Welcome back friends! We’re here with another Bloomburrow precon guide on EDHREC, and today we’re upgrading Animated Army, the Gruul deck that turns enchantments and artifacts into creatures. In case you missed it, go check out my review of the deck, where we looked at what’s in the deck and how to play it.

This precon got one of my highest scores, due to its uniqueness, power level, and the amount of fun it is to play. But can we make this great deck even better?

Let’s tune up.

What’s in the Original Deck?

Animated Army is a red and green deck led by Bello, Bard of the Brambles, a 3/3 Raccoon Bard that turns all of our non-Aura enchantments and non-Equipment artifacts into 4/4 Elementals on our turn if those permanents have mana value (MV) of four or higher. The Elementals also get haste and indestructible, and on other players’ turns they cease to be creatures.

The backup commander is Wildsear, Scouring Maw, a 6/6 Elemental Wolf with trample that gives enchantment spells we cast from our hand cascade.

Here’s the original deck list:

What Budget Cards Can We Add to Animated Army?

We like to break these upgrades up into two parts, one for budget cards (less than $5 each) and one for non-budget ($5 or more).

The biggest thing the deck needed was protection for our creatures. We’re gonna throw in the obvious Swiftfoot Boots to help keep Bello on the board, but we’ll also add an enchantment that’s just perfect for the deck, Asceticism. This not only gives our creatures hexproof, it not only lets us regenerate our creatures, it also becomes a 4/4 creature on our turn. This is probably the most important addition to the deck.

As an aggro deck, it feels like beefing up our creatures is always the way to go. The precon already came with good cards like Unnatural Growth and Berserkers’ Onslaught, but I think we can go further. Sight of the Scalelords is probably a card you haven’t seen in many Commander decks (it’s currently only in 6,193 decks), but it’s likely to find a home in many Bello decks. It’s a five-mana enchantment, so it’ll be a creature on our turns, and it gives our creatures with toughness four or greater +2/+2 and vigilance. Since our whole animated army will have toughness four or greater, turning them all into 6/6s seems like a great idea.

We’ve also got Gruul War Plow to give our creatures trample, and Gruul War Chant to give our attackers +1/+0 and menace. Anything that helps us connect with opponents’ life totals. And for an enchantment with various effects, we’ll add Glorious Sunrise. This one can give our creatures +1/+1 and trample, but its other modes might come in handy as well.

To put even more pressure on our opponents, we’ll add Fiery Emancipation to triple our damage, and Bedlam to completely take blocking out of the equation.

I also wanted a little more card draw in the deck, so we’ll throw in Symmetry Matrix, Return of the Wildspeaker, which doubles as a finisher, and Mind’s Eye.

Our last budget upgrade is Molten Echoes. When this enchantment enters we’ll choose Elemental. Then all of our 4+MV enchantments and artifacts will come into play with a token copy. Just imagine having this on board and dropping an Unnatural Growth, or even a Rolling Hamsphere (you won’t lose the extra Hamster tokens!).

These ones are getting trashed: Alchemist’s Talent, Brightcap Badger, Burnished Hart, Etali, Primal Storm, Evolving Wilds, Grothama, All-Devouring, Kodama of the East Tree, Llanowar Loamspeaker, Prosperous Bandit, Rain of Riches, Rampaging Baloths, Tendershoot Dryad

Here’s our budget upgraded list:

And a couple more interesting cards to consider: Dual Nature, Nature’s Wrath, Creeping Renaissance

What Non-Budget Cards Can We Add to Animated Army?

First up in our expensive card upgrades, let’s add the biggest baddest anthem effect there is, Akroma’s Memorial. Our animated creatures already have indestructible and haste, why not throw in flying, vigilance, trample and pro black and red? Oh, and the Memorial also becomes a creature. What’s not to love?

For a bit more card advantage, we’ll add in Chimil, the Inner Sun, which not only gets us a free spell every turn with its discover effect, it also shuts down pesky blue players trying to stop our fun. We’ve also got Guardian Project, which will trigger off of our animated creatures since they enter as creatures, and The Great Henge for the card draw and some extra mana.

We’ve also got Nautiloid Ship for shutting down the reanimator decks, and stealing from them as well. Nylea, God of the Hunt is also here to provide trample and a pump effect. The rules interaction here, with regards to whether or not Nylea is a creature, is a bit tricky, so I'm gonna break this down with help from my judge friend Alex. 

If Nylea were on the battlefield first and then Bello entered later, Bello's effect takes precedence. First, Nylea says she isn't a creature if your devotion to green is less than five. Then, Bello says on your turn she's a 4/4 Elemental creature. On your turn, Nylea would be a 4/4 legendary enchantment creature --- Elemental God with indestructible, haste, and "whenever this creature deals..." This is regardless of your devotion to green. If it's not currently your turn, Nylea will be either a creature or not depending on your devotion.

If Bello were on the battlefield first and then Nylea entered later, Nylea's effect takes precedence. First, Bello says Nylea is a creature on your turn. Then, Nylea says she isn't a creature unless your devotion to green is five or more. If your devotion to green is five or more, Nylea is a creature. If it's your turn, she's a 4/4 with extras from Bello.

Got all that? Good. Moving on.

Our last non-budget additions are Mana Echoes, which will give us a bunch of colorless mana when we drop animated Elementals on our turn, and Heroic Intervention to protect our board.

These cards are getting dropped: Esika’s Chariot, Greater Good, Grumgully, the Generous, Gruul War Plow, Harmonize, Primeval Bounty, Teapot Slinger, Terramorphic Expanse

And here’s our non-budget upgraded list:

A couple more cards to ponder: Portal to Phyrexia, Vedalken Orrery

Animation Nation

Alright friends, that’s it for our Upgrade Guide for Animated Army. We cut out a lot of the token stuff from the original list that was just slowing us down, and added several anthem effects and a lot more card draw to keep things moving.

So what do you think? Did we make this deck better? Any cards we missed? Let me know in the comments below or hit me up on Twitter. And keep checking back for more precon goodness, right here on EDHREC.

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