Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Siona, Captain of Pyleas!

Siona is a three mana 2/2 that when they enter you look at the top seven cards of your library, reveal an Aura and put it into your hand, putting the rest of the cards on the bottom of your library in a random order, and whenever an Aura becomes attached to a creature you control, you make a 1/1 Human Soldier creature token.

Auras are the name of the game and we should be finding ways to put them onto the battlefield as quickly and efficiently as possible.

This deck is interesting in that it simultaneously wants to be a go tall deck by stacking as many Auras onto Siona, but also has the benefits of going wide by having creature tokens be made whenever an Aura is attached.

The first thing that we want to do is find Aura’s that have some way to keep themselves on the battlefield.

Reins of the Vinesteed is perfect for this because it gives a solid boost in giving +2/+2 and whenever the enchanted creature dies, you can attach the Aura onto a creature that shares the same creature type as the creature that died.

If we manage to play a decent number of Humans and/or Soldiers, or make some from Siona’s ability then this shouldn’t be a problem, especially since Siona makes a new Human Soldier whenever an Aura is attached.

Another one to consider is Felidar Umbra, which gives your creature lifelink and the umbra armor ability, and you can for one and a white attach it to another creature you control. This can also serve as protection to destruction based removal against Siona if it is attached to another creature at the time.

There is also Next of Kin, which when the creature that has it attached to dies can replace itself with a creature in your hand with a lesser mana value at the beginning of the next end step. This is more situational, but can work in a pinch to get a cheaper creature onto the battlefield like a Light-Paws, Emperor’s Voice to help get more Aura’s onto the battlefield.

Gift of Immortality is a neat bit of recursion in that when the creature attached to it dies, it comes back to the battlefield with it attached, meaning that we have a reasonable way to protect Siona in the case that they die.

I found another Aura that we can use, but that will be saved for the end.

The next thing we can do are find cards that give us benefits whenever an enchantment enters the battlefield, and that usually means an Enchantress package.

Ajani’s Chosen is great in this instance because not only does it create a 2/2 Cat creature token whenever an enchantment enters the battlefield, but if it’s an Aura then you get double triggers from the Aura attaching to the original creature and then the Cat token.

Mesa Enchantress, Enchantress’s Presence, and Verduran Enchantress all draw you cards whenever you cast an enchantment spell, Jukai Naturalist, Herald of the Pantheon, and Starfield Mystic reduce the cost of your enchantments by one and Transcendent Envoy even makes your Aura’s cheaper by one as well.

All That Glitters, Ancestral Mask, and Ethereal Armor all make the creature they are attached to bigger by the number of enchantments or both artifacts and enchantments you control in the case of All That Glitters.

Now as far as how we win, we are actually going to be using a mix of the go wide and the go tall strategy.

Shielded by Faith is a fascinating card because we can potentially use it to make an infinite number of tokens via Siona’s ability. You see when we cast it to attach it to another creature, it makes a creature token that it can attach to, which triggers Siona again, thus repeating this cycle until we choose to stop it.

There are other cards that can give us a ton of tokens, and while it won’t be infinite it will still be a lot. Flickerform can allow us to flicker a creature and all Auras attached to it, the creature comes back and then the Auras are attached to it again, meaning that if we stack a ton of Aura’s on Siona then we get her first ability again and a tons of triggers from her second ability.

We can also use Songbirds’ Blessing to get even more Auras onto the battlefield whenever the creature it is attached to attacks, Sigil of the Nayan Gods to get a creature bigger if we manage to have a massive battlefield, and Calix, Destiny’s Hand to dig for more enchantments and return enchantments to the battlefield if we ultimate.

Siona is a Commander that can blend a go tall and go wide strategy together by using Auras to facilitate this playstyle. Normally you would have to choose one or the other, but combing both into a solid strategy allows you to pivot as necessary, which is always good to have.

Thank you for reading, see you tomorrow for the next Daily Commander!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual