Depending on where in the world you play Modern, Memorial Day is either a day to honor the men and women who have fallen in the Armed Services, the first day of summer, a time for beaches and barbecues, or just another day at the office. I'm based in the American Midwest, so it's no surprise that the first of those is the big drive behind my friends and family. A lot of sites take Memorial Day off, but we still want to give you some Modern coverage today, although with a tip-of-the-hat to the day itself.

I was inspired to do a deck paying tribute to Memorial Day while still keeping a Modern focus to anyone with an interest in the format.

[wp_ad_camp_1]

So in honor of the men and women of the Armed Services, and in keeping with the spirit of our site, here is a Modern Collected Company Soldiers deck: "Company of Heroes".

No promises about the competitiveness of the deck, but it follows enough of the basic conventions of your Abzan Company that it should have some teeth. One of the challenges with Soldiers as a tribe is that they are basically a linear aggro strategy. This makes them worse than the more linear options like Affinity and Burn, or the linear tribal options like Elves (who have more utility and are faster) or Merfolk (who are more redundant and also faster). To some extent, Soldiers make up for this with some strong utility creatures like Firewalker and Thalia out of the board: when boarding in Thalia, ditch the Chords and Decays so the only spell she affects is Company. Anafenza is also strong here, where against the opposing Company decks or in keeping Goyf a bit smaller. Grunt has a similar role in policing the graveyard for game 1. On top of that, you have a bunch of strong beatdown creatures in Smiter, Champion, and Brimaz. All of this gives Soldiers a bit of an edge over other linear tribes like Warriors, Knights, Goblins, etc.

The deck also has some of the utility you would expect of most Company decks. This includes 2 Decays, a toolbox of Spellskite, Azorius Arrester, and Orzhov Pontiff, and Chord to find what you need, when you need it. The sideboard has more toolbox options in that spirit. To some extent, this means dropping the Soldiers theme in favor of some better cards, but I still wanted to keep the subtype present as much as possible.

I know more than a few Magic players who have served in some capacity, and I want to thank them and others for their dedication. And for Modern players more generally, may your soldiers be favored in battle and may your armies march to victory!