Dropping the Beat with Modern R&B
The State of Modern
I went fairly deep in preparing for the upcoming Grand Prix in Oklahoma City. With Modern being as open as it is, I wanted to make sure I was giving a fair shot to all of the strategies I could think of. Early on, I figured out one important thing: Kolaghan's Command is now a format-defining card. Based on how often you play against it in various Grixis and Jund strategies comprising just under 30% of the metagame, your deck really needs to have a plan for beating the card. But what does beating Kolaghan's Command look like? If I were to choose a single card that’s well positioned to fight Kolaghan’s Command, I would pick ...
Assume I get hit with a timely Kolaghan's Command forcing me to discard a Tasigur, the Golden Fang and lose my Dark Confidant in play. The only thing that really sounds good after that is following up with my own Kolaghan's Command getting back one of my threats and killing my opponent’s Dark Confidant in return. If I do that, my opponent and I are at parity — we both got our two-for-one. Tempo loss aside, that’s not so bad. There are other cards that keep Kolaghan's Command at bay such as Dispel or a preemptive Inquisition of Kozilek; however, all of those answers are time-dependent. You can’t topdeck a Dispel after being hit with a Kolaghan’s Command and be happy about it. You can however use a Kolaghan's Command at a future point in the game to recoup temporary losses sustained by your opponent’s Kolaghan's Command.
This largely explains why Kolaghan’s Command is so ubiquitous in the Modern format right now. The same relationship has been true for cards from the past that have seen tons of play in their respective formats. What’s a great card against Tarmogoyf? That would be a Tarmogoyf. What about Mental Misstep? One Mental Misstep coming right up! You play a Thragtusk? I play… Thragtusk. You get the idea.
How to Metagame Against Kolaghan’s Command
Once one has established that the Modern format is defined by Kolaghan’s Command, a savvy Modern player has two options:
- Play with Kolaghan’s Command and try to be the best deck to utilize it.
- Go under Kolaghan’s Command as it costs three mana and is sometimes slow.
Taking Option 1 and running with it, I'm trying to entirely invalidate my opponent’s Kolaghan’s Commands by being the faster deck and having enough two-for-ones that I can go over the top when it comes down to raw card advantage. The card that really enables that strategy is Abbot of Keral Keep. If built correctly, an Abbot deck in Modern can count on him being a two-for-one a large number of games.
The Value of Being Proactive
Obviously Abbot of Keral Keep isn’t as good as Snapcaster Mage, so you have to consider the key differences between the two 2/1 humans. Here are a few reasons to play Abbot of Keral Keep over Snapcaster Mage: Abbot lets you play a more proactive game and hits harder. He’s also much more relevant during the early turns of the game. These qualities can be quite good in larger tournaments or unknown metagames where you want to drop the beat early. Relying on proactive spells to generate value as opposed to reactive ones is typically what you want to do in Modern. If you have a Thoughtseize during the first few turns of the game, you can be confident it will have targets; compare that to a Spell Snare which will be relevant a smaller portion of the time. Because of this, the cards that go well with Abbot of Keral Keep may just be the better cards to play than the ones that go well with Snapcaster Mage.
I arrived at the idea of building a midrange RB list that relied heavily on Abbot of Keral Keep, Dark Confidant, and Kolaghan’s Command to generate enough two-for-one potential that the deck can tussle in the late game. While less powerful than Jund in a vacuum, you aren't losing too much card quality by playing RB exclusively; you still have a critical mass of two-for-ones that can get the job done. That being said, giving up Abrupt Decay, Raging Ravine, Treetop Village, and Tarmogoyf is no joke. But if your RB Abbot deck is just reliably faster than your Jund deck, you may just be more well-positioned against some of Jund’s bad matchups like Tron. Another sometimes relevant benefit comes with having a more pain-free and less susceptible to Blood Moon manabase. In fact, you can even play with Blood Moon for some instant-win potential.
Here's the decklist:
The deck isn’t without its weaknesses. While there is a lot of benefit in being the faster deck, you have potential to run out of steam in the long game. Against Jund and Grixis, you need to optimally time your plays so that you always get value out of your Abbot of Keral Keeps and Young Pyromancers. The sideboard is an approximation at best. In a wide-open metagame, you want to make use of your sideboard. While red and black have a lot of sideboard options, those options are generally specific ones. This makes it quite difficult to narrow down a reasonable set of 15 cards that are optimal in a vacuum, so tune accordingly.
Conclusion
Thanks for reading. I’d love to hear feedback and talk tech @Rad_Blast. Enjoy.
