Upgrading Commander Precon - Science! (Dr. Madison Li)

Universes Beyond: Fallout is finally here, and, with it, also 4 new precon Commander decks.

Surprisingly, a mechanic that most haven't seen for a while has returned: Energy counters! Energy counters have been gone since Kaladesh, but now Fallout has brought it again alongside several cards that interact with it directly. So, let's upgrade Science! with Dr. Madison Li as our commander.

This is a Jeskai deck that focuses on casting lots of artifacts and using one of the three abilities Dr. Madison Li has. Another alternative to the Command Zone is Liberty Prime, Recharged. In any case, we picked Dr. Madison Li to take advantage of the Energy counters she'll give us.

We'll add a list entirely dedicated to Liberty Prime, Recharged at the end of this article. This list will focus on killing opponents through commander damage.

Both lists will be similar because we don't have that many Energy cards nowadays, even though we just got this precon Commander deck. Modern Horizons 3 will probably make both of these lists a lot better, considering it will bring new cards and also new Commander precons. One of the new precons will even be a Jeskai deck that focuses on Energy counters.

Without further ado, let's see our upgrade!

Cards We Removed

Starting with our lands: we removed most of them to add other artifact lands or cards that are more useful. We removed one basic land of each and a few others that could delay our game plan somehow.

Since the iconic Bobbleheads don't work all that well in practice, we removed them too. Expert-Level Safe and C.A.M.P. also didn't make the cut because they aren't as efficient as they seem.

As usual, we needed to remove cards that aren't that great to add others that will improve the deck's overall mechanic and game plan.

Cards We Added

Lands and Discounts

As we said before, we brought all three color artifact lands: Seat of the Synod, Ancient Den, and Great Furnace.

This list already has the Bridge cycle: Silverbluff Bridge, Rustvale Bridge, and Razortide Bridge. These artifact lands interact with several other cards in this deck, either when we discard them with Thirst for Knowledge, enchant them Mechanized Production, or increase Brotherhood Vertibird's power. They also interact with the new cards we added.

Useful lands, like Reliquary Tower and Inventors' Fair, also made it to our upgraded list.

This deck will draw you a good number of cards and has Thought Vessel, so making sure you can keep as many cards in your hand as you want is important.

Inventors' Fair will guarantee you some sustain with its lifegain, but it's in this list more because it tutors an artifact. With it, you might get something crucial to help you whenever you need.

Because we have many artifacts in this deck, it's best to add some cards to discount their cost, and this way make sure we don't spend too much mana. We'll be able to cast way more spells in a single turn with them. We chose Etherium Sculptor, Enthusiastic Mechanaut, and Foundry Inspector to help us discount the cost of our cards.

Energy Counters and Answers

We also added more cards to create Energy counters and help us activate Dr. Madison Li or some other card that needs them.

Era of Innovation will get us a lot of Energy through its effect, and interacts with the artifact lands we mentioned before. But you'll have to pay one generic mana and wait until an artifact or Artificer enters the battlefield to create Energy. If you don't need to create Energy anymore, just sacrifice this enchantment and draw three cards.

Gonti's Aether Heart also creates Energy for you, but it's way more efficient: it doesn't force you to use mana and wait until you play an artifact or Artificer, and it creates the same amount of Energy as Era of Innovation. If you pay 8 Energy, you'll exile it and get one extra turn, which may change the course of the game.

The original list brings Panharmonicon, so both Era of Innovation and Gonti's Aether Heart might create even more Energy thanks to that.

Whirler Virtuoso seems questionable, but it creates 3 Energy when it enters the battlefield - or 6, if Panharmonicon is on the board. And it also creates a Thopter token for 3 Energy. As its ability doesn't have any sort of "speed limit" (for instance, "you can only play this card as a sorcery"), you can create these Thopters at any moment. This means you can use them as blockers or create them when you pass, and consequently increase your board presence with more creatures.

It would be weird if an Energy deck didn't have Aetherworks Marvel. As it was definitely weird the original "Science!" list didn't have Aetherworks Marvel, we added it to our upgraded list.

We can easily stack Energy with Aetherworks Marvel, either when our permanents are removed by our opponents, when we sacrifice them with cards like Liberty Prime, Recharged, or discard them with Thirst for Knowledge or Unexpected Windfall. It will be common to use Aetherworks Marvel's activated ability for 6 Energy with this deck due to how easy it is to stack Energy. After all, casting a card for free is always great, even more so when we can choose 1 of 6 cards to cast.

To create more Energy, we also added Decoction Module and Fabrication Module. Besides its main effect, Decoction Module will give you even more Energy when you return cards like Behemoth of Vault 0, The Motherlode, Excavator, Sentry Bot, and several other creatures to your hand. That's because you'll be able to activate their effects a second time. You might also save one of your creatures from a global or target removal with this same effect.

Fabrication Module may only give you Energy if you spend 4 mana on it, but it stands out because it also gives you +1/+1 counters whenever you gain Energy. Buffing your creatures, even if slowly and bit by bit, may save them in combat if you decide to block a unit, for instance.

Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain was a great addition to this deck: we have 45 Historic spells, counting our commander. As Jhoira will draw you lots of cards in this build, it makes sense to use Thought Vessel, Reliquary Tower, and Nerd Rage.

Finally, we added more removals to deal with our opponent's permanents: Path to Exile and Generous Gift. In the original list, we had Dispatch, which will exile a creature for good thanks to Metalcraft, and Swords to Plowshares. It's not a lot of removal, but it is acceptable to have this many target removals in a deck if we consider it is an upgraded precon.

This is our upgraded list! We removed around 17 cards and replaced them with better cards to improve the Energy/artifact strategy in this deck.

We also added a few cards that are more important to this mechanic and might change the course of the game significantly. This build is now more fluid, responsive, and fast in several ways!

Alternative List with Liberty Prime, Recharged

The Liberty Prime, Recharged list isn't too different from the original precon deck. We added more removals, and the main idea is to finish your opponents with an unblockable Liberty Prime, Recharged, either with Rogue's Passage or Whirler Rogue, for instance. You can do this with the original precon list, so if you want to test Liberty Prime, Recharged in the Command Zone, that is completely valid, and it might be an entirely different experience!

I had never thought a precon deck could feature such a niche mechanic as Energy counters. And we'll get a deck with this exact same theme and color combination in Modern Horizons 3. I'm intrigued and curious to see the lists in this set. Even though this Universes Beyond doesn't seem to be one of the strongest ones, it is clearly quite fun in many ways!

Did you like this list? Do you like Dr. Madison Li? Do you prefer Liberty Prime, Recharged? Would you add any other card? Share your thoughts with us!