It wasn’t too long ago Abzan Company was a dominant deck in the wake of the banning of Birthing Pod. The deck is packed with reasonable value creatures and efficient interaction, and has the ability to combo off almost out of nowhere with the help of Collected Company. With the format slowing down due to the most recent round of bannings, there’s really no reason this deck can’t take off again, especially given that it’s picked up some great support in Aether Revolt:

Abzan Company - Modern | Jermol Jupiter

• Creatures (29)
• 1 Saffi Eriksdotter
• 1 Scavenging Ooze
• 1 Tireless Tracker
• 2 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
• 2 Eternal Witness
• 2 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
• 2 Viscera Seer
• 2 Wall of Roots
• 3 Birds of Paradise
• 3 Kitchen Finks
• 3 Renegade Rallier
• 3 Voice of Resurgence
• 4 Noble Hierarch

• Instants (8)
• 4 Chord of Calling
• 4 Collected Company

• Lands (23)
• 1 Plains
• 1 Swamp
• 2 Forest
• 1 Arid Mesa
• 1 Godless Shrine
• 1 Horizon Canopy
• 2 Gavony Township
• 2 Misty Rainforest
• 2 Overgrown Tomb
• 2 Temple Garden
• 4 Verdant Catacombs
• 4 Windswept Heath

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
• 1 Kitchen Finks
• 1 Orzhov Pontiff
• 1 Selfless Spirit
• 1 Spellskite
• 2 Abrupt Decay
• 2 Path to Exile
• 2 Qasali Pridemage
• 4 Tidehollow Sculler

Buy This Deck

Though the deck is more than capable, you don’t have to win with a value plan backed by Gavony Township. This deck can also just combo off by curving out with Viscera Seer, Melira, and Kitchen Finks or Murderous Redcap. Forcing your opponent to play around your ability to combo while also presenting a completely reasonable value-beatdown plan gives this deck a lot of flexibility and is an incredible place to be in Modern.

However, the deck has changed somewhat since it was last in the spotlight. The addition of Renegade Rallier from Aether Revolt allows the deck to shift in composition somewhat. This card is an incredible addition to the archetype, allowing you to do all manner of tricks. First and foremost, it can function as additional mana acceleration attached to a reasonable body — something this deck is always in the market for. Secondly, it can rebuy key value creatures, particularly ones that sacrifice themselves or are likely to eat a Lightning Bolt, such as Qasali Pridemage.

You even get to play more aggressively with Tidehollow Scullers in combo matchups, sacrificing them to Viscera Seer with the enters the battlefield trigger on the stack to make sure the card you take is exiled forever. After all, you can just Rally back the Tidehollow Sculler in a turn or two and repeat the trick! On top of that, you can start doing cute things with Viscera Seer, Saffi Eriksdotter and Renegade Rallier. On their own, Saffi can target Rallier, Viscera Seer can sacrifice Rallier, and Rallier can rebuy Saffi. This doesn’t do much besides let you scry through your whole deck. However, the combination makes it much harder to break up any on-board interactions you have.

All told, this is a deck that has always had a flexible, proactive gameplan and the ability to adapt to any given metagame. The recent bannings may have slowed the format down just enough for this deck to have a resurgence, partiularly because of new and interesting tools.

If you’re looking to cast Collected Company in Modern, it’d be hard to have a better starting point than Abzan.