Ayula, Queen Among Bears and My Heart
Modern Horizons Spoiler Season just never stops giving. Today's gift bestowed upon us plebians is a piece of royalty. Welcome Ayula, Queen Among Bears.
Slay Queen!!
Ayula is everything I want in a Magic card, she is a creature (sorceries are for nerds), she is a tribal payoff, and she completely dominates the board if she survives. Ayula's triggered ability is incredibly flexible as it can target any bear on board to either grow or fight. Ayula can even pump herself, so if you can play multiple bears on turn 3, she may be able to grow into a 6 power beater. How can we play multiple bears? How many bears are even in Modern? Well we splash blue.
These are our only one drop bear options in Modern, and having 8 of them seems very important to me, so we start here. Mothdust Changeling may seem odd and weak but if you look closely, it is a bear. It becoming a flying threat after Ayula triggering on it a few times is a big deal and can close a game.
Another Modern Horizons card to help the bear tribe is Mother Bear. She is reminiscent of a card like Dauntless Cathar and while not being the most powerful upfront, her flashback ability can be game ending if it triggers Ayula twice.
Scrounging around for other playable bears in the format brought me to 4 Chameleon Colossus, and 2 Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma. Including Ayula, that puts us to 22 total bears!
Now lets rachet the power of the deck by relying on the deckbuilding principle that carried janky decks like Legacy Dragon Stompy and Werewolf Stompy in legacy: Chalice of the Void, Thorn of Amethyst and mana acceleration! Our mana acceleration du jour is the mana monkey himeself, Simian Spirit Guide. Aether Vial is our other acceleration for our bears. Thanks to Unclaimed Territory and Cavern of Souls, I'm not too worried about the mana base! Let's put it all together!
Add 4 Ayula and 4 Mother Bear to the main deck, swap the 2 Horizon Canopy for 2 Waterlogged Grove and add 2 Ayula's Influence for grindy matchups to the sideboard, and you are ready to maul some opponents! I am really excited to slay my adversaries with the Ayula, Queen Among Bears. If you enjoyed this article, please give it a share to pass on the message of our new Queen!
