commander · Bello, Bard of the Brambles
Animated Army (BLC).
A Gruul enchantment-creature deck led by Bello, Bard of the Brambles — animate your enchantments into creatures, swing with an army of living spells, and close games with damage multipliers like Warstorm Surge.
The Commanders
Animated Army is a Gruul Commander deck from Bloomburrow built around a unique angle: making your enchantments into creatures and attacking with them. Bello, Bard of the Brambles leads this strategy by giving your enchantments — Auras, global enchantments, Sagas — base power and toughness based on their mana value, then rewarding you for attacking with them. The result is a deck where a Warstorm Surge is also a 5/5 attacker.
Bello, Bard of the Brambles animates your enchantments into creatures with power and toughness equal to their mana value. A three-mana enchantment becomes a 3/3. A six-mana enchantment becomes a 6/6. With damage multipliers and enters-the-battlefield triggers, this creates an army from permanents that opponents rarely point removal at. Bello rewards building with high-mana-value enchantments and turns the typical control weakness of enchantment-heavy lists into aggressive board pressure.
Key Cards
Warstorm Surge
Damage on a trigger every time a creature enters the battlefield. With Bello animating enchantments, every enchantment you cast triggers Warstorm Surge for damage equal to that creature's power. Cast a six-mana enchantment — it becomes a 6/6 and immediately deals 6 damage to any target. In a turn where you cast three enchantments, that's three separate Warstorm Surge triggers. The deck uses this as a direct damage win condition separate from combat, and it's extremely difficult for opponents to interact with.
Gratuitous Violence
A three-mana enchantment that doubles all damage your creatures deal. Under Bello, it's also a 3/3 attacker. When the deck's animated enchantment-creatures swing, Gratuitous Violence doubles every point of combat damage they deal. Combined with Warstorm Surge, each creature entry deals double its power in damage. This is the deck's most efficient damage multiplier — it costs only three mana and it immediately becomes part of your attack force.
Rampaging Baloths
One of the deck's strongest non-enchantment threats. Each land drop creates a 4/4 Beast token — and this deck runs enough ramp to drop multiple lands per turn. These Beast tokens join the animated enchantment-creatures as attackers. Baloths doesn't require any setup beyond itself, generates tokens immediately, and puts a fast clock on the table. Against decks with few sweepers, the Beast army alone can close games before the enchantment-animation engine fully develops.
Tendershoot Dryad
Token generation on a schedule. Tendershoot Dryad creates a 1/1 Plant token at the beginning of each player's upkeep — that's three to four Plant tokens per round in a four-player game. Once City's Blessing is active (ten or more permanents), those Plants become 3/3s. This generates an army of tokens separate from the enchantment-animation plan, providing backup board presence and chump blockers that delay opponents long enough for the main engine to close games.
Ghalta, Primal Hunger
A 12/12 trampler that costs as little as two mana. With Bello creating a board full of animated enchantments-as-creatures, Ghalta's cost reduction frequently brings her down to two or three mana on turn five or six. A 12/12 trampler that enters and triggers Warstorm Surge for 12 damage to any target is often lethal. She's the deck's biggest single threat and requires a two-for-one answer or she ends the game by herself within two attacks.
Etali, Primal Storm
Free spells every attack. Whenever Etali attacks, you exile the top card of each opponent's library and may cast those spells for free. In Commander with three opponents, that's three free spells every combat step. Etali generates massive card advantage while pressuring opponents simultaneously — and every spell you cast for free might be more enchantments to animate with Bello, more damage multipliers, or removal to clear blockers. Etali turns one attack step into a full extra turn's worth of resources.
How to Play
Start with ramp — this deck needs six or seven mana to deploy multiple enchantments per turn. Get Sol Ring, Gilded Lotus, or green ramp spells down by turn three. Bello comes out turn four or five after you have enough mana to also cast an enchantment the same turn. Establish Rampaging Baloths or Tendershoot Dryad as early token generators to build board presence while the engine comes online.
The win condition is clear: get Warstorm Surge into play, then cast high-mana-value enchantments that each deal their mana value in damage on entry. Three enchantments in a single turn deals 15-20 damage spread across opponents. Gratuitous Violence doubles that. With Etali stealing opponents' best spells and Ghalta closing games through combat, the deck has multiple redundant paths to victory. Attack early and often — Bello's animated enchantments are unexpected attackers that catch opponents off guard.