be so easy to upgrade though are the lands. I sort of mentioned it before with HELIOS One, but it's the one glaring spot of this precon I want to highlight. I've been bringing it up quite a bit in this upgrade series where I normally let them be because they're rather self-explanatory. I think that's the case here too, but I really want to emphasize just how badly this deck needs an upgrade in the mana base. The deck has a staggering twenty basic lands for a three-color deck and the duals are mainly Temples, Snarls, and pain lands - all of which makes for a rather rough experience. Even just a handful of check lands (which are fairly accessible) goes a long way here, and even shocks and fetches are a bit more manageable with reprints in the last year, so take your pick of options.

One other spot that feels glaringly untouched is a lack of lands that synergize with artifacts. This deck features a whopping 32 artifacts and/or artifact creatures in it. That's a whole third of the list, and it's more than I include in my own personal artifact deck of Sharuum the Hegemon. Given that, the deck absolutely needs both Buried Ruin and Academy Ruins as ways to get them back should any hit the graveyard. Additionally, throwing in a copy of Inventors' Fair can go a long way in finding just the right kind of artifact you need. That card and Academy Ruins are only about $15 each on average, so it's well worth picking them up sooner than later - especially for a deck like this.

Beyond these two key areas, the only other thing that I think really should be looked into is whether or not you can include some better value creatures. Even something as simple as putting a Mulldrifter in goes a long way, but the simple fact is there's absolutely no shortage of options on this front. You could probably pull out your big bulk box, flip through some cards, and find something worthwhile here. It'd take far too long to cover and there's way too much potential to get into the weeds, so instead I'll suggest that you find whatever good ETB creatures you're most interested in and jam them. Make it something all your own.

Something I didn't cover so much was the alternate Commander in Cayth, Famed Artificer. She takes things in a wildly different direction and while she compliments Satya well, you're better off finding something else to do with her entirely rather than swapping her as the front Commander here. I'd recommend you check out fellow author Abe Sargent's recent writeup on her here if you're interested in taking that route.

It may be a little tough with how little energy options are currently out there, but I think there's still enough to work with that you can have a good time. Best of all is that we've now seen energy show up twice this year after being dormant for the better part of a decade. It shows there's still a good amount of life left with it and it wouldn't surprise me if we see more in the future, meaning that you may find even more ways to rework your list in the future. No matter how you upgrade this deck, though, it's sure to provide you with an awesome time at your next Commander night.

Paige Smith

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