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Animated Army is one of the four pre-constructed Commander decks released as a part ofMagic: The Gathering’sBloomburrow set. It is a Gruul (red/green) Commander deck that is focused on turning artifacts and enchantments with high mana values into indestructible creatures with a secondary focus on ramp.
Animed Army has a clear gameplan, and does a good job of doing what it sets out to do. Bello, Bard of the Brambles is a great commander, and the secondary commander Wildsear, Scouring Maw is great too if you want to shift to a more enchantment focus as opposed to straight combat.
Thickest in the Thicket
x8 Mountain
x10 Forest
The deck consists of22 creatures, 14 artifacts, one planeswalker, 13 enchantments, five instants, seven sorceries, and 38 lands.
Key Cards
Bello, Bard Of The Brambles
The face commander, Bello, Bard of the Bramblesis what is driving the main gimmick of the deck. Itturns all your artifacts and enchantments into 4/4s with indestructible that draw cards on hit.Thisonly happens on your turn, keeping them safe from board wipes during your opponents' turns.
Since Bello doesn’t actually need to do anything to trigger the effects, it can sit back on the battlefield so it stays safe during combat. You can cast Bello fairly early thanks to its low casting cost, allowing you to immediately start animating your permanents into big threats.
Rolling Hamsphere
Your artifacts and enchantments with high mana values are important, with Rolling Hamspherebeing one of the most important ones. It doesn’t have the biggest stat at a baseline, but those stats continuously grow with each attack as you make more Hamster tokens.
The benefit of Rolling Hamsphere with Bello is thatit will turn it into a creature withouthaving to pay for it to be crewed. Although Bello gives it a base power and toughness of 4/4, Rolling Hamsphere keeps its ability, so the number of Hamsters you have will still boost it to higher stats.
Bootleggers' Stash
Bootleggers' Stash is a great artifact for Animated Amry since you’ll want to generate a lot of mana. By turning yourlands into Treasure tokengenerators, this can help ramp you quickly to have a ton of Treasures before your turn begins, since you’re able to use the ability at instant speed.
SinceBootleggers' Stash is more than four mana, Bello can animate itas a creature to get in for damage and draw you cards, potentially getting you more ways to put lands onto the battlefield.
Berserkers' Onslaught
Berserkers' Onslaught is the best enchantment in the deck for what Animated Amry wants to be doing. The effect simplygives all your attacking creatures double strike, which lets you turn all your other animated permanents into 4/4s with double strike, which can do a hefty amount of damage.
Bello triggers the draw effect whenever the animated artifact or enchantment deals damage. Since double strike deals damage twice, this will draw you two cards instead of just one if it isn’t blocked.
Berserkers' Onslaught has a relatively low mana cost for the effect, and with how easily Animated Army can ramp, you may get Berserkers' Onslaught onto the battlefield rather early to get the most out of its effect.
Pyreswipe Hawk
Expending is something very easy to do in Animated Army, so it becomes very easy to trigger Pyreswipe Hawk. There is a low amount of artifacts you can animate in the decklist, but Pyreswipe Hawkcan steal your opponents' artifacts and turn them into weapons.
Notably, the expend six for Pyreswipe Hawkdoesn’t have to be on your turn, so if you have high-mana interaction for your opponents, you’re able to steal multiple artifacts in one turn cycle before it circles back around to your turn.
How To Play The Deck
Animated Army isall about ramping quickly andgetting your artifacts and enchantments down onto the battlefield as quickly as possible. The deck has asub-theme in expend(spending a certain amount of mana to cast spells), which plays into casting your higher mana value artifacts and enchantments that Bello can turn into creatures.
The mana curve for Animated Army is fairly high, so cards likeThran Dynamo, Gilded Lotus,andHedron Archive,which can tap for more than one mana,are key mana rocksfor the deck. These all also have a mana value that’s larger than four, allowing Bello to turn them into attacking creatures if you don’t use them for mana.
Since your mana curve is so high, you tend to have little to no defenses in the early game, so aggro decks can be a hurdle if they choose to target you. Once your gameplan gets going, it can snowball, but getting there can be a struggle if you get targeted before you start animating permanents.
The creature lineup is very important, as Bello makes artifacts and enchantments into creatures only on your turn, so they can’t be used defensively. As such, the actualcreatures in the deck are going to be your primary source of defense.
The mainwin condition for Animated Army is towin through combat damage. With how many artifacts and enchantments are in the deck, you can amass a large army of 4/4 creatures, and since they are indestructible, can swing with reckless abandon without worrying about them being destroyed.
Potential Upgrades
Muerra, Trash Tactician
Another Raccoon for Animated Army, Muerra, Trash Tacticiancan help you ramp byadding mana for all the Raccoons you have on the battlefield. It plays well into expend strategies, gaining you life and exiling cards to play later to keep up your card advantage.
Hugs, Grisly Guardian
Hugs, Grisly Guardian is a way to give you extra ramp byletting you play an extra land each turn. In addition, the X in the casting cost is a great mana sink to help trigger your expend abilities easily, all while getting the opportunity to play the cards you exile the rest of the turn and next.
Nature’s Will
Since Animated Army doubles as a ramp deck, Nature’s Willis a perfect fit. It has a mana value of four letting Bello turn it into a creature, andturns any combat damage from a creature into untapping all your lands(or your opponent’s if you want). This lets you have an excess amount of mana to use with all the cards you draw off your attack while Bello is on the battlefield.
Sight Of The Scalelords
Sight of the Scalelordsturns all your creatures with four toughness or higher into 6/6s with vigilance. Since Bello turns artifacts and enchantments into 4/4s, with Sight of the Scalelords they essentially become 6/6s.
The vigilance is also very notable, as thislets you attack with your mana rocksand also use them for mana after the attack.
Suggested cuts are lands, as 38 is more than necessary with how much ramp is in the deck.
