Ayula's Ethical Apiarists' Coöp

Commander / EDH Aggro Budget Counters Mono-Green Tokens Tribal

slaftergames

Bears (27)

• 1x Alpine Grizzly
• 1x Ashcoat Bear
• 1x Ayula's Influence
• 1x Balduvian Bears
• 1x Bear Cub
• 1x Bearscape
• 1x Chameleon Colossus
• 1x Changeling Titan
• 1x Dragon-Scarred Bear
• 1x Druid's Familiar
• 1x Flaxen Intruder
• 1x Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma
• 1x Grizzly Bears
• 1x Grizzly Fate
• 1x Kamahl's Summons
• 1x Metallic Mimic
• 1x Mother Bear
• 1x Pale Bears
• 1x River Bear
• 1x Runeclaw Bear
• 1x Spectral Bears
• 1x Striped Bears
• 1x Universal Automaton
• 1x Vivien's Grizzly
• 1x Werebear
• 1x Woodland Changeling
• 1x Words of Wilding

Trample (3)

• 1x Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma
• 1x Rhonas's Monument
• 1x Thunderfoot Baloth

Card Advantage (10)

• 1x Beast Whisperer
• 1x Greater Good
• 1x Guardian Project
• 1x Kindred Summons
• 1x Lifecrafter's Bestiary
• 1x Return of the Wildspeaker
• 1x Shamanic Revelation
• 1x The Great Henge
• 1x Vanquisher's Banner
• 1x Vivien's Grizzly

Land (37)

• 1x Castle Garenbrig
• 27x Forest
• 1x Karn's Bastion
• 1x Mosswort Bridge
• 1x Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
• 1x Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
• 1x Path of Ancestry
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 2x Snow-Covered Forest

Other (4)

• 1x Chord of Calling
• 1x Door of Destinies
• 1x Hardened Scales
• 1x Vigor

Removal (4)

• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Flaxen Intruder
• 1x Force of Vigor
• 1x Krosan Grip

More ETB Triggers (2)

• 1x Panharmonicon
• 1x Temur Sabertooth

Commander (1)

Ramp (8)

• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Elvish Spirit Guide
• 1x Harrow
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x The Great Henge
• 1x Werebear

Survival (5)

• 1x Bear Umbra
• 1x Blossoming Defense
• 1x Canopy Cover
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots

Restoration (4)

• 1x Creeping Renaissance
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Life from the Loam
• 1x Road of Return

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Maybeboard

Other (9)

• 1x Adaptive Automaton
• 1x Branching Evolution
• 1x Doubling Season
• 1x Evolution Sage
• 1x Golgari Grave-Troll
• 1x Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
• 1x Muraganda Petroglyphs
• 1x Paragon of Eternal Wilds
• 1x Yeva, Nature's Herald

More Triggers (2)

• 1x Bramble Sovereign
• 1x Cloudstone Curio

Recovery (2)

• 1x Genesis
• 1x Once and Future

Trample (2)

• 1x Brawn
• 1x Overwhelming Stampede

Bears (1)

• 1x Caller of the Claw

Land (7)

• 1x Blighted Woodland
• 1x Heart of Yavimaya
• 1x Hollow Trees
• 1x Jungle Basin
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Rushwood Grove
• 1x Yavimaya Hollow

Card Advantage (5)

• 1x Armorcraft Judge
• 1x Colossal Majesty
• 1x Inspiring Call
• 1x Nantuko Cultivator
• 1x Regal Force

Tutors (2)

• 1x Woodland Bellower
• 1x Worldly Tutor

Tribal (1)

• 1x Tribal Unity

Ramp (7)

• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Emerald Medallion
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Nissa's Pilgrimage
• 1x Rampant Growth
• 1x Skyshroud Claim

Survival (4)

• 1x Asceticism
• 1x Champion's Helm
• 1x Ranger's Guile
• 1x Sheltering Word

Removal (2)

• 1x Charge of the Forever-Beast
• 1x Foe-Razer Regent

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She is short, fat and proud of that

And so with all her might

She will eat up her enemies

To her appetite's delight

Introduction Show

There isn't much worth saying in an introduction to an Ayula, Queen Among Bears deck. There are no powerful combinations like Food Chain or Worldgorger Dragon that need explaining; it really suffices just to read Ayula's text.

Take a moment to do so. Peruse the card. Ignore the extremely ugly use of "coronated" instead of "crowned" in the flavor text. Resist the urge to correct it in marker. Take solace in the fact that George Orwell didn't live to witness this linguistic atrocity.

There. Now, the deck seeks to develop Ayula's ability in four different ways: tribal, counters, survival and ETB.

1. Tribal - Once again, scarcely anything needs to be said about this. Since Ayula's ability pertains only to bears, it's perfectly logical that a high proportion of the creatures included in the deck list are bears, and also that the deck list includes other cards which increase the potential value of that shared trait (e.g. Door of Destinies or Kindred Summons). Note that since the deck is mono-green, there's also potential for a "color tribal" subtheme (e.g. Rhonas's Monument).

2. Counters - Since one can use Ayula's ability to put a pair of +1/+1 counters on target bear, the deck list includes a number of cards which increase the number of counters provided in each instance, reward having large creatures etc.; e.g. Hardened Scales or Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma.

3. Survival - Ceteris paribus, the fight mechanic is a double-edged sword. It's crucial that one take every possible precaution to protect one's creatures and prevent it from backfiring or going up in smoke. The easiest way to do this is with hexproof, protection, indestructible or something similar (e.g. Canopy Cover, which also provides evasion), but there are also other, somewhat more aggressive (albeit expensive) possibilities (concerning which, see below).

4. Enters-the-Battlefield Abilities - Ayula's ability triggers when another bear enters the battlefield. Thus it makes good sense to include other cards in the deck list which will maximize the profit to be had from such an entrance, e.g. Beast Whisperer or the Guardian Project for card advantage, as well as cards which make it possible to deploy creatures unxpectedly (e.g. Chord of Calling or Ashcoat Bear).

Anyway, those are the basic principles. If the deck performs well enough, I'm hoping Werner Herzog will make a movie about it.

Value Show

Given that "bear" is MTG slang for a slightly-less-than-mediocre creature (which is what I'd call anything with no ability and P/T equal to its CMC), it should come as no surprise that this deck has a bit of a value problem. If one considers only the intrinsic value of each card (and not the potential for synergy with other cards), many of them are downright awful. If one then analyzes their potential to yield more than the sum of their parts through combination plays, the results are, frankly, not dramatically better. To illustrate this: at the time of writing, five of the bears in this deck have no abilities at all; two more have only the Changeling ability; an additional two have only the Islandwalk ability; Spectral Bears has a downright hampering ability (albeit with a boost to its P/T to offset that at least a little) and Mother Bear has just one ability that you can only activate once the card is in the graveyard (ergo has no relevant abilities while on the battlefield). To really compound the problem, most of the remaining bears, despite having abilities, are still generally underwhelming (e.g. Vivien's Grizzly.

Given that the deck is single-color, it can't fall back upon a wide range of powerful staples ("good stuff") to balance out this deficit. Moreover, given the low casting cost of its commander and the deck's generally low curve, it isn't even necessarily worthwhile for the list to include many of green's most powerful staples (i.e. a lot of EDH's quintessential ramp cards).

As a result of all this, the deck depends very heavily on Ayula. That may not seem especially remarkable - we are talking about a commander deck, after all. However, the centrality of Ayula to this deck's strategy is even greater than that of most other commanders in their respective decks. If Ayula isn't on the battlefield, you're relegated to playing 2/2 creatures with no useful abilities. This deck contains almost no powerful "lieutenants," i.e. cards that can assume the role of the commander in her absence or that can pave the way to an alternative win condition. Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma and Vigor, though both powerful creatures, aren't nearly as useful without counters and fighting, respectively, and Ayula supplies the vast majority of both of these things. Thus it is imperative that one have enough mana to continue playing Ayula and also possess the means to keep her alive and well.

Bear by Vladimir Sajanek

(Images aren't working, at the time of writing.)

Lumbering Aggression Show

In my experience, it's important to be aggressive with this deck. The fight mechanic offers a way to disrupt other players' strategies very early on, e.g. by removing enemy mana dorks or even knocking out small commanders. To further this end, I've included Elvish Spirit Guide and Lotus Petal in the deck so that it's possible to play Ayula on turn one, then play another bear and fight on turn two (or succor Ayula on turn two and then fight on turn three and so on). It's also important to be discerning, however - firing at anything that moves will often lead to a mid-/late-game situation that doesn't favor you (e.g. if one of your opponents has a creature-less deck and is able to develop her strategy without any obstacle or delay, while the other two are losing all their small creatures to your bears and you're investing all of your resources in continuing the slaughter).

As a consequence of the above, I cannot recommend this deck to anyone who dislikes annoying other players early in the game. In point of fact, however, proceeding aggressively with this deck very rarely proves to be a long-lasting diplomatic disadvantage, because it really leads to one of only two possibilities: either the opponent's deck is rendered derelict because (s)he was counting on that Birds of Paradise to play her next ramp card and now has to wait until (s)he draws another land, or (s)he's able to keep developing her strategy despite Ayula's best efforts, in which case (s)he's unlikely to hold a grudge against the Queen among Bears for very long - once somebody else at the table has removed one of his/her more powerful cards or otherwise irritated him/her, (s)he'll forget about those Llanowar Elves you killed on turn two or three.

Protecting Ayula Show

The deck list includes five cards which protect Ayula in various ways (see the "Survival" category above): Bear Umbra, Blossoming Defense, Heroic Intervention, Swiftfoot Boots and Vigor. The umbra is certainly the least reliable of the five, since it doesn't deal with exile, bounce and other tricksy threats, but then again it also offers extra mana. The obvious weakness of the two instants is that they can only defend against a single threat. Vigor and the boots can be removed, but at least they don't allow a two-for-one trade (like the umbra does), and they offer potentially long-term solutions against removal (though of course Vigor is just as useless as the umbra vs. exile etc. - but then again, gaining counters from fighting is magnificent). Lightning Greaves would hamper Ayula's self-succor too much, and so I haven't included them in the deck list.

Churning out Bears Show

When it comes to triggering Ayula's ability, it's logical enough to rely in part on simply playing creature cards with the Bear subtype. However, this is hardly the only, and sometimes not the best, way to develop your ursine host (and shrink the armies of your enemies). The "Bears" section in the description above includes not only bears themselves, but also enchantments like Ayula's Influence, Bearscape and Words of Wilding, as well as the sorcery Welcome Home (which is an adventure attached to Flaxen Intruder). All of these produce 2/2 Bear tokens. There is a certain synergy between Ayula's Influence and Bearscape (see "The Graveyard," below), and the deck's card advantage suite promises ample fodder for Words of Wilding, so that the deck can have distinctly more explosive episodes than would be possible if it were to rely solely on actually playing bears.

Fighting Show

MTG's Fight mechanic is terribly unpredictable. You may fail to destroy the creature you were trying to get rid of, you might lose your own creature or even both at once. In certain situations, an opponent whose creature you're trying to fight can change the target of the ability (e.g. through Willbender's ability) and make your bear fight another enemy creature with a high enough power and sufficiently low toughness to ensure the deaths of both parties (N.B., though: Ayula's ability stipulates that the bear in question fight a creature belonging to one of your opponents, ergo your opponents cannot induce a civil war among your bears!), or an opponent can simply remove or cripple the bear that you've chosen to participate in the fight, thus requiring only a single spell/ability to both 1. remove your creature and 2. render this instance of Ayula's triggered ability wasted. Even less dramatic, but still a nuisance, is the fact that since fighting entails an exchange of damage (instead of your creature dealing damage to the target, but not vice versa), it can sometimes make fighting, then attacking with that same bear unappealing (since the combined damage from a potential blocker and the fight might result in the bear's death).

There's no way to completely avoid the risks which fighting entails, but one card in particular - namely Vigor - does a great deal to turn the downside of the Fight ability into something valuable. Hopefully WOTC will print a few more cards of this sort as the years wear on.

Meanwhile, however, there is another way to make fighting a bit less risky, although it doesn't deal directly with the disadvantages of the Fight ability, like Vigor does: by including lots of instant-speed ways of playing bears (Ashcoat Bear has flash), tutoring for them (viz. Chord of Calling or creating bear tokens (Bearscape), the deck makes it a little harder for opponents to anticipate when exactly you'll try to maul their creatures with your bears. This helps you to protect your own creatures (by waiting until exactly the right moment, rather than having to make a riskier play because you're limited to sorcery-speed options) and to hamper your opponents (e.g. they may not always wish to tap out if doing so would leave them vulnerable to your bears).

All of this said, choosing what to fight and what to fight it with is probably the most suspenseful and interesting part of playing this deck, so although it may have its tactical disadvantages, it remains a lot of fun.

Quickest Paths to Victory Show

Believe it or not, the green deck with a lot of +1/+1 counters and cards that have no particularly complex or useful abilities tends to win either with commander damage or with overwhelming force. Right now I'm not running any cards along the lines of Craterhoof Behemoth or Overwhelming Stampede, but I may consider it in the future; meanwhile Thunderfoot Baloth and Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma provide trample to some or all of my creatures, and Rhonas's Monument promises to keep a greatly succored Ayula relevant in the presence of many smaller blockers (see the "Trample" Category in the deck list). Rogue's Passage offers a further alternative, bypassing enemy creatures entirely rather than trampling them into the ground. Last but not least (though probably rarest), Vigor can, under the most favorable circumstances, provide you with quite a few +1/+1 counters.

At some point it would be interesting to develop some slightly more novel or unique win conditions for this deck, but WOTC will have to print some new (relevant) cards for that to happen. In the meantime, fighting anything that's in the way and putting counters on your bears - especially Ayula - still presents the best option for winning the game (or at least causing a few headaches before you go).

The Graveyard Show

This deck has a slightly awkward relationship with its graveyard. As so often happens when one builds a tribal deck for a tribe that lacks depth, one ends up with some incidentally recurring mechanics in the deck list. For Ayula, this is threshold (e.g. on Werebear or Grizzly Fate). Along with Ayula's Influence, Bearscape and Mother Bear, that makes five cards in the deck which discard cards for profit, benefit from my graveyard being full, use cards in my graveyard to pay for an ability or otherwise have some connection to the graveyard. However, this deck's commander is not at all conducive to expanding upon these graveyard-oriented elements and turning the graveyard into a central part of this deck's strategy (because of, you know, the whole not-having-black thing). Still, there are a few options with low opportunity costs that help develop this theme a bit further, e.g. Harrow and Greater Good. Life from the Loam meanwhile is a less versatile card, to be sure, but the synergy with Ayula's Influence is irresistible, and in addition I've included Eternal Witness and Creeping Renaissance as means of recovering cards that have landed in the graveyard.

Future Improvements Show

Asceticism (for Canopy Cover), Bramble Sovereign (not sure what I'd take out yet), maybe Cloudstone Curio (for Temur Sabertooth), Doubling Season (don't know yet what I'd take out to make room for it), Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx (for a forest) and Yavimaya Hollow (also for a forest) would all be nice additions to this deck, someday. I've also been weighing the pros and cons of Foe-Razer Regent, Regal Force and Basilisk Collar. Furthermore, I don't actually own The Great Henge or Heroic Intervention yet, though I'm sure they'll be valuable additions once I do acquire them.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	1 - 0 Mythic Rares 34 - 0 Rares 19 - 0 Uncommons 17 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.16
Tokens	Bear 2/2 G, Beast 3/3 G, On an Adventure