Readers,

Theros spoiler season is in full swing and this set looks pretty nuts. Of the cards we have seen previewed, some good, some bad, my favorite isn't mythic or rare. It's an uncommon card that has a lot of potential and which isn't even in colors I traditionally embrace when I build. Of course you've figured out which card I mean by now because you're excited about the same uncommon creature I am, and also you have peripheral vision. The card is Siona, Captain of the Pyleas and I have been theorycrafting nonstop since this card was revealed.

For an uncommon, there's quite a lot going on here. The casting cost is decent, which is good if you have to recast a few times (and with an ETB trigger, you won't even mind), the ETB trigger I just mentioned draws cards and most importantly, putting auras on creatures helps create an army. This last ability is the one we're going to abuse, because there are some enchantments that synergize very well with tokens. Let's take a look at how we can do some fairly unfair things with this plucky little uncommon.

The first card everyone talked about was Shielded by Faith. Attaching Shielded by Faith to a creature with Siona in play creates a loop of a creature entering the battlefield, triggering Shield, and Shield triggering a new creature. Stop the combo whenever you want by simply not electing to move Shielded by Faith when its "may" ability triggers. You can do a lot with an arbitrarily large but finite number of creatures. A Red deck would win with Purphoros, God of the Forge or Impact Tremors but we'll need to be a bit more creative than that. This combo doesn't win immediately but there are plenty of cards we can run to synergize with this interaction. It's worth noting that Shielded by Faith is an aura - I mean, you knew that, but specifically it's handy that it's an Aura for the purposes of Sion's first ability.

If Shielded by Faith is in the top 7 cards of your library, you can put it into your hand when you cast Siona. It's rare that an uncommon commander can dig for their own combo piece but I'm not complaining.

It's not a huge revelation that this combo is exciting because it generates a lot of tokens, but what to do with them, or even with an extra token or two a turn, is where my deck-building style will shine through. There are obvious outs for those games where we get the combo unmolested and go off with something like Blasting Station, but what about the games where we have to work a little harder? Finding uses for a few extra creatures but not enough to blast someone is interesting to me. Here are a few of my ideas.

It's no secret that I love Glare of Subdual. Glare is a great way to clear the board, frost some mana rocks and, in general, slow down or harass our opponents. We can keep them off of their game plan with this troublesome enchantment and I think it's a nice compliment to my 75% approach to Stax which involves cards like Blind Obedience and Authority of the Consuls. It wouldn't be a Glare deck without Earthcraft and Cryptolith Rite and if we're running Earthcraft, why not jam a Squirrel Nest to have another combo? It's even an aura, which helps us out. This isn't a Stax decks, it's a deck that makes a stack of creatures and uses them to Glare their board. How 75% is that?

We can do more with our tokens than just tap them, though. I like to have a few sac options since sacrificing a creature usually powers very useful effects. We can draw cards with Skullclamp, get lands with Perilous Forays or get mana with Ashnod's Altar and Phyrexian Altar. We can even mill the table out with Altar of Dementia.

Our new tokens coming into play can be useful, also. Soul Warden effects are a powerful inclusion here, which allow us to use Aetherflux Reservoir as a win condition if we're so inclined, or simply get so much life that they're forced to try and kill us with commander damage - no easy feat with Glare of Subdual in play. I also like the idea of using Cathars' Crusade to buff our team. A 1/1 token isn't much alone, but a stream of them entering play could make the first wave of soldiers formidable beaters and each subsequent wave a real boost to previous generations. If we don't get a Glare to tap their team, Champion of Lambholt can reward us for making a ton of tokens by making them unblockable.

If we're going infinite it won't matter, but I'd like to increase the number of tokens we generate so I'm including the usual suspects like Parallel Lives and Anointed Procession. We probably don't need to mess with Doubling Season at all, but I think getting more tokens per trigger is neat and helps everything else we do scale up. It's not just 1/1 tokens we'll be making, either. Since I want to include a blink suite to help us get Siona triggers, running some ETB creatures like Acidic Slime, Sun Titan, and Karmic Guide are useful, so Helm of the Host and Blade of Selves are in the mix.

Finally, we need auras. In addition to Shielded by Faith, I think a few auras that won't quit are in order. I like Rancor as a cheap inclusion to replay over and over for a mana and bring itself back. With Rancor in hand and Phyrexian Altar in play, you can keep saccing the new token for the mana to play Rancor which will create a new token. We're a very efficient rowboat with just one oar, though, so you'll need some way to benefit from those triggers, but I have some ideas about that. For redundancy, we have Fortitude and Aspect of Mongoose which both make our creatures a little tougher to deal with and bring themselves back. Spirit Loop helps us gain some life which we may or may not need. Finally, Mana Bloom is something we can load up or just play for a Green to re-buy. We'll have a few Enchantress creatures to keep our hands full, after all.

So what we have is a deck that has a lot of synergy, stacks up faster and faster as it gets going and spits out creatures plus grows them plus makes them hard to block. Add in a few enchantment management cards and you've got a pile. Could it be a good pile? We'll find out!

Shielded by Faith Hill and Tim McGraw | Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (1)
• 1 Siona, Captain of the Pyleas

• Creatures (22)
• 1 Acidic Slime
• 1 Arbor Elf
• 1 Argothian Enchantress
• 1 Avacyn's Pilgrim
• 1 Birds of Paradise
• 1 Celestial Ancient
• 1 Champion of Lambholt
• 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Fiend Hunter
• 1 Gaddock Teeg
• 1 Grand Abolisher
• 1 Heliod's Pilgrim
• 1 Herald of the Pantheon
• 1 Karmic Guide
• 1 Llanowar Elves
• 1 Protean Hulk
• 1 Reveillark
• 1 Riftsweeper
• 1 Saffi Eriksdotter
• 1 Soul Warden
• 1 Sun Titan

• Instants (4)
• 1 Cloudshift
• 1 Ephemerate
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Teferi's Protection

• Sorceries (3)
• 1 Eldritch Evolution
• 1 Green Sun's Zenith
• 1 Open the Armory

• Enchantments (21)
• 1 Anointed Procession
• 1 Aspect of Mongoose
• 1 Blind Obedience
• 1 Cathars' Crusade
• 1 Cryptolith Rite
• 1 Divine Visitation
• 1 Earthcraft
• 1 Flickerform
• 1 Fortitude
• 1 Gift of Immortality
• 1 Glare of Subdual
• 1 Gryff's Boon
• 1 Parallel Lives
• 1 Pattern of Rebirth
• 1 Perilous Forays
• 1 Rancor
• 1 Shielded by Faith
• 1 Song of the Dryads
• 1 Squirrel Nest
• 1 Sterling Grove
• 1 Sylvan Library

• Artifacts (11)
• 1 Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1 Altar of Dementia
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Blade of Selves
• 1 Blasting Station
• 1 Helm of the Host
• 1 Phyrexian Altar
• 1 Selesnya Signet
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Sol Ring

• Lands (38)
• 10 Plains
• 14 Forest
• 1 Bountiful Promenade
• 1 Canopy Vista
• 1 Castle Ardenvale
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Fortified Village
• 1 Gavony Township
• 1 Krosan Verge
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Selesnya Sanctuary
• 1 Sunpetal Grove
• 1 Temple Garden
• 1 Temple of Plenty
• 1 Windswept Heath
• 1 Wirewood Lodge

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This looks.... Deck-shaped. I'm actually pretty excited to build this. I think it might need a few more auras and we could trim creatures to make room, but I'm happy with the shenanigans we have here.

If you want more auras, you can trim a few artifacts. There are a lot of cards dedicated to the blink shenanigans and if those aren't the kind of cheeky and fun shenanigans you're all about (eeeevil shenanigans), you can trim from there. Blade and Helm can go and you can add a few more auras. Auras that prevent them from attacking are perhaps good. They won't trigger Siona but they can be fetched by her. Recumbent Bliss, Prison Term, and Arrest have all seen Commander play in the past and are worth considering.

If you want some more artifacts, there isn't a ton of room, but as you make this deck more and more cutthroat, the consistency will start here. Adding Moxen, Mana Crypt and other cards to make sure you have a great first few turns is how you can make this a consistent turn four deck. Is that good enough for CEDH? Doubtful. This build isn't for that, and our mana rocks reflect that, I think.

If you want to add more creatures, you might want to add some more Soul Warden effects on top of something like Archangel of Thune to give you more ways to benefit from the life gain. As it stands, we're not going to be very consistent with Aetherflux Reservoir and I'm on the fence about it. As always, a few reps can tell you what works. If you play with other tokens decks, find room for Suture Priest which kills two birds with one stone, ensuring you're the only player who benefits from a lot of tokens.

What do we think? Are you excited at the direction I want to take this? Do you have your own ideas? Leave it for me in the comments section. As always, thanks for reading. Until next time!