Hey friends! Welcome back to another EDHREC precon guide for Bloomburrow. Today we’re dumpster diving in the Gruul precon Animated Army, with our new favorite trash panda, Bello, Bard of the Brambles.

Who Are the Commanders of Animated Army?

Bello is a 3/3 Raccoon Bard for three mana (). During our turn all of our non-Equipment artifacts and non-Aura enchantments with MV four our higher become 4/4 Elemental creatures with indestructible and haste. And whenever one of these Elementals deals combat damage to an opponent, we draw a card. 

So we should expect a pretty high mana curve for this deck since we want a board full of enchantments and artifacts with 4+MV. Perhaps we’ll also see some Elemental synergy or evasion? Either way, this should be a very aggressive deck.

Our backup commander is Wildsear, Scouring Maw, a 6/6 Elemental Wolf for five mana () with trample that gives enchantment spells we cast from our hand cascade. Since we know a lot of our enchantments will be a bit pricier, giving them cascade seems like a pretty sweet payoff.

Here’s the decklist:

What Are the Themes and Strategies of the Deck?

Bello may be a little guy, but this deck is all about going big. Dropping big creatures, making them even bigger, and beating face. Bello turns all of our 4+MV artifacts and enchantments into 4/4s with indestructible and haste, but those aren’t the only big things happening here.

Ghalta, Primal Hunger is in the deck, and although it has no real synergy, when you’re a 12/12 with trample that costs as little as two mana, any concern for synergy kinda gets forgotten. We’ve also get Etali, Primal Storm for some card advantage, Grothama, All-Devouring for…what Grothama does, and Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma to add some power and toughness to our already big creatures, in addition to some crucial trample. 

There’s also Unnatural Growth, which doubles our creatures’ power and toughness at each combat. With Bellow in play, that means a board full of 8/8s. To make things even more brutal, the deck adds Berserkers’ Onslaught and Gratuitous Violence. Let me tell you, if you’ve got any combination of these three enchantments on the board, you will be “the problem.” But sometimes it’s fun to be the problem.

Is ramp a theme? Because if it is, then this is the most ramp-themed deck I’ve ever seen. I’m counting no less than 29 cards in this deck that I would classify as ramp. Is this overkill? Yes, yes it is. But it’s important to note that a few of our ramp cards, such as Hedron Archive, Thran Dynamo, Gilded Lotus, and Bootleggers’ Stash, will all be converted to creatures with Bello, so they’ll not only provide us extra mana, they’ll also provide us extra smash.

The deck also has a token sub-theme, which seems a bit unnecessary. But it’s here, so let’s talk about it. We’ve got a great reprint here with Tendershoot Dryad, which creates a Saproling at every upkeep, and boosts our Saprolings if we have the city’s blessing. Rampaging Baloths makes us a 4/4 token whenever we drop a land, which works nicely with cards like Goreclaw, Garruk's Uprising and Warstorm Surge. Primeval Bounty gives us a 3/3 Beast whenever we cast a creature spell (there are 22 in the deck) and also gives out +1/+1 counters when we cast noncreature spells. And Esika’s Chariot makes two 2/2 Cats on entry and copies a token whenever it attacks. These are all great cards, but they seem like they got placed in the wrong precon. 

How Do You Play Animated Army?

This deck’s average mana value is 4.02. One can’t help but imagine that the designers were trying to get it as close to four as possible. You know, for the memes. Normally this is a bit high, but as I mentioned before, the deck is packing almost 30 ramp cards. You won’t have any trouble playing the deck. I promise.

The only problem with this much mana available is keeping the cards coming. Even though we’re running a higher than normal amount of card advantage, when you have too much mana it’s hard to keep your hand full. Especially when much of our card advantage doesn’t draw cards, like Sunbird’s Invocation and Outpost Siege. 

So therein lies the problem. It’s too easy to just drop everything on the board, simply because we can. But beware, the deck doesn’t have ways to protect itself from board wipes, and only one way to bring back dead creatures (we’ll discuss it in the new cards section). However, the brilliant thing about this deck is that our 4+MV enchantments and artifacts are only creatures on our turn, meaning they won’t get wiped out by creature-based board wipes, which are mostly at sorcery speed on other players’ turns. And, of course, Bello gives them indestructible on our turn.

So how do opponents deal with us? It’s simple: they take out Bello. Without Bello on the board, we cease to have an army of artifacts and enchantments. While the deck doesn’t completely rely on them, it is kinda the whole point. Sadly, there’s no Swiftfoot Boots or Lightning Greaves to protect Bello; you just have to hope he sticks around for a while. Good luck with that, though. In my opinion, Bello is a kill-on-sight commander.

But, if you're able to keep Bello on the board, and keep the beaters coming, you'll have no trouble taking down pods with this deck.

You may notice a bit of a Treasure sub-theme in this deck. Unfortunately it’s so sub that it’s not reliable. We have Rain of Riches in the deck, which creates two on entry, but ceases to function once we run out of Treasure, outside of being a 4/4 for swinging. The only card in the deck that reliably creates many Treasures is Bootleggers’ Stash. While it can make a lot, it’s only one card. 

What Are the New Cards in Animated Army?

Let’s start with the other adorable Raccoons in the deck. Trailtracker Scout is a 1/3 that can tap for a mana of any color, and whenever we expend 8, we can return a permanent card from our graveyard to our hand. Expend is a new keyword in Bloomburrow, and applies to mana we spend to cast spells. So in this case, if we spend eight mana on spells in a turn, we can grab something from the yard. This card is pretty great in its ability to scale up with the game. It’s very relevant for providing mana in the early game, and when we’re spending more mana in the late game, it brings back important stuff that we lost. 

Prosperous Bandit is a 2/2 with offspring 1 that has first strike and creates Treasure tokens when it deals damage to opponents. I'd say 2/2s aren’t exactly great for getting through with combat damage in most EDH pods, but I seem to recall feeling the same way about Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, and we all know how popular he is in the cEDH meta. So maybe this Bandit will also find a home there.

Let’s move over to Elementals. Pyreswipe Hawk is a 4/4 with flying and haste for five mana, and when it attacks it gets +X/+0, where X is the highest mana value among our artifacts. And whenever we expend 6, we can gain control of an artifact for as long as we have the Hawk. This Bird is huge. Literally. If we’re in an artifact deck, chances are we’ve got something on the board that can turn Hawk into at least an 8/4. And with flying, that’s gonna beat some faces pretty easily. But the real trick here is the artifact theft. Sure we’re not gonna expend 6 every turn, but once we hit the mid game, our opponents aren’t gonna be too keen to let the Hawk stick around, lest they lose all their mana rocks and other precious artifacts to us. 

Evercoat Ursine is a 6/5 Elemental Bear with trample and two separate instances of hideaway 3, meaning we’ll exile two cards. We can cast one of the exiled cards for free when Evercoat deals combat damage to a player. Since it’s large and has trample, hitting an opponent with it shouldn’t be too difficult. As someone who hates the hideaway lands due to them entering tapped and the casting restrictions, I’m really happy to see the effect get a power boost here. I’d expect to see this showing up in Bant blink decks, since hideaway is an enter trigger. Just don’t blink it until you’ve played both of the exiled cards, or you’ll lose them forever.

Our last creature is Brightcap Badger, a 3/4 Badger Druid that turns our Fungi and Saprolings into Llanowar Elves and creates a Saproling at the end step. In addition to this, it also has an adventure spell. Fungal Escape is an instant that costs three and creates two Saproling tokens. It’s strange to see these effects on a Badger, and I think that might hold it back from seeing play in fungal decks like The Mycotyrant and Slimefoot, the Stowaway. But I am considering running it in my Temur adventure deck.

Of course, the deck needs some new artifacts and enchantments too. We’ll start with the Vehicle Rolling Hamsphere, a seven mana 4/4 that gets +1/+1 for each Hamster we control. And when we attack with it, it creates three 1/1 Hamster tokens and deals damage to any target equal to the number of Hamsters we control. It has a crew 3 cost, but with Bello on the board we don’t need to worry about it, since Bello turns it into an Elemental 4/4 creature. Hamsters aren’t exactly a big creature type. In fact, there’s only one card, Jolly Gerbils. But don’t forget about cards like Maskwood Nexus which can turn all of our critters into Hamsters, making Rolling Hamsphere a force to be reckoned with.

The Class card for this deck is Alchemist’s Talent, which gives us two tapped Treasures on entry. For two mana we move up to level two, and all our Treasures sacrifice for two mana instead of one, a la Goldspan Dragon. Then for five more mana we move up to level three, and whenever we cast a spell using mana from Treasure, we can deal damage to each opponent equal to that spell’s mana value. We all know how ubiquitous Treasures are these days, and I expect to see this getting added to a lot of Prosper, Tome-Bound and Olivia, Opulent Outlaw decks.

Our last new card is Thickest in the Thicket, a five-mana enchantment that puts +1/+1 counters on a creature when it enters equal to that creature’s power, and at our end step we draw two cards if we control the creature with the highest power on the board. This is basically a thickened up version of Triumph of Ferocity, with the additional two mana giving us a boost to one of our creatures and moving the card draw to the end step. The timing movement is huge, since we can potentially draw on the same turn we drop this enchantment, making it much more beneficial. This is easily going to see a ton of play in counters decks and big green stompy decks.

Is Animated Army Worth Buying?

Is the deck any good? Here’s my final grade:

A-

This deck is terrifying. If you manage to keep Bello on the board somehow, you’ll spend the entire game being the threat. If you can take that kind of heat, then this deck is absolutely for you. If punching face with big creatures sounds like fun, this deck is for you. And if hamster balls look like a fun means for bestowing damage on your enemies, then this deck is for you.

Does the deck need as much ramp as it has? No. Does it need to make tokens? No. Does it need ways to protect Bello? Absolutely yes. But despite these problems, the deck still pummels.

Some of the new cards are instant classics. Pyreswipe Hawk, Thickest in the Thicket, Alchemist’s Talent, and Rolling Hamsphere will all be making appearances in your Commander games very soon. The reprint quality is also very good, with standouts being Tendershoot Dryad, Greater Good, and Grothama, All-Devouring.

Can I make this deck better? Check out my Upgrade Guide to find out. And stay tuned for more precon guides, right here on EDHREC.

More Precon Goodies:

Squirreled Away Precon Review - Bloomburrow

Peace Offering Precon Review - Bloomburrow

Counterpunch - Ghave Precon Upgrade