Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen more and more White-based creature decks trying to take advantage of cute Aether Vial tricks to keep your opponent behind on board and stop them from assembling key combinations of cards to swing the game. However, I’ve never seen a deck before that combines Collected Company and Aether Vial to help ensure that your hatebear deck is a little more resilient if the game goes longer than a couple of turns. That’s what Antoine57437 has done here:

Abzan Vial - Modern | Antoine57437, 5-0 Modern League

• Creatures (24)
• 1 Fiend Hunter
• 1 Scavenging Ooze
• 2 Kitesail Freebooter
• 2 Voice of Resurgence
• 3 Eternal Witness
• 3 Selfless Spirit
• 4 Flickerwisp
• 4 Wasteland Strangler
• 4 Tidehollow Sculler

• Instants (8)
• 4 Collected Company
• 4 Path to Exile

• Sorceries (1)
• 1 Traverse the Ulvenwald

• Enchantments (3)
• 3 Oath of Nissa

• Artifacts (4)
• 4 Aether Vial

• Lands (20)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Swamp
• 2 Plains
• 1 Godless Shrine
• 1 Overgrown Tomb
• 1 Temple Garden
• 3 Marsh Flats
• 3 Razorverge Thicket
• 3 Verdant Catacombs
• 4 Windswept Heath

• Sideboard (13)
• 1 Aven Mindcensor
• 2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
• 1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
• 2 Intrepid Hero
• 1 Kambal, Consul of Allocation
• 1 Orzhov Pontiff
• 2 Phyrexian Revoker
• 2 Reclamation Sage
• 1 Scavenging Ooze

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On top of that, you have the ability to do these tricks at instant-speed, thanks to both Collected Company and Aether Vial. You even have access to Eternal Witness to help you chain together Collected Companies and keep your opponent behind as you head into the midgame.

Backing all this up is a tried and true cast of hateful creatures that prevent your opponent from meaningfully interacting with your gameplan. Selfless Spirit and Voice of Resurgence do a great job of punishing control variants while Wasteland Strangler and Scavenging Ooze do a great job of punishing aggressive strategies. You’ve even got the option of playing cards like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Leonin Arbiter depending on what kinds of decks you expect to face.

This deck goes a little deeper with singletons, using Oath of Nissa and Traverse the Ulvenwald to help find key singletons for particular matchups. These cards make your Collected Companys a little bit worse than they might be otherwise, but provide added consistency to your ability to find high-impact creatures.