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Born from the oldest red cedar, nursed on the sap of the of the tallest spruce, coronated under the mightiest pine.
Another bear force deck, everyone. I know, I know... This meme is an old one, huh? Everyone knows Ayula, everyone has seen Graham conquer Game Knights over a year ago, so why bears? Well, I built Ayula when she first came out. When she was spoiled, I was absolutely thrilled! In my playgroup, I've always been the animal loving (especially bears) guy. In fact, in my primary playgroup, where we are all SOME variant of Gideon, I've been dubbed "Gideon, if he were a Bear." Ayula was my very favorite commander for a long time, except for one thing:
She was... kind of cookie cutter. Unfortunately, Ayula is kind of a linear commander. Play bears, that's it. In order to make the deck strong, you play "mono-green good stuff", such as
Genesis Wave
,
Nissa, Who Shakes the World
, and
Bramble Sovereign
. There's not a whole lot wrong with that, except that I like to stand out from the rest. Given the 1,000 decks listed on EDHREC, it's kind of difficult to find a build that is objectively unique on it's own. However, after looking at several lists, I had a cheeky idea I could try: Ayula (Voltron) Enchantress.
Okay, so how did I land on Ayula Enchantress of all things? Bears and Enchantments are two entirely different themes to have in a deck, so how could I expect them to work together?
While looking at lists, I had Voltron as a theme in the back of my mind. Ayula has a low CMC, while possessing the potential to stack power sky-high, which makes her an ideal Voltron candidate in my mind. I just thought that Equipment on a bear was a little too silly for my liking, so I was wondering if there was another effective way to go about a Voltron theme. That's when I found an article on a Ayula Voltron list: (https://www.mtgnexus.com/viewtopic.php?t=24019) where the author, DirkGently, pondered the idea behind an enchantress theme in Ayula because there are three primary bear makers in Ayula:
Ayula's Influence
,
Bearscape
, and
Words of Wilding
, and they're all enchantments. He stated "Enchantress I will say has a fairly limited selection of synergies... But on the other hand, there are a lot of good enchantments that might find their way in regardless, in which case that might justify including these cards anyway."
I wanted to test that theory.
So let's start with the mono-green Enchantress synergies available to us: We have
Argothian Enchantress
,
Eidolon of Blossoms
,
Enchantress's Presence
,
Setessan Champion
, and
Verduran Enchantress
. There's also cards like
Nessian Wanderer
and
Herald of the Pantheon
, but I'm admittedly more interested in the card draw. So all in all, not a terrible start.
I wanted a bit more card draw though. Mono-green doesn't have much in the way of enchantment tutors (
Kruphix's Insight
and
Rofellos's Gift
are not true tutors, but they're appreciated regardless), so the next best thing to do is find more ways to draw cards. I decided to include cycle lands, as well as
Season of Growth
and
Lifecrafter's Bestiary
for both card selection and the occasional card draw. I don't love cards that draws cards based on power, but there's a lot of very good ones available to us:
Rishkar's Expertise
lets us play another spell for free, as long as it's 5 or less mana, and
Hunter's Insight
is instant speed, which gives our opponents a bit less time to react, as opposed to a card like
Hunter's Prowess
, which would net us more cards and could potentially push more Commander Damage, but would also put a larger target on our heads.
Greater Good
is my last choice of Power-Draw, because it has extraordinary synergy with Ayula and bear-token enchantments, namely Ayula's Influence and Bearscape. It also acts as a last line of protection for Ayula, turning her presumably massive power into gas.
Speaking of protection, there are plenty of auras that help Ayula stick to the board.
Bear Umbra
is a flavor win, but it is also backed by
Spider Umbra
and
Snake Umbra
, which give Ayula reach and additional card draw, respectively.
Alpha Authority
and
Canopy Cover
give her Hexproof while making her more annoying to block. Finally, both
Heroic Intervention
and
Inspiring Call
come in as emergency indestructibility while providing a little bit of extra utility.
Seeing as this is an Ayula Enchantress Voltron, auras become especially important.
Ancestral Mask
,
Hydra's Growth
and
Blanchwood Armor
can stack amazing power on Ayula, which can help kill an unsuspecting opponent. Trample is also an important keyword for a Voltron, which is provided by auras such as
Rancor
,
Savage Hunger
,
Setessan Training
, and
Talons of Wildwood
. Other auras in the deck include enchantment ramp, such as
Fertile Ground
,
Wild Growth
and
Weirding Wood
, as well as removal, such as
Song of the Dryads
and
Kenrith's Transformation
.
Other powerful enchantments in the deck include
Primal Vigor
,
Primeval Bounty
, and
Zendikar Resurgent
. These cards can be expensive to set up, however, the utility they provide is pretty worthwhile. There may be cheaper, more worthwhile enchantments out there that I just haven't found yet.
That's enough about the enchantments, lets talk about some bears! Well, the thing about bears is that... most of them are not very strong. Don't get me wrong, there are some strong bears, like
Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma
,
Mother Bear
,
Werebear
, and
Ashcoat Bear
. Then, there are some strong "bears", such as
Metallic Mimic
,
Adaptive Automaton
and
Universal Automaton
(don't underestimate a one-mana bear!). They made their way into the list along with some other decent utility bears like
Striped Bears
and
Ulvenwald Bear
, but most of the time, it's better to try to draw into some of the bear generators instead. The only exceptions are
Woodland Changeling
and
Chameleon Colossus
, as my friend did some incredible alterations on them, so I plan to play them! It's still important to play some amount of bears, because they can either buff Ayula or assist with clearing pesky creatures from the board.
Finally, for the mana base, I tried to fill in some points my deck was missing with some utility lands.
Arcane Lighthouse
is excellent for removing pesky Hexproof creatures like
Narset, Enlightened Master
.
Path of Ancestry
helps with card selection,
Karn's Bastion
and
Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
are good at buffing Ayula a bit, and both
Bonders' Enclave
and
Reliquary Tower
assist with handsize in some way.
The idea of the deck is to have Ayula power up to Voltron her way through each opponent, one by one. It's important to be conservative with your enchantments, because board wipes can be devastating. I ultimately believe that this deck will be lots of fun while having the potential to do well at medium powered tables.
Some upgrades and changes to the list that I can think of: Both
Doubling Season
and
Parallel Lives
are unfortunately very pricey. I was lucky to already have Primal Vigor in my collection, but Doubling Season would be a strict upgrade.
Asceticism
is a whopper of a card that I could absolutely make space for.
Berserk
is also a pricey option, but could be devastating with indestructible or totem armor. Both
Hardened Scales
and the newly spoiled in Jumpstart
Branching Evolution
are excellent options to get more +1/+1 counters from bears when Ayula is in play. I also like
Gemrazer
, because even though it isn't an enchantment, it can still give Ayula reach and trample while blowing up a pesky enchantment/artifact on the board.
Hibernation's End
is pretty slow, but it's absolutely on theme, extremely flavorful, and can help with tutoring Ayula activations and Enchantress synergies.
Have any feedback for me? Please let me know! I'm always looking for feedback on my decks, and this one is especially important to me. My friends and I all chipped in on CommandFest in-a-box, and we're going to brawl it out for the promo Sol-Ring. This is the deck I intend to use!
EDIT 4-3-21 THIS DECK IS MY TRADEMARK DECK. It is by far my favorite and I personally feel like I've fine-tuned it quite a lot since this initial draft of it. I am so proud of this deck, and I cannot help but feel like everytime I play it, it's an absolute blast. I've even gone as far as buying much higher value cards to slot into it, such as Sylvan Library and Mirri's Guile - SO worth it. Here are the changes I have made to the list from when I first built it to now:
-20 Forest
-1
Blighted Woodland
-1
Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
-1
Castle Garenbrig
-1
Spider Umbra
-1
Striped Bears
-1
Migration Path
-1
Fertile Ground
-1
Vigor
-1
Woodland Changeling
-1
Talons of Wildwood
-1
Courser of Kruphix
-1
Hunter's Insight
-1
Setessan Training
-1
Season of Growth
-1
Inspiring Call
-1
Rhonas's Monument
-1
Ulvenwald Bear
-1
Savage Hunger
-1
Eternal Witness
-1
Universal Automaton
-1
Path of Ancestry
-1
Primal Vigor
-1
Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma
-1
Primeval Bounty
-1
Striped Bears
-1
Nissa's Pilgrimage
-1
Nylea's Colossus
+18 Snow-Covered Forest
+1
Labyrinth of Skophos
+1
Maze of Ith
+1
War Room
+1
Command Beacon
+1
Llanowar Reborn
+1
Commander's Plate
+1
Hardened Scales
+1
Carpet of Flowers
+1
Mirri's Guile
+1
Berserk
+1
Basilisk Collar
+1
Masked Vandal
+1
Gaea's Touch
+1
Sylvan Library
+1
Rune of Might
+1
Endless Atlas
+1
Stamina
+1
Branching Evolution
+1
Vow of Wildness
+1
Colossal Majesty
+1
Reviving Melody
+1
Oath of the Ancient Wood
+1
Gaea's Embrace
+1
Increasing Savagery
+1
Silent Arbiter
+1
Defense of the Heart
+1
Spirit of the Aldergard
+1
Asceticism
+1
Nylea's Colossus
