Siona's Budget Combos (EDH / Commander)

Summary

Casual, budget-friendly combo deck. Difficult to play if identifying combos is not your thing. They are mostly tutor-able infinite combos, so make sure you can navigate them (see the Combos explanations below) and don't annoy your whole table with slow turns on top of playing what amounts to a solitaire combo deck. Always remind the table that you should be allowed to do anything with a deck this cheap.

The budget-conscious standard stuff is all there: removal, card advantage leaning toward combo pieces, and enough mana ramp to get to the level you need quickly. After that it's protection and politics for delay, then the combos themselves for the win, with more than 30 cards involved in interrelated wincon combos.

> Gameplay

• The initial objective is to get Siona, Captain of the Pyleas on the board and hopefully have Shielded by Faith in hand or in the top 7 of the library. This is the fastest and easiest combo to pull off, requiring only 1 card besides the commander. This requires nothing but Green and White mana in the starting hand, so you can feel free to mulligan knowing that as long as you get GW mana, you're doing alright, and you can mulligan to try and get (1) Shielded by Faith in your starting hand, (2) multiple pieces of a different combo, (3) tutors (or, less desirable, flicker effects for Siona), or (4) mana ramp, in that order of priorities.
• Using flicker cards can help Siona find Shielded by Faith. If Ephemerate is in your hand, it may be best to way until you have 4 mana available to play Siona. If Shielded by Faith isn't available, use the one remaining mana to flicker Siona with Ephemerate during an opponents turn. This will allow you to search the top 7 of your library again during their turn, and again at your next upkeep. By that time (turn 5) you will have seen at least 34 of the 99 cards to search for Shielded by Faith.
• Many cards that aren't strictly the best option in their slot have the benefits of either adding scry to sift for combos and/or being auras so that Siona can pull them. Usually that also makes them cheap enough to suit the budget anyway.
• Strengths: Slower tribal decks, voltron decks, and anything too dependent on single permanents will be weak to the spot removal of this deck and the potential it has for speed. Also matchups against other solitaire decks can be favorable as they omit much interaction, whereas this deck still has a good amount.
• Weaknesses: Aggro stompy decks will overwhelm you unless you hit the Siona combo or a board wipe early to buy enough time. Heavily interactive opponent decks and discard/counterspell decks will also be tough to deal with.

> Combos

• Commander combo is to play Shielded by Faith (which Siona can retrieve) on any creature you control while Siona, Captain of the Pyleas is on the battlefield, then move it to the token she creates and repeat to create an arbitrarily large number of creature tokens.

• Famished Paladin "Hero" combos are 3-card combos based on a creature with a built-in untap mechanic and tapping that creature on a loop for a repeated effect. It requires a "Hero" card with an untap mechanic, a "Weapon" that allows them to tap for an effect, and a "Shield" that triggers their untap ability when they activate the weapon. The "weapon" effects include ping damage (eg Sorcerer's Wand), creature tokens (eg Presence of Gond), or life gain (eg Resplendent Mentor. Infinite life isn't a wincon in this deck, but gives time to pull something that is). Famished Paladin and Lurking Roper need lifegain to untap. Barrenton Medic and Devoted Druid need Vizier of Remedies to untap by replacing the -1/-1 counter payment.

• Scurry Oak combos have a primary version with only 2 parts: either one of Scurry Oak or Herd Baloth with any one of Cathars' Crusade, Ivy Lane Denizen, or Rosie Cotton of South Lane. This generates infinite tokens and makes Scurry Oak/Herd Baloth infinitely large. The 3 card version breaks the Cathars' Crusade effect into two parts: the creature token triggers life gain through a Soul Warden effect, then the life gain triggers a +1/+1 counter through a Sunbond effect.

• ETB until LTB combos require 3 cards that have some version of "exile a target until this permanent leaves the battlefield." With three of these available you are able to play card 1, then play card 2 exiling card 1, then play card 3 exiling card 2. When card 2 goes into exile, card 1 returns and can exile card 3. Repeat ad nauseum, gaining whatever ETB effects are available to trigger (life gain, token creation, +1/+1 counters on a creature, etc.). They can also pseudo-flicker Siona, Captain of the Pyleas or anything else that has an ETB. Note that other cards can work in this combo (eg Oblivion Ring), but they are enchantments and don't work with all other cards in the category. There are enough creatures with "exile target creature until..." to be effective now, so I've only included those.

• Miscellaneous Combos:

  • Midnight Guard goes with Presence of Gond to create infinite tokens (essentially it's the two card version of the hero loop).
  • Stuffy Doll enchanted by Pariah will prevent you from taking any damage until one of them is removed (note: if you choose yourself as the player for Stuffy Doll's first ability when it enters the battlefield, enchanting Stuffy Doll with Pariah will result in a game draw the first time you or Stuffy Doll takes damage because that damage can no longer resolve). Stuffy Doll enchanted by Guilty Conscience will let you deal lethal damage to the chosen player. Flickering Stuffy Doll through the various Oblivion Ring or recursion effects will allow you to change to another player.
  • Spike Feeder goes with the Scurry Oak Alternate cards to gain infinite life by repeatedly removing a +1/+1 counter to gain life, which triggers the ability to place a +1/+1 counter on Spike Feeder, then repeating. Light of Promise and Sunbond will also make Spike Feeder gain an extra +1/+1 counter each time to make it arbitrarily large.

• Dual Nature is a fun card that will give you advantage on all of your ETB effects (including Siona, and you can choose to lose the original to the legend rule it goes right back to the command zone for you to cast later), but it also acts in two combos: with any two ETB until LTB cards to complete that loop, or with Felidar Guardian by itself to do the same loop with only two cards instead of three.

> Possible upgrades

• Direct Upgrades: Outside improving the mana base, Heliod, Sun-Crowned would be better than any of the Scurry Oak Alternate Loop cards (probably replace Cleric Class), and it goes to its own non-ETB combos with Triskelion or Walking Ballista. More direct tutors would help, especially Idyllic Tutor. Eladamri's Call, Congregation at Dawn, and Yisan the Wanderer Bard would also be good. More graveyard recursion is another option; Danith, New Benalia's Hope is similar to Boonweaver Giant in recursion but lacks the critical option of searching the library. GW staples like Esper Sentinel are obviously always welcome as well.

• Stax focus: A light shift toward stax is probably the direction I would take the deck after doing the direct upgrades. I've traded out the Fog effects the deck used to have in favor of versatile permanent removal that includes aura subtypes (to work with Siona) or scry, but Fog might be better in some groups. Gaddock Teeg is a good option and could even be a viable commander if moving in this direction. Hushbringer and Hushwing Gryff to prevent opposing ETB-dependent strategies would be great, as would graveyard hate. These hurt the deck's own combo options, but (A) the deck deliberately has combos with different strategies so that no single stax focus will kill it, and (B) the deck has ways to remove its own stax pieces when it's time to combo off. Stax would also be good to combine with the Heliod, Sun-Crowned and Walking Ballista/Triskelion upgrades to the deck, as those don't rely on ETBs or graveyards. To shift the deck this way I would remove the "ETB until LTB" and "Stuffy Doll Protection" cards.

• Politics and Group Hug: There is a balance between cards that stall for time and cards that simply get the combos faster, but if going the delay route, more politics cards are another option besides Fog and Lull as there are a lot of fun and affordable politicky cards like Tenuous Truce. Similarly, group hug effects (Rites of Flourishing, for example) do the opposite of delay, but they serve the dual purpose of making you less of a target and slightly disproportionately benefiting your deck as a combo deck compared to more linear value decks.

• Sac outlet combos: Finally, there is an entire combo category more or less ignored but very close to the existing loops: combos based around sac outlets such as Altar of Dementia and Blasting Station. Some pieces are already there (Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward, Leonin Relic-Warder), but this would require adding a couple of those ~$5 artifacts, and to get the full advantage it would need the other associated pieces (primarily Reveillark, Karmic Guide, Saffi Eriksdotter, Renegade Rallier), although they'll mostly work with the ETB until LTB cards as well. One option is to lose all interaction and go all in on combos and shove these cards into the deck. The other option is to replace some of the existing combo loops. However, the existing loops give better odds to pull (especially with some recently printed cards with a big impact on combo redundancy for the ones currently in the deck, such as Rosie Cotton of South Lane), depend on fewer card types (mostly creatures and enchantments, so tutors work on more pieces), and are less vulnerable to spot removal. These strategies are also entirely graveyard and ETB-dependent, so they can be shut down completely by stax, making them a problem for some opponents and incompatible with the option of shifting this deck's own focus to stax. The combos included as-is are also cheaper and flashier, so more in line with my goals for the deck.

>Revision Notes

Version 2.0

Top options for alterations:
Heliod, Sun-Crowned (replacing Cleric Class), with or without Walking Ballista and Triskelion
Stax effects: Gaddock Teeg, Hushbringer, Hushwing Gryff, Grafdigger's Cage, Ground Seal, replacing ETB until LTB and Stuffy Doll cards
Blasting Station/Altar of Dementia for ETB/LTB combos
Against All Odds for flexible flicker/recursion
Fumigate or Settle the Wreckage for mass removal
Also keeping in mind for the future: Gylwain, Casting Director, Treebear, Gracious Host, Wildwood Mentor