Beorn the Fierce EDH Deck Guide: Bracket 2 Bears and a $100 Upgrade

Beorn the Fierce is a mono-green Bear commander who draws two cards every combat once you control three Bears, and the cheapest good version of him is a Bracket 2 deck that costs about $87. We built that list, ran it through the bracket calculator, and I took it into a recorded game. Below is the full decklist with its audit, what that game showed, and the ten swaps I'd make with a $100 upgrade budget, with prices checked this week rather than guessed.

Beorn costs for a 6/6 Bear Shapeshifter Warrior with trample and three lines of text that all point the same way. Other Bears you control get +2/+2. At the beginning of combat on your turn, you put a trample counter on up to one target creature you control and it becomes a Bear in addition to its other types. Then, if you control three or more Bears, you draw two cards.

Two things about that trigger matter more at a table than on paper. It happens at the beginning of combat, not on attack, so a board that can't profitably swing still draws. And the Bear-ifying clause means the count includes creatures that weren't Bears when you cast them: Radagast of Rhosgobel or a mana dork becomes a Bear the first time you point the counter at it, and stays one.

The catch is timing. The draw is checked when the trigger resolves, so if someone kills Beorn in response and he was one of your three Bears, you draw nothing. Cheap Bears already on the board are what make him reliable, which is why the list runs so many two-drops.

The Bracket 2 list audits at Bracket 2 with zero Game Changers, one card the calculator files as a tutor, 37 lands, a 2.98 average mana value, and a total price of $86.58 (see the audit). Thirty-three of those lands are basic Forests, which is the right way to build a mono-green deck that wants to cast spells on curve.

The heart of the deck is two-mana Bears that are bad alone and excellent under the anthem. Ashcoat Bear has flash, Werebear taps for , Mother Bear comes back from the graveyard as two more Bears, and Wilson, Refined Grizzly can't be countered and carries vigilance, reach, trample and ward . Even the plain ones, Grizzly Bears, Balduvian Bears, Runeclaw Bear and Bear Cub, attack as 4/4s once Beorn is out, and they're the bodies that switch the draw on the turn he lands.

The payoffs are Bears too. Ayula, Queen Among Bears triggers whenever another Bear enters: two +1/+1 counters, or a fight. Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma makes creature spells with power 4 or greater cost less, which under Beorn's anthem is most of the deck, and hands your big attackers +1/+1 and trample. The other Beorn, Beorn, Reluctant Host, is a 5/5 trampler whose Adventure half, Till and Tend, buys an extra land drop for .

The Hobbit's real contribution is Beorn's Hospitality: for , every land you play puts a +1/+1 counter on a creature, and late in the game turns the enchantment itself into a Bear with power and toughness equal to your land count. Radagast of Rhosgobel makes your first creature spell each turn cost less and lets you cast it as though it had flash, so a Bear at the end of an opponent's turn, straight into your untap, combat, and a two-card draw, is a normal line here.

Card draw beyond the commander is Garruk's Uprising, Return of the Wildspeaker, Colossal Majesty, Shamanic Revelation and Harmonize, plus Realmwalker naming Bear to cast them off the top of the library. The kill is Overwhelming Stampede, Overrun, Unnatural Growth doubling the whole team every combat, and Rogue's Passage for the one Bear that has to connect. Interaction is thin and green: Beast Within, Ram Through, which on a trampling Bear sends the excess damage at the blocked creature's controller, and Bushwhack or Ayula for fights.

On September 7 I took the list into a heads-up game against DonSpider's Bracket 2 Thranduil deck, the elfball from our Thranduil deck guide, and won. One game, 1v1, against one of our own house lists, so it's a data point and not a win rate. But we both wrote notes, and they describe the same deck from opposite sides.

Mine: The bears were mana flooded this game. But Beorn the Fierce and Garruk's Uprising provided the cards to keep me playing something each turn.

DonSpider's: Had a decent board state of elves but couldn't match the pump effects and trample on the bears.

Ten cards in, ten out. Every price is the TCGplayer market price for the cheapest widely available printing as of mid-September 2026, rounded, with a range where printings differ.

• In: Beast Whisperer (about $5–8). Out: Lifecrafter's Bestiary. Same job, draw when you cast a creature, without paying every time. In a deck that is two-thirds creatures, a four-mana 2/3 that cantrips every Bear is the best engine green sells at this price.
• In: Guardian Project (about $12–13). Out: Colossal Majesty. Majesty draws one card a turn and only while you control a 4-power creature. Guardian Project draws off every nontoken creature that enters, and this is a singleton deck, so the same-name clause never switches it off.
• In: Rishkar's Expertise (about $2–3). Out: Harmonize. With Beorn on the board this draws six, then casts a spell with mana value 5 or less from your hand for free. Overwhelming Stampede qualifies.
• In: Toski, Bearer of Secrets (about $2–4 for the cheapest printings). Out: River Bear. Toski costs , can't be countered, is indestructible, and draws a card whenever any creature you control deals combat damage to a player. Beorn's combat trigger makes him a Bear with trample, at which point he's a 3/3 indestructible attacker that survives every wrath the table owns.

• In: Heroic Intervention (about $13–16). Out: Fog. The expensive one, and the most important. Fog stops one combat. Heroic Intervention gives everything you control hexproof and indestructible for , which beats a Wrath of God, a Blasphemous Act, and targeted removal aimed at Beorn. It does not beat Farewell or an overloaded Cyclonic Rift, and nothing at this price does. Our pod casts a lot of both; I watched a Blasphemous Act take a full board off me in August, and this deck loses to that card exactly the same way.
• In: Bear Umbra (about $10–13). Out: Wrap in Vigor. Enchant Beorn: +2/+2, untap all your lands whenever he attacks, and totem armor absorbs the first destroy effect. Beorn attacks every turn anyway, and the untap means the two cards he just drew get cast in the second main phase. Wrap in Vigor regenerates, which does nothing against exile, -X/-X, bounce, or a sacrifice effect.

• In: Ayula's Influence (about $1–2). Out: Giant Growth. The direct fix for the game above. A enchantment: discard a land card, make a 2/2 Bear. Every dead Forest becomes a 4/4 under the anthem, an Ayula trigger, and one more Bear toward the draw. Giant Growth is a pump spell in a deck whose commander pumps everything permanently.
• In: Three Visits (about $4–7). Out: Explore. Two mana, a Forest onto the battlefield untapped, and with 33 Forests it never misses. It also triggers Beorn's Hospitality every time, where Explore's extra land drop only sometimes did.

• In: Kindred Summons (about $3–6). Out: Druid's Familiar. An instant for : name Bear, reveal until you find as many Bear cards as you control Bears, and put them all onto the battlefield. With Beorn and three friends out, that's four more Bears at the end of an opponent's turn, then untap, draw two, and attack with everything. Druid's Familiar is four mana for a 2/2 that needs a partner.
• In: Craterhoof Behemoth (about $11–22, with the Jumpstart and Tarkir: Dragonstorm printings at the low end). Out: Overrun. The deck already has the budget version in Overwhelming Stampede; this is the one that ends a four-player game from a board of six Bears. Goreclaw's discount applies too, since it's a 5-power creature spell, so it costs with her out.

Budgeting each card at the top of its range for the common printing: Ayula's Influence $1, Rishkar's Expertise $3, Toski $3, Beast Whisperer $5, Kindred Summons $5, Three Visits $6, Bear Umbra $12, Guardian Project $13, Heroic Intervention $15, Craterhoof Behemoth $18. That's about $81, and the $19 left over is on purpose. Heroic Intervention and Craterhoof each swing by five dollars or more between printings, and an upgrade plan that assumes the cheapest copy of everything is a $110 plan. The whole deck lands a little under $170.

On paper, yes. None of the ten cards is on the Game Changers list and none of them makes a two-card infinite combo, and those are the two things that move a deck from Bracket 2 to Bracket 3 on our calculator. In practice a Kindred Summons into Craterhoof turn plays like the very top of that bracket, so say so at the table before you shuffle. Once the new list is built, run it through the deck audit and hand your pod the link; do the same with your own version if you swap any of my picks.

Then record the games. One heads-up win says the plan works; twenty pod games will say whether it's the flood, the wipes, or the table's threat assessment that actually decides Beorn's record, and I'd rather know than assume.

Beorn is one of the four legends we singled out in the best new commanders in The Hobbit, check out our other picks and let us know yours in the comments. The rest of The Hobbit card pool is on The Hobbit set page.