ANIMATED ARMY. eighteen of them.

Opening hands

Seven cards from this build. Commanders start in the command zone. In multiplayer Commander, the first mulligan is free. For later mulligans, draw seven again; once you keep, put one card on the bottom for each mulligan beyond the free one.

KeepShow the seven

• Forest
• Mountain
• Command Tower
• Llanowar Elves
• Arcane Signet
• Esika's Chariot
• Heroic Intervention

T1 Forest into Elves; T2 Mountain supports Bello from the command zone; T3 Tower and your mana can deploy Chariot or retain protection. Both colors are available for the first casts.

BorderlineShow the seven

• Forest
• Mountain
• Arcane Signet
• Mind Stone
• Garruk's Uprising
• Thran Dynamo
• Beast Within

Two lands cast a T2 rock, but missing land three delays animation and protection. Keep at a slower table; use the first free mulligan to seek three lands against early pressure.

MulliganShow the seven

• Forest
• Sol Ring
• Gilded Lotus
• Warstorm Surge
• Unnatural Growth
• Bootleggers' Stash
• Crackle with Power

Ring alone does not supply red or another land. This hand has expensive payoffs without reliable colored development; ship even though Ring is present.

Bello, Bard of the Brambles strategy guide

Pace and examples. Turn windows below are author estimates and illustrative sequences, not measured multiplayer results or guarantees. A first opponent eliminated is not a whole-table win. In multiplayer the first mulligan is free; later mulligans follow the London procedure. The commander starts in the command zone, outside the seven-card examples.

Animated Army runs Bello, Bard of the Brambles ({1}{R}{G}, a 3/3 Legendary Creature, Raccoon Bard), and the deck is one sentence of his text box: “During your turn, each non-Equipment artifact and non-Aura enchantment you control with mana value 4 or greater is a 4/4 Elemental creature in addition to its other types and has indestructible, haste, and ‘Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, draw a card.’” Read the qualifiers, because every one of them cuts. During your turn and nobody else’s. Non-Equipment, which excludes three cards here by name whatever they cost. Non-Aura, which costs this deck nothing because it runs no Auras. And mana value 4 or greater, the line that sorts thirty cards into eighteen that turn on and twelve that never do. He is a 3/3 with no protection of his own, and the moment he leaves the battlefield every animated attacker stops being a creature and is removed from combat (CR 506.4). Protect him accordingly.

What the deck is doing

On your turn you have a dozen indestructible hasty 4/4s that each draw you a card when they connect. On everyone else’s turn you have a pile of mana rocks and enchantments and almost no creatures at all. That asymmetry is the deck, and it decides which removal can touch you and when.

• On your turn, damage sweepers do nothing to the eighteen, because Bello gives them indestructible. Edicts, sacrifice effects and exile still work, and so does anything aimed at Bello himself.
• On an opponent’s turn, creature removal and creature sweepers cannot see the eighteen at all, unless another effect makes one a creature, such as crewing Esika’s Chariot. Bello’s indestructibility is absent, but printed indestructible on The One Ring remains. Artifact and enchantment answers are the usual threats.

The deck has no nonland tutors and one conditional counterspell, Null Elemental Blast. Nothing in the ninety-nine searches your library for a nonland card. What it has instead is draw, eleven cards of it: The One Ring, The Ten Rings, The Great Henge, Garruk’s Uprising, Outcaster Trailblazer, Garruk’s Packleader, Shamanic Revelation, Hedron Archive, Mind Stone, Big Score and Sensei’s Divining Top, plus Bello’s own granted trigger on every animated permanent that gets through. Outpost Siege on Khans adds an impulse card at each upkeep, which is a play, not a draw.

The eighteen

The deck runs eighteen artifacts and twelve enchantments outside its creature slots. Thirty cards, and Bello animates exactly eighteen of them: nine artifacts and nine enchantments, so the halves do not line up with the card types. Here they are by mana value, so you can check a line at the table without rereading thirty cards.

Mana value 9. The Great Henge.

Mana value 8. The Ten Rings.

Mana value 6. Bootleggers’ Stash, March of the World Ooze, Warstorm Surge.

Mana value 5. Berserkers’ Onslaught, Gilded Lotus, Gratuitous Violence, Rain of Riches, The Eternity Elevator, Unnatural Growth.

Mana value 4. Alchemist’s Talent, Alien Invasion, Esika’s Chariot, Hedron Archive, Outpost Siege, The One Ring, Thran Dynamo.

One, one, three, six, seven. Eighteen.

Twelve never animate, and the reason splits three and nine.

Three are Equipment, which Bello’s own text excludes by subtype whatever they cost: Lightning Greaves ({2}), Swiftfoot Boots ({2}), Umbral Mantle ({3}). The Mantle would miss twice over, since it is also only mana value 3.

Nine sit under mana value 4: Sol Ring (1), Sensei’s Divining Top (1), Burgeoning (1), Arcane Signet (2), Gruul Signet (2), Mind Stone (2), Talisman of Impulse (2), Beastmaster Ascension (3), Garruk’s Uprising (3).

Esika’s Chariot is the one that looks like an exception and is not. It is a Legendary Artifact, Vehicle, at mana value 4. A Vehicle is not an Equipment, so Bello animates it on your turn with no crew paid at all, and its printed 4/4 is the same size Bello sets anyway. Crew 4 still matters on an opponent’s turn, when nothing you own is animated: the Chariot and Raging Ravine are the two permanents you can switch on as blockers. Haywire Mite is the other near miss: it is an Artifact Creature, so it is already a creature, but at mana value 1 Bello was never going to touch it.

The bracket audit

Bracket 4Commander brackets: 1 Exhibition, 2 Core, 3 Upgraded, 4 Optimized, 5 cEDH. Assess Game Changers, intent, pace and disruptive patterns together., declared up front. The audit line by line.

• Game Changers. Exactly two, and Bracket 4 has no cap: Ancient Tomb GC (Game Changer) and The One Ring GC (Game Changer). No other card in the hundred is on the list.
• Infinite combos. One engine, two shapes, both disclosed before the shuffle: Umbral Mantle attached to an animated permanent that taps for three mana. On Thran Dynamo, Gilded Lotus or The Eternity Elevator, all three of which tap for exactly three, it is unbounded power and no net mana. On The Eternity Elevator at twenty or more charge counters it is unbounded mana, and Crackle with Power turns that into a table kill.
• Mass land denial. None.
• Extra turns. None. Full Throttle and Great Train Heist add combat phases, not turns, and that distinction gets said out loud because it sounds identical across a table.
• Tutors. None that find a nonland card. Six cards search the library and all six find lands: Farseek, Nature’s Lore, Rampant Growth, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse. Mosswort Bridge looks at the top four and hides one of them, which is selection rather than a search, and Sensei’s Divining Top reorders three.
• Expected game length. First-elimination estimate: around turn six or seven from combat; a table win takes longer. These are untested estimates supporting a pregame conversation, not measured fit.

Mulligan

You need two things in the opener: a path to {1}{R}{G} on turn three, and at least one of the eighteen to point him at. A hand full of the twelve that miss is a hand with no deck in it.

Snap keeps.

• Sol Ring with usable colored mana and action. Ring accelerates generic costs; keep only when the lands still cover red and green and the remaining cards develop the plan.
• Three lands, mana to cast Bello from the command zone, and one of the eighteen. That is the curve the deck was built on.
• Two lands, a green one-drop, and a four-drop. Birds of Paradise or Llanowar Elves into Bello on turn two, then the first 4/4 on turn three.

Ship back.

• Lands plus only the twelve that miss. A grip of Arcane Signet, Gruul Signet and Sensei’s Divining Top ramps into nothing.
• No green source. Green is the heavier half of the requirement: 44 green pips against 30 red across the sixty-four nonland cards.
• Five or more lands with no action. You have 36 lands. You will find more.

The kill lines

Every line here needs Bello on the battlefield, and every one of them happens inside your own main phase and combat. Pick off what is already down rather than off what you hope to draw, because nothing in this deck goes and gets a card.

Wincon 1 · the eighteen attack, and Gratuitous Violence doubles all of it

The default kill and the one you will use most games. Bello resolves, three or four of the eighteen are already on the battlefield, and they all attack as indestructible hasty 4/4s that each draw a card on connect. Nothing needs to be assembled. The multipliers stack on top, and most of them are themselves among the eighteen, which means they attack while they multiply.

• Gratuitous Violence, mana value 5, doubles every point of damage your creatures deal.
• Berserkers’ Onslaught, mana value 5, gives attacking creatures you control double strike, so each animated permanent hits twice and draws twice.
• Unnatural Growth, mana value 5, doubles the power and toughness of each creature you control at the beginning of each combat.
• March of the World Ooze, mana value 6, sets base power and toughness 6/6 instead of Bello’s 4/4 if it landed after him. Read the layers trap before you count on it.
• Beastmaster Ascension, mana value 3 and not animated, needs seven quest counters. A seven-attacker board puts all seven on during one declare-attackers step, so the +5/+5 is live for that same combat.
• Garruk’s Uprising, mana value 3 and not animated, gives the whole team trample. It is the only blanket evasion in the ninety-nine.
• Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma gives each creature you control with power 4 or greater +1/+1 and trample whenever he attacks, which is every one of the eighteen.
• Domri, Anarch of Bolas is a static +1/+0 to creatures you control, which on your turn includes all of them.
• Ouroboroid puts counters equal to its own power on each creature you control at the beginning of combat on your turn. At 1/3 that is one apiece, and it counts itself, so the number doubles every turn. Those counters stay on the permanents for good.

The One Ring is the standout attacker, because it can swing and tap for cards on the same turn. That line is written out in the traps below.

Wincon 2 · Umbral Mantle on a rock that taps for three, unbounded power

Three cards: Bello, Umbral Mantle, and any one of Thran Dynamo, Gilded Lotus or The Eternity Elevator. The order inside the loop is forced, and getting it backwards is the most common way to lose the line.

1. Bello is on the battlefield and it is your turn, so Thran Dynamo is a 4/4 Elemental with haste and indestructible.
2. Attach the Umbral Mantle for its Equip {0}. Equip means attach to target creature you control, activate only as a sorcery (CR 702.6a), so this only ever happens in your own main phase with the stack empty, and only while the rock is a creature.
3. Tap the Dynamo for {C}{C}{C} first. The Mantle grants “{3}, {Q}: This creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn.” The {Q} is the untap symbol, and a permanent that is already untapped cannot be untapped to pay it (CR 107.6), so a fresh untapped rock cannot start the loop.
4. Activate the granted ability. The three colorless you just floated pays the {3}, because generic costs can be paid with any type of mana (CR 107.4b), and mana stays in your pool until the end of the step or phase (CR 106.4), so nothing is lost between the tap and the activation.
5. The Dynamo is untapped and two bigger. Go back to step 3.

Each cycle is mana neutral and +2/+2. Bello sets base power and toughness 4/4 in layer 7b and the Mantle modifies in layer 7c (CR 613.4b, CR 613.4c), so N cycles gives you a rock that is 4 plus 2N in both boxes. Gilded Lotus is the identical loop in color, since it taps for three mana of any one color and the {3} takes any of it. The Eternity Elevator is the third carrier, off its printed “{T}: Add {C}{C}{C},” which it has at any counter count.

Two rocks look like they loop and do not. Hedron Archive taps for {C}{C} and The Great Henge taps for {G}{G}, so each cycle costs a mana. They pump twice off a full pool and then stop.

Haste is doing real work here. A rock you cast this turn has not been under your control since the turn began, so the summoning sicknessA creature cannot attack, and cannot activate an ability with the tap or untap symbol in its cost, unless it has been under its controller's control continuously since their most recent turn began (CR 302.6). Haste turns it off, and it never applies to other permanent types. rule would block both its own tap ability and the Mantle’s untap symbol (CR 302.6). Bello grants haste, which lifts exactly that restriction for both (CR 702.10c).

The limits, said out loud. The loop only exists during your turn, because that is the only window in which a rock is a creature. The +2/+2 is until end of turn and resets every cleanup. And the Mantle falls off and has to be re-attached, which costs nothing but is sorcery speed. A giant indestructible attacker still has to connect: Garruk’s Uprising or an attacking Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma supplies the trample.

Wincon 3 · The Eternity Elevator at twenty charge counters, unbounded mana into Crackle with Power

The Eternity Elevator is {5}, a Legendary Artifact, Spacecraft, mana value 5 and not an Equipment, so Bello animates it. Its base ability is “{T}: Add {C}{C}{C}.” Its stationTap another creature you control to put charge counters equal to that creature's power on this Spacecraft. You may only do it at sorcery speed. ability reads “Tap another creature you control: Put charge counters equal to its power on this Spacecraft. Station only as a sorcery.” At 20 or more charge counters it gains “{T}: Add X mana of any one color, where X is the number of charge counters on The Eternity Elevator.”

The assembly, all of it in one main phase:

1. Run the Wincon 2 loop on Thran Dynamo until its power is 20 or more. Eight cycles makes it a 20/20, and the cycles cost nothing.
2. Station the Elevator: tap the Dynamo, and the Elevator gets charge counters equal to its power. Station is sorcery speed, so you are still in your own main phase with the stack empty.
3. Move the Umbral Mantle onto the Elevator for Equip {0}. The Elevator is animated, so it is a legal creature to attach to.
4. Tap the Elevator for X, then pay {3} and the untap symbol to untap it. Net gain is X minus 3 a cycle, and X is 20 or more.
5. Repeat for as much mana as you want, then cast Crackle with Power, which is {X}{X}{X}{R}{R} and deals five times X damage to each of up to X targets.

The honest split between this line and the one above: Thran Dynamo, Gilded Lotus and the Elevator’s own {C}{C}{C} ability give unbounded power and never a single extra mana, because each taps for exactly the {3} the Mantle asks for. Only the Elevator at 20 or more counters gives unbounded mana, and only unbounded mana turns into Crackle with Power.

Wincon 4 · Full Throttle or Great Train Heist, and Etali off the back of it

Full Throttle is {4}{R}{R}: “After this main phase, there are two additional combat phases. At the beginning of each combat this turn, untap all creatures that attacked this turn.” Great Train Heist is {R} with Spree, and its {2}{R} mode reads “Untap all creatures you control. If it’s your combat phase, there is an additional combat phase after this phase.” Modes are additional costs, so the untap version of the Heist actually costs you {2}{R}{R}, and it only creates a combat if you cast it during your own combat phase.

The rule that decides how you play both is in the traps below: neither one gives you an extra main phase, so ordinary artifact and enchantment casts from hand belong before combat. Etali and Mosswort Bridge can still deploy spells during combat, with new hasty creatures ready for a later swing.

Unnatural Growth is what makes extra combats disproportionate. It triggers at the beginning of each combat and doubles power and toughness until end of turn, so across three combats in one turn a 4/4 attacks as an 8/8, then a 16/16, then a 32/32.

Etali, Primal Storm attacks in every one of them. Each attack exiles the top card of each player’s library and lets you cast any number of them without paying their mana costs. With Bello out, any of the eighteen you flip enters as a 4/4 and fires Warstorm Surge, The Great Henge, Garruk’s Uprising, Outcaster Trailblazer and Garruk’s Packleader on the way in. Three honest limits on Etali: he exiles off your own library too, so you burn your own top card each attack; anything you cast this way is cast for free, so an {X} spell arrives at X equals 0; and per his own ruling, “Because all attacking creatures are chosen at once, a creature cast this way can’t attack during the same combat as Etali, even if it has haste.” With extra combats it attacks in the next one.

The turns

Rules that will come up

Interaction and what to point it at

Nine instants, two fights, a planeswalker and a sacrifice outlet. Null Elemental Blast is a conditional counterspell for multicolored spells. Balance proactive removal with holding true colorless mana for that answer.

Heroic Intervention is the card that protects the plan, and the plan is Bello. {1}{G} gives permanents you control hexproof and indestructible until end of turn. The eighteen already have indestructible on your turn, so what you are actually buying is hexproof on a 3/3 commander whose death ends your combat. Know its limits: hexproof and indestructible do nothing against an edict, a sacrifice effect, a minus-X/-X sweeper, or a bounce or exile that targets nothing.

Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots are the standing version of the same job. Greaves are haste and shroud for Equip {0}. Boots are hexproof and haste for Equip {1}. The difference costs you something real: shroud means you cannot target him either, so the Greaves turn off Knockout Maneuver and Domri, Anarch of Bolas’s fight pointed at your own commander, which you would rarely want anyway. Both fall off at the first opponent’s upkeep if they were on an animated permanent instead of on a real creature, so read the Equipment trap before you park one on a rock.

Force of Vigor is free on somebody else’s turn, exiling a green card from your hand, and destroys up to two artifacts or enchantments. It is the two-for-one against the seat doing what you are doing, and it is also exactly the card the table has against you.

Abrade is 3 damage to a creature or destroy an artifact, and the artifact mode is the one that earns the slot at this power level. Beast Within destroys any permanent and hands over a 3/3, which makes it one of the two unconditional answers in the deck and the only one that destroys. Chaos Warp is the other: it shuffles a permanent into its owner’s library, so it gets around indestructible entirely by never destroying anything, though it still targets, so hexproof and shroud stop it.

Haywire Mite is {G} and a sacrifice to exile a noncreature artifact or noncreature enchantment. It exiles rather than destroys, so indestructible does not save the target. The clause cuts both ways at this table: during your turn it cannot point at any of your own eighteen, because during your turn they are creatures.

Null Elemental Blast costs {C} and counters or destroys a multicolored spell or permanent. Two limits get said at the table. It does nothing at all to a mono-colored or colorless threat. And Bello is multicolored, so an opposing copy answers your commander for one mana.

Knockout Maneuver puts a +1/+1 counter on a creature you control and then has it deal damage equal to its power to a creature an opponent controls. Pointed at a 4/4 animated permanent it is 5 damage, 10 under Gratuitous Violence, and the counter stays on the permanent for good.

Two more that are not removal in the usual sense. Big Score is an instant that discards a card, draws two and makes two Treasures, which is the refuel after a sweeper. And The One Ring’s enter trigger gives you protection from everything until your next turn, not your permanents, so it blanks burn and player-targeted effects aimed at you and does nothing whatsoever for Bello.

Mana notes

• Lands, 36. 10 Forest, 8 Mountain, and 18 nonbasics. Average mana value across the sixty-four nonland cards including the commander is 3.67, which is a high curve carried by a lot of rocks.
• Green sources, 23 lands. The 10 Forest, Mosswort Bridge, and the twelve that make either color: Cinder Glade, Command Tower, Copperline Gorge, Game Trail, Karplusan Forest, Mossfire Valley, Raging Ravine, Rootbound Crag, Sheltered Thicket, Spire Garden, Training Compound, Wooded Ridgeline. Green is 44 of the 74 colored pips, so it is the half you mulligan for.
• Red sources, 20 lands. The 8 Mountain plus those same twelve. Red is 30 pips. Exotic Orchard adds either color, or neither, depending entirely on what the table is playing.
• Enters tapped, 9. Always: Mosswort Bridge, Raging Ravine, Sheltered Thicket, Wooded Ridgeline. Conditionally: Cinder Glade, Copperline Gorge, Game Trail, Rootbound Crag, Spire Garden.
• No colored mana at all, 4. Ancient Tomb and Reliquary Tower tap for colorless only. Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse tap for nothing: they sacrifice for a basic, tapped.

The conditions are worth knowing verbatim, because four of the five are usually met. Cinder Glade “enters tapped unless you control two or more basic lands”, and the deck runs eighteen basics. Copperline Gorge “enters tapped unless you control two or fewer other lands”, so it is a turn-one to turn-three land and a tapped land after that. Rootbound Crag “enters tapped unless you control a Mountain or a Forest”. Spire Garden “enters tapped unless you have two or more opponents”, so at a four-player table it is simply untapped. Game Trail enters tapped unless you reveal a Mountain or Forest card from your hand. Training Compound puts its condition on the mana instead of the land: “{T}: Add {R} or {G}. Activate only if this land entered this turn or if you control a basic land.” With eighteen basics, that is almost always on, and its colorless ability has no condition at all.

Treasure is a real second mana base here. Rain of Riches makes two on arrival and gives cascade to the first spell each turn that Treasure mana paid for. Alchemist’s Talent makes two tapped on arrival, and at Level 2 every Treasure you control taps and sacrifices for two mana of any one color. Big Score makes two. Bootleggers’ Stash gives every land you control a tap for a Treasure. Great Train Heist’s {R} mode banks one for every creature that connects with a chosen opponent. And Roxanne, Starfall Savant adds one more mana of a type produced whenever you tap an artifact token for mana. A Treasure boosted by the Talent therefore makes three mana with Roxanne, not four.

Your own mana hurts you, and it adds up on the turn you go off. Ancient Tomb is 2 damage a tap, Karplusan Forest is 1 for colored, Talisman of Impulse is 1 for colored, and The One Ring bills you a life per burden counter at every one of your upkeeps. Count the total before you start the turn rather than in the middle of it.

How this deck loses

• Bello eats a removal spell in your first main phase. That is not one card for one card, it is one card for your entire board. The deck’s own answers, cheapest first: Lightning Greaves at Equip {0}, Swiftfoot Boots at Equip {1}, Heroic Intervention at {1}{G} covering everything including him, and Domri, Anarch of Bolas’s plus one making the Bello cast itself uncounterable. None of them answers an edict, a sacrifice effect or a nontargeted exile or toughness-reduction sweeper. And recasting him is not free: commander tax climbs, and his new timestamp drags an animated board back from 6/6 to 4/4 under March of the World Ooze.
• Artifact and enchantment hate is a one-sided sweeper aimed at you. Thirty-one of the ninety-nine are artifacts or enchantments once you count Haywire Mite, which is an Artifact Creature. On opponents’ turns Bello no longer animates them, but printed indestructible remains on The One Ring and other effects can create creatures, including a crewed Chariot. Destruction, exile and sacrifice need different answers. What you have back is Force of Vigor, Abrade, Beast Within, Chaos Warp and Haywire Mite to answer theirs, Null Elemental Blast if theirs is multicolored, and Heroic Intervention to protect yours. When the hate piece is itself a creature, Knockout Maneuver and the two fights reach it as well.
• You sell your own board with your own Blasphemous Act. It kills Bello and takes the animation with him. Read the trap before you cast it, every time.
• Chump blockers. Every animated permanent is a ground creature with no evasion of its own. Garruk’s Uprising is the only card that gives the team trample by itself. Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma grants it only on a turn he attacks, and only to creatures with power 4 or greater, which is all eighteen. Ghalta, Primal Hunger and Wildsear, Scouring Maw bring their own. Without one of those out, a 32/32 kills exactly one 2/2.
• Nothing in the deck goes and gets a card. No tutors. The three-card Mantle line is drawn into or it does not happen, so plan the fair kill first and treat the loop as the game you got lucky in. Eleven draw pieces plus Bello’s combat trigger are the whole engine for finding anything.
• Everything happens in your main phase. Casting the eighteen, equipping, stationing, Full Throttle: all sorcery speed, all face up, all on your own turn. On somebody else’s turn you have the nine instants and a handful of activated abilities: Haywire Mite’s sacrifice, Mind Stone and Hedron Archive cashing themselves in, Sensei’s Divining Top, crewing Esika’s Chariot and animating Raging Ravine (CR 113.3b). A tax on attacking or a single well-timed answer lands with the entire plan already committed.
• The deck is fifteen creatures and a commander against thirty artifacts and enchantments. On the turns when that math protects you it protects you completely, and on the turns when it does not, it is the only math anyone at the table needs.