If I knew Siona was going to be Captain of my regiment, sign me up. Amazon women warriors from The Paradise Islands Meletis..heck yeah. No wonder she is getting new recruits.
I started theory-crafting around her, and was initially working on an unlimited budget build. However after nearing it's completion, it just looked uninspired compared to other legendary creatures at the helm that could do much more powerful things given the card choices.
I figured that if you focus your attention on particular combo(s), which is mainly Shielded by Faith to give you unlimited tokens, then you might as well maximize your chances of success on this.
There is another combo involving Reins of the Vinesteed and a sacrifice outlet for creatures. There are a ton of ways to sacrifice creatures in the deck.
With her ability "When Siona, Captain of the Pyleas enters the battlefield, look at the top seven cards of your library. You may reveal an Aura card from among them and put it in your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.", we have a lot of cards that allow you to bring her back onto the battlefield. This will allow you to keep triggering her ability and digging for the combo(s).
As long as you don't shuffle your library, then your chances of revealing a particular card you want go up each time you trigger her.
Let's say you cast Siona, Captain of the Pyleas on Turn 3, having drawn 10 cards already. This shows the chance of revealing Shielded by Faith assuming no other draw, each time you trigger her.
| Card pool | Chance of reveal |
|---|---|
| 90 | 7.8% |
| 83 | 8.4% |
| 76 | 9.2% |
| 69 | 10.1% |
| 62 | 11.3% |
| 55 | 12.7% |
So one very important element of this is that you don't want to be shuffling your library. And this is great for not spending money on expensive tutors that often competitive decks demand. Things like Enlightened Tutor, Idyllic Tutor, Green Sun's Zenith and the ilk can be done away with.
This is one of the main reasons that you can focus on a budget build, as she becomes a pseudo tutor.
Another way of getting additional Siona triggers is using Astral Drift with a select number of cycling cards. Not too many of them, mainly in the form of some of your land base. Astral Slide is not in the deck, as the cycling package is minimum.
Skybind will allow you to exile Siona each turn as you will always have an enchantment to cast.
There are a number of instants and creatures that will allow you to flicker Siona, and you can also use these to protect your other creatures from removal as well. Some have effects that return to play immediately so are good against targeted removal, and some have return to play at end of turn, which means you can use it against mass removal.
The deck has a lot of Auras that will shut down activated abilities of creatures and in fact permanents your opponents control. So with Siona ability to dig deep for Auras you can slow down or stop the game plan of opponents enough to help you assemble your combo.
There is also a full enchantress draw suite because the deck has so many enchantments.
Even though Siona is able to produce a token creature when an Aura is attached to a creature you control, this build isn't too focused on being a token generating deck outside of infinite combos.
However there is Detainment Spell and Felidar Umbra that you can use to produce a token for each you spend.
Also Flickering Ward and Whip Silk can produce tokens with each or you spend respectively, and they can keep triggering your enchantress draw, which is great value.
There are numerous ways to return cards from your graveyard in case of removal or even mill putting your combo cards (or other) into your graveyard.
The most expensive cards in the deck are Argothian Enchantress, Blasting Station and Ashnod's Altar. I feel like they are essential enough that they warrant the expense.
Siona, Captain of the Pyleas - Budget Build
Approximate Total Cost:
Upgrading the deck.
There are some excellent cards that you can add to the deck.
Phyrexian Altar would allow for infinite mana with Reins of the Vinesteed, and with the enchantress draw cards, you'll have a good shot at drawing as many cards as you want.
Darksteel Mutation and Song of the Dryads are excellent further Auras that shut down opponents cards.
Ghostway is a premium exile creatures card.
Knight of Autumn is another Reclamation Sage effect, that you can use your flicker cards on for further reuse.
Eternal Witness for graveyard recursion, and again can be combined with flicker effects for further reuse.
Without only a few artifacts in the deck Stony Silence is a great hate card.
Smothering Tithe can really do work some games to give you additional mana.
Aura Shards is starting to break the bank, but maybe you already have one?
Ways to make sure your spells get through are; Silence, Grand Abolisher, Dosan the Falling Leaf, Dragonlord Dromoka.
Greater Auramancy, Sterling Grove and Privileged Position are excellent at protecting your enchantments.
There are heaps of much more expensive cards you could add to the mix, but I feel the cards I mentioned above are still within a reasonable budget if you wanted to go a little bit further in the future with this idea.
More expensive cards
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Earthcraft + Squirrel Nest. With Squirrel Nest being an Aura, and Earthcraft working nicely with Siona, Captain of the Pyleas ability to produce tokens, this would be a nice combination to have in the deck. However Earthcraft is a $50 card these days.
Sylvan Library is an all-round all-star, and with Siona ability to put cards onto the bottom, you can put cards you don't want back on top as long as you can trigger her ETB again to get rid of them.
You can still play tutors as they can directly get you the cards you want. But that sort of defeats the purpose of the deck, avoiding needing to use these expensive cards, when Siona ability should hold up to digging you to these anyway.
Sylvan Library is an all-round all-star, and with Siona ability to put cards onto the bottom, you can put cards you don't want back on top as long as you can trigger her ETB again to get rid of them.
You can still play tutors as they can directly get you the cards you want. But that sort of defeats the purpose of the deck, avoiding needing to use these expensive cards, when Siona ability should hold up to digging you to these anyway.
Zacama
