Are you excited about the red-green Animated Army precon? So are many other Magic players, and who can blame them, as the deck is led by a trash panda (i.e. raccoon). This fascinating deck is the center of today’s article, as we discover everything that has been revealed about it so far.
On July 18th, full decklist was revealed, as well as all the new cards, so there’s quite a lot to discuss. Let’s get to it!
Making Trash, Doing Smash
When we first saw this deck, we were quite surprised. How could we not be, as our only clues were the following three lines of text:
- Animated army.
- Make trash.
- Do smash.
At first we thought, the deck might have something to do with Junk tokens, but that wasn’t the case. Instead, the deck plans to use expensive artifacts and enchantments for various synergies.
That’s an unusual theme for the deck, but that’s always welcome. It gets a bit boring if you always just have big creatures in red-green color combinations. So, without further ado, here’s the decklist!
Animated Army Decklist
The new cards’ images might not work, since they weren’t added to the Gatherer database.But don’t worry, you can find them in the following section.
Animated Army Spoilers
Bello turns all of your expensive enchantments and artifacts into 4/4 indestructible creatures on your turn. And as if that wasn’t enough, you’ll also draw cards, when they deal combat damage to opponents. Now that’s pretty neat.
The rest of spoilers were revealed in French, so we provided the translation for them, until we get the English previews. While the wording might not be exactly correct, you should still have a good idea of what each card does.
Animated Army Upgrade Ideas
The full upgrade guide is coming sometime next week, but I still wanted to shout-out three cards, that weren’t reprinted, but would fit nicely here. (Albeit for different reasons.) If you like these, you can order them now to get them alongside your precon. This way, you’ll be able to immediately replace some of the weaker cards.
Nature’s Will
Of course, you’ll want more enchantments and artifacts that do useful stuff, and cost 4 or more, so you can turn them into 4/4 creatures with Bello. Nature’s Will fits that criteria perfectly.
It triggers whenever you deal a damage with your creatures. Now, you’re already planning on doing this, so you can draw cards with Bello’s ability. So that’s on theme, which is a plus. What’s the effect you’re getting?
You get to untap all of your lands (and tap opponent’s, but that rarely matters). So, you use your mana in your first main phase, get a trigger, and use it in your second main phase. If you deal damage to multiple opponents, you get multiple triggers. This can be handy, if you can use mana at instant speed.
Plus, you can attack with it, when you control Bello. Pretty amazing.
Asceticism
Now this was one of my favorite cards when I started playing. It makes it much harder to mess up with your creatures, as they essentially get hexproof. Regenerate also helps against some board wipes. However, in the recent years, the card was just slightly too weak.
But in a Bello deck, this gets another upside, It can become a 4/4 creature itself. That might be just what this card needed to get back into that playable range. I don’t know about you, but I’m surely jamming this into the Animated Army precon, and I hope it plays as well as it used to back in the day.
Six
Now this is a little less synergistic of a card. Sure, it’s a really solid three drop, just printed in Modern Horizons 3. It’s actually one of the most played green cards in Commander from that set, according to EDHREC. It’s no wonder, as the card enables some really cool play patterns with lands. However, that still might not be quite enough.
But perhaps the flavor reasons will convince you. While the commander of this deck is actually named Bello, it’s very reminiscent of another raccoon, Rocket from the Guardians of the Galaxy. (Due to its orange clothing.) Of course, you’d then need Groot, and Six is as close as you’ll get in Magic. (Until the MTG Marvel set drops.)
You could also go with the borderless version of Six, as that one might look even more Groot-like. Of course, if that’s not your cup of tea, then you’ll probably look for different upgrades.
Conclusion
That’s all about the Animated Army precon. If you really like it, and want to lock-in the price now, and avoid any potential spikes, you can preorder the deck today.
Furthermore, if you like this cute design, don’t forget that there are three more decks being released alongside it. You can find all Bloomburrow Commander decks here. Even though they’re all extremely adorable, their themes are quite different. There’s bound to be something to fit your playstyle.
Until next time, have fun, and may you experience a lot of fun Commander games, be it with Animated Army or with another deck.