For today’s Commander Deep Dive, I wanted to take a look at the new legendary creatures from Bloomburrow Commander, specifically Bello, Bard of the Brambles!
Bello brings cool and unique deckbuilding considerations to Gruul. During your turn, each non-Equipment artifact and non-Aura enchantment you control with mana value four 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.”
This incentivizes you to fill out the top of your mana curve with cool enchantments or artifacts that Bello turns into creatures when they enter, and you can attack with right away. This definitely lends itself to an aggressive stance, since Bello’s animating ability only happens during your turn; on the other players’ turns, all your artifacts and enchantments are just… artifacts and enchantments.
A part of the deckbuilding puzzle is to figure out ways to protect yourself on your opponents’ turns, since your horde of Elementals won’t be available to block for you. Do you play Fog effects like Spore Frog, Tangle, and Obscuring Haze? How about deathtouch blockers like Deadly Recluse, Tower Winder, and Thornweald Archer? A mix of both?
Let’s dig in!
Four-Mana Enchantments
These are the four-mana enchantments that caught my eye, with Case of the Locked Hothouse particularly awesome since you’ll want to be accelerating your mana to cast higher-cost spells or have double-spell turns. Once you’ve solved the Case, you’ll be able to play lands, creatures, and most importantly enchantments from the top of your deck (assuming you’re playing a lot of enchantments).
Nature’s Will plays nicely with the idea of your opponents not wanting to block your indestructible 4/4, so you’ll get access to all your mana again during your second main phase. Gruul War Chant can help ensure your 4/4s deal combat damage by giving them menace when they attack—including itself! And how much fun is it that you could cast Guardian Project with Bello on the battlefield, and it will draw a card from itself? Lots, that’s how much fun!
Five-Mana Enchantments
Over the course of a game, 4/4 creatures will often get outclassed in a typical game of Commander, facing down larger and larger creatures on your opponent’s side of the battlefield. That’s why I really love playing enchantments that help make your attackers much more threatening. Unnatural Growth will double the power and toughness of your creatures at the beginning of each combat, making all your 4/4s into 8/8s. Berserkers’ Onslaught practically does the same thing by giving all of your attacking creatures double strike, and obviously goes great alongside Unnatural Growth! Gratuitous Violence also effectively doubles your 4/4s’ power and also stacks with the other boosters too.
Glorious Sunrise gives you a choice to make at the beginning of combat on your turn, providing all your creatures +1/+1 and trample until the end of the turn, which makes your animated 4/4s much better at punching through damage. The other modes can be situationally useful too, with the card draw requirement easily met when Bello is on the battlefield.
Six- or More-Mana Enchantments
Fiery Emancipation and City on Fire continue the idea of making your attacking 4/4s even more threatening. Sunbird’s Invocation is a powerful enchantment that usually suffers from the fact that you’ve invested six mana for an enchantment that will generally not do anything until your next turn, when you’ll have enough mana to cast a spell from your hand. But with Bello, Sunbird’s Invocation can immediately beat down as a 4/4 (or bigger), and perhaps even draw you card.
Enchantments Matter
One thing you could do with Bello is to lean heavily on enchantments, and then round your list out with other cards that care about enchantments. At the top of the list are all the “Enchantress” cards that green has access to, such as Verduran Enchantress, Enchantress’s Presence, and Setessan Champion, which will draw you extra cards. Eidolon of Blossoms will draw a card for you too, and it also has the benefit of being a four-mana 2/2 enchantment creature, so it will appreciate Bello’s boost on your turn.
Bello’s backup commander in the precon is Wildsear, Scouring Maw, which gives your enchantment spells you cast from your hand cascade, which is always a fun mechanic!
Elvish Archivist is a neat card that I totally missed from Wilds of Eldraine; it will only trigger once each turn, but it actually provides a benefit when an artifact or enchantment enters under your control. So, if your Bello deck runs both artifacts and enchantments, you might slot Elvish Archivist into the deck.
Four-Mana Artifacts
On the artifact side of the equation, I really like Vehicles, since Bello effectively wakes them all up without needing to crew them. In some cases, being a 4/4 will be a downgrade to their typical power and toughness, so you’ll want to pick Vehicles that have trample or flying to make up for that. Nautiloid Ship is a really cool Vehicle, nuking a player’s graveyard when it enters and letting you deploy a creature it exiled when it deals combat damage, so Bello giving it haste and letting you attack right away will be awesome.
Nevinyrral’s Disk isn’t a Vehicle, but it has the ability to tap and destroy all creatures, artifacts, and enchantments. If you activate it on your turn with Bello on the battlefield, since the Disk is a four-mana artifact, it will be indestructible, so it won’t kill itself or any other artifact or enchantment that is four or more mana. Of course, Bello will typically die when the ability resolves, so you’ll want to use this after you attack with your 4/4s, and you can always cast Bello again afterward to set up that play again.
Five-Mana Artifacts
Giving Skysovereign, Consul Flagship haste with Bello means you’ll get to deal three damage when it enters and when it attacks right away. Canoptek Spyder is already a 4/4 artifact creature, but it will draw you a card with Bello on the battlefield whenever you cast a four-mana or more artifact, since it will also be a creature.
With Bello, Forsaken Monument will boost itself, along with any other colorless artifacts that Bello wakes up.
Six- or More-Mana Artifacts
Thunderhawk Gunship is a great Vehicle here. When it attacks, it will give all your other attacking creatures flying, making those 4/4 animated artifacts and enchantments that much harder to block. Rolling Hamsphere is a super-fun new Vehicle, and giving it haste with Bello means you get to start the Hamster train rolling that much faster. Threefold Thunderhulk gets all sorts of benefits from Bello—since it’s a base 0/0, it will become a 4/4 with three +1/+1 counters, so it will make seven 1/1 Gnome creatures when it enters, and then make even more when it attacks right away with haste. Now that is a serious army in a can!
Artifacts Matter
There aren’t quite as many cards in Gruul that care specifically about artifacts, but I’d probably slip in a Foundry Inspector to discount your higher-cost artifacts, and Scrap Trawler to recuperate when opponents kill off your artifacts on their turn.
Four Power Matters
Another fun angle a Bello deck should keep in mind is that your animated artifacts and enchantments have four power, and certain cards care about that. Fanatic of Rhonas should provide you a bunch of green mana on your turn, and Outcaster Trailblazer will draw you cards when you deploy artifacts and enchantments that cost four or more mana with Bello out. Dragonhawk, Fate’s Tempest looks for the number of creatures you control with power four or greater, so all of your animated 4/4s meet that requirement, letting you exile more cards that you can play or leave in exile to dome your opponents.
Four or More Mana Matters
Bloomburrow‘s mechanic tied to Raccoons is called expend, which cares about the amount of mana you spend during a turn, starting at four, which is exactly the mana value that Bello wants for your artifacts and enchantments. Wandertale Mentor is a mana creature that will help you cast those spells, accumulating +1/+1 counters to eventually become a threat on its own. Muerra, Trash Tactician cares about Raccoons, so it and Bello will give you mana at the beginning of your first main phase, and when you expend four, you’ll gain life, and when you expend eight, you can exile the top two cards of your library and play them until the end of your next turn.
When you expend six, Pyreswipe Hawk lets you gain control of up to one target artifact for as long as you control Pyreswipe Hawk, and if the artifact has a mana value of four or more, you could attack with it if Bello is on the battlefield, adding injury to the insult!
Protect Bello
Your shenanigans demand Bello on the battlefield, and a well-timed instant-speed removal spell can take the wind out of your sails right before or during combat, turning all your 4/4 attackers into noncreature enchantments and artifacts that are dealing no damage. I’d want to play a fair number of ways to protect Bello, such as Tamiyo’s Safekeeping and Royal Treatment.
Which other cards would work great in a deck built around Bello, Bard of the Brambles? Which of Bloomburrow Commander‘s new legendary creatures are you most excited to build around?
Talk to Me
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And lastly, I just want to say: let us love each other and stay healthy and happy.
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