Bello, Bard of the Brambles | art by Slawomir Maniak

Bello from the other side

Bello Hello there! Welcome back to EDHighlights, the series where I'll build decks for the year's most popular commander for each color combination.

Now that 2024's set releases have finished up, I'll be taking a look at the most popular releases from the past year. Here, I'll talk a bit about each of the most popular commanders and build a deck for them with a little twist to keep things interesting.

This week, I'm taking a look at 2024's most popular Gruul commander, which means we'll be working with … Bello, Bard of the Brambles

Bello is one of the most popular commanders released this year in any color combination. Despite having been printed just a few months ago, Bello has 8247 decks to his name as of the time of writing, finding himself as the 116th most popular commander overall and the fourth most popular Gruul commander ever. That's one popular Racoon! Let's see why…

Look out Bello!

Bello is a 3/3 Racoon Bard for 3 mana. And, on our turn, he supercharges our big artifacts and enchantments. While Bello's on the field, artifacts and enchantments we control with a mana value of 4 or higher are 4/4 Elemental creatures with indestructible and haste. Whenever those creatures connect with an opponent in combat, we get to draw a card.

Wow! That's a lot of power stuffed into a three mana commander. This deck is pretty aggressive, wanting to crash through with 4/4s as early and as often as possible. This is a pretty strong gameplan, because our creatures are resilient to removal (they're indestructible) and because they keep our game plan going smoothly (by drawing cards each turn).

There's two main problems that this deck has, though: eventually, our 4/4s won't be able to smash face in combat because they'll be blocked. And, unfortunately for us, our opponents will realize that the majority of the creatures we're hitting them with can't block (because they're not creatures on our opponents' turns), and they'll just kill us.

I've got plans to deal with both of those, but you'll have to keep reading to find out what they are. Let's get brewing!

Bello's triple-double

This version of Bello will be focused on enchantments, but I want to make sure that we're getting the most out of each card we cast

To that end, this deck's small twist is a suite of damage multipliers. My favorite is City on Fire, which can be cast for far less than its mana cost would lead you to believe. This damage tripler is, notably, not symmetrical. This is the best kind of damage multiplier, because it means that we don't have to worry about our opponents taking advantage of the damage multiplication we're providing to knock us out of the game.

This enchantment, along with its harder-to-cast-but-lower-mana-value sibling Fiery Emancipation essentially turn all of our enchantments into 12/4s.

There’s a few more damage enhancers in the deck, starting with Unnatural Growth. This enchantment makes our enchantments into 8/8s, but it also doubles the power of our creatures at the beginning of EACH combat. So, whatever utility creatures we have that stick around to block will become large enough to hopefully deter any attacks from coming our way.

I've also included Rage Reflection, which doesn't actually increase the power of our board but does functionally double their power. Plus, it lets our animated army hit twice, meaning that we can draw two cards off of their combat damage triggers.

And, as a super powerful inclusion, Nylea's Colossus is here. This big guy can double the power/toughness of one of our creatures every single time an enchantment enters under our control. Combined with a trampling creature, or some other form of evasion, this card ends games fast.

And, rounding out this group are some less exciting damage multipliers. The brand new Twinflame Tyrant is another nonsymmetrical effect, but it's sadly not an enchantment.

Furnace of Rath is an enchantment that fits into our mana curve very well, coming down just the turn after Bello hits the board to attack as a virtual 8/4. There's also Dictate of the Twin Gods as a stealthy damage enhancing option.

Bello's bellows from below

Unfortunately, not every card in this deck can be a damage multiplier. It goes against all Gruul sensibilities, but we have to include some other cards in our 99 too. To that end, let's talk about the other enchantments in the deck.

Duskmourn brought some powerful enchantment creatures to the fray, including those from the Overlord cycle. Overlord of the Hauntwoods and Overlord of the Boilerbilges both work great in this deck, because they can be cast for their cheaper “impending” cost while still being able to attack (and trigger their abilities twice) the turn they hit the board.

The horror-themed set gave Bello two other great cards too, in Giggling Skitterspike and Enduring Courage. The weird doll thing, again, fits into our mana curve very well, attacking as a 4/4 on turn 4 and then as a 9/9 on turn 5 (if we activate its monstrosity ability).

Assuming it sticks around on the board, it'll have dealt 13 damage to each opponent after just 2 attacks! And The very cute dog can ensure favorable attacks for us, while essentially being unkillable for as long as we control our commander.

Even without damage multipliers, there's still plenty of other ways for this deck to be aggressive. Xenagos, God of Revels is automatically a creature with Bello on the board, and it can give itself (or another creature) a powerful buff on each of our turns.

Gruul War Chant makes our whole board bigger and harder to block, and Thickest in the Thicket will double the power of our best creature while (usually) drawing two cards.

As for some other fun pieces, there's Rose, Cutthroat Raider. Given that this is a very aggressive deck, we'll likely get a lot of mana and card advantage out of Rose as the game goes on. Molten Echoes can take advantage of the fact that Bello makes enchantments into Elementals, doubling up on all the enchantments-matter effects and combat damage we were already so fond of.

And, of course, Leyline of Combustion and its friends are here. The leylines are free four mana enchantments, perfect for this deck.

Bello to you too

With all the damage multipliers we'll be using, and the distinct lack of blockers we'll have, our opponents will likely want to attack us. To make sure that's less profitable, there's a small group of token makers and fogs here. Threefold Thunderhulk is a fantastic card with Bello out, making 14 1/1 tokens during its first turn on the field.

Arasta of the Endless Web should make a good few tokens throughout the game, and it's an enchantment creature itself. There's also Obscuring Haze as a nice emergency button, should the need arise.

Before I show the final decklist, I want to talk quickly about one of the more interesting cards in the 99: Dual Nature. First, with Bello out, this 6 mana enchantment makes a copy of itself. From then on, whenever another creature enters (even an enchantment or artifact that's been animated by Bello), we'll make two token copies of it (one for each copy of Dual Nature we have on board).

If I got any part of that wrong, feel free to let me know in the comments below. But, assuming that's all right, this card is fantastic. It essentially triples the effectiveness of our whole game plan from the minute it hits the battlefield. Sure, it's definitely a “win-more” card, but I'm willing to abide by that for how uniquely well it fits into this deck.

Now, here's the full decklist…

Bello and goodbye

Thanks for reading this week's version of EDHighlights! I was stuck for a while between an enchantment-focused and an artifact-focused deck, but ultimately settled on an enchantments deck because of the diversity of high-mana value enchantments available in this color combination.

But, a few artifacts did still make it into the list. Coat of Arms will make our animated Elementals much stronger, Aligned Hedron Network is a semi-one-sided board wipe that can take out our opponents' larger threats while leaving our stuff alone, and Nautiloid Ship is a neat piece of graveyard hate that can reanimate the best stuff in any graveyard with ease.

Did I miss out on a stronger deck by choosing enchantments over artifacts? Or did I make the right choice this week? Let me know in the comments! Either way, I'll see you next week when we take a look at the year's most popular Selesnya commander.