At this point, Collected Company has been played with enough that people think they have the best builds of their respective archetypes. Considering the variation still remaining between the Abzan Company decks, I find that hard to believe. Week after week, new versions pop up, some of which even do quite well – such as today’s deck that made Top 8 of Grand Prix Singapore.
Tay Jun Hao finished the Swiss with a 12-2-1 record, which is especially impressive considering he basically did it with what many would call a “homebrew!” Instead of using Bolster shenanigans to go infinite with Persist creatures, Tay was playing a value Collected Company deck with a Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker finish. Tay was able to play such a compact win condition because his cards are better on average, and there is more tutoring for specific creatures in the deck thanks to the addition of Fauna Shaman.
Path to Exile provides some maindeck interaction, which the archetype desperately needed. Kitchen Finks and Voice of Resurgence provide you some defenses against some of the threats out there but they don’t answer everything. You can chump block a Tarmogoyf for a while, but that doesn’t last forever. Similarly, an opposing Deceiver Exarch doesn’t care about your army of Finks.
The sideboard is great. Not only does Fulminator Mage go a long way toward helping the big-mana matchups, but Fiery Justice, Stony Silence, and Negate are some of the best sideboard cards available in Modern. Keranos, God of Storms is a particularly strong singleton that used to be played in Kiki-Pod, and I’m glad to see it crossing over into this archetype as well.
Creatures (28)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
- 3 Eternal Witness
- 4 Kitchen Finks
- 3 Noble Hierarch
- 3 Fauna Shaman
- 1 Phyrexian Revoker
- 1 Spellskite
- 1 Deceiver Exarch
- 1 Scavenging Ooze
- 1 Restoration Angel
- 1 Izzet Staticaster
- 4 Voice of Resurgence
Lands (22)
Spells (10)
