This is a reasonably fast deck with all the removal hallmarks of midrange. You may notice that some cards like Sacred Cat and Regal Caracal are played in token decks just because of how good they are. Well, why not make a whole deck about them? Meow :3
While quite clearly a gimmick, this deck actually stands up reasonably well against meta decks, and is a blast to play at your LGS. I've been playing it a ton on MTGO, and while I'm far from the most experienced Magic player I have enough experience with other cardgames to work this out... ish. It's a work in progress, I'm constantly looking for ways to improve the deck and in particular shore up the bad matchups. Any feedback is very much appreciated!
Matchups
Aggro - Very Favoured
UB/R Control - Favoured
Token - Slightly Favoured
Temur Energy - Slightly Favoured
Midrange - Neutral
UW Control - Unfavoured
Engine Combo - Very Unfavoured
Tempo - Very Unfavoured
Vs Aggro
Both pre and postboard this matchup is a piece of cake. Mulligan for your cheap cats, you should rarely even need to make much use of your removal here. If it's a particularly flood-heavy aggro deck, board in the other 2 copies of Settle the Wreckage in place of Ajani Unyielding who is too slow to really be of any use here - if the aggro deck hasn't won by turn 6, they won't win anyway.
Vs UB/R Control
Preboard this is a bit trickier but by no means unwinnable. The key advantage you can levy is the Eternalize and Embalm mechanics of Sacred Cat and Adorned Pouncer. Playing a small board to play around sweepers and forcing 1:1 trades of removal into your cats works to your advantage, since you can bring the cats back and force another removal. With these 2:1 trades you can exhaust your opponent's hand of removal (provided they don't keep restocking with some Search for Azcanta
shenanigans) and levy your card advantage into a win by dropping your Regal Caracal or Ajani Unyielding. Your targeted removal, which won't really find any targets in this matchup, should usually be available in response to The Scarab God - and even if not, with the embalms/eternalizes your graveyard will be pretty empty.
Postboard, you have Prowling Serpopard, Heroic Intervention, Field of Ruin, Fragmentize and even Sorcerous Spyglass if necessary to deny both removal and card draw engines, tipping this matchup in your favour.
Vs Token
Here you want to play the value game. If possible, try to win the game as early as you can - token decks can usually stall you out for a while and your best chance is to go underneath that. That said, if the game does drag on and on it's still usually in your favour - you have the sweepers and targeted removal to disrupt their gameplan while building a board capable of matching theirs in width. Authority of the Consuls is an excellent pick up here and can often snowball the game for you from turn 1.
Vs Temur Energy
These matchups can be quite swingy, but tend to work in your favour. Chump block the Longtusk Cub and Bristling Hydra until you can remove them, and the game is yours. Be aware of ways they could remove key creatures and swing past your board. Authority of the Consuls is a great answer to Glorybringer, and Sorcerous Spyglass postboard can shut down the cat and the hydra. As with other midrange matchups, the sheer amount of lifelink present in the deck will make it quite difficult for the Temur Energy player to find lethal.
Vs Midrange
Other arbitrarily midrange matchups can be incredibly grindy, with both players pumping out big boards and playing around each other's removal. Authority of the Consuls is great against any board-centric deck, and your removal will really shine if they're playing something more reliant on a few big creatures than a large board. Either way, the lifelink will help as it does against Temur, reversing the clock your opponent puts on you and leading to situations where evasive creatures can't even deal net damage to your life total once you swing in response. Sideboard accordingly - Fragmentize is a good choice against some strategies, particularly if your opponent is running Ixalan's Binding or their own Cast Out.
Vs UW Control
This matchup kinda sucks. You need to sneak in a win before they can get too far ahead and safely set up the Approach of the Second Sun win, which Fumigate and Settle the Wreckage make it difficult to do. Your best chance here is postboard, shut down Search for Azcanta
with Fragmentize, Field of Ruin, or even Cast Out if you have to. You can also Sorcerous Spyglass - while the enchantment isn't activated, the land it creates is, so name that once they've transformed it and it becomes just an island. Playing around Settle the Wreckage is very important since not even Heroic Intervention will do anything against it.
Vs Engine Combo
It really depends on what kind of combo they're running, but the good ones should just run you over. Of course if it's some janky treasure mechanized production deck you'll kill them before they've done anything impactful, but good combo decks with competitive win conditions are extremely difficult to beat. Sorcerous Spyglass, Cast Out and Fragmentize are your only real ways of interacting with their win conditions, but it's a lose/lose situation as the opportunity cost of countering their buildup vs developing your own lethal threats is very high.
Vs Tempo
This is by far the worst matchup you could face. The saving grace of your cats vs control, the ability to force 2:1s, is very bad when your opponent is removing your creatures whilst also developing their board faster than you. There aren't many ways to beat tempo other than lucky draws. Authority of the Consuls is decent enough at allowing you to play past their board development, but expect most of your removal to get countered away. The big drawback of Settle the Wreckage is evident here - it targets your opponent, and so can be countered by Siren Stormtamer.
Card Specifics
Ajani Unyielding
He's a cat. Ish. And he's fantastic at ending the game - the card advantage his +2 provides is massive, and you'll usually have enough of a board to protect him from being sniped after an immediate -2. I've only ever gotten to use his -9 once, realistically it won't ever happen again, but I did sure enjoy swinging for 166 lifelink damage that turn ;)
Adorned Pouncer
Face is the place. After turn 5 you don't even want to keep this for chump blocking, this cat goes FACE. Why? Say they value trade him away, well, you make a 4/4 double strike. Sounds good right? This card is so good it can singlehandedly win some games, and your opponent will always find it frustrating playing around the double strike.
Settle the Wreckage
The best time to play this is when/if your opponent doesn't know you run it. After that, they're not going to be running their whole board into an attack unless you have an empty hand - but that's a good thing. Play mindgames. Screw them over. Just having this in your deck makes it more difficult for your opponent to find lethal. One opponent I faced on MTGO kept saying gg when I had over lethal on board and he had this card in hand. I never fell for it though - and you shouldn't either! Still, quite a funny trick to try.
Cast Out
C'est magnifique. This card is the nuts, your be-all, catch-all end-all answer to just about everything, and it's so versatile! Some games I start with this in my hand, and decide to cycle it away - because in some matchups, if you need to be spending your turn 4 on removal you've probably lost already. Never be afraid to cycle this away in search of something more aggressive - remember, the cats want to go face!
Pride Sovereign
One of, if not the best cat in the deck. 9/10 turns you're going to want to this badcat and get more cat tokens floating about the place. Generally if you get to stick this cat on the board, you win.
Regal Caracal
This is another beauty that's a win condition on its own. And even when it isn't, all that extra life gain will usually set your opponent's gameplan back.
Metallic Mimic
What can I say? Nuts card. Get this on turn 2, you're doing good. Get another on turn 3 followed by a Sacred Cat? You've probably won.
Gideon of the Trials
This isn't a cat, what's this doing here?! Well, as it turns out, the 3 drop cats are mostly terrible (except of course for Pride Sovereign). What this has though is a sort of psuedo-evasion, which the deck sorely lacks. In the midrange mirror and against tokens, you can hit stalemates where neither player wants to swing. Gideon is fantastic here - indestructible 4/4 for 3? Sounds good. You can swing with him every turn, since he won't die and wasn't going to be blocking anyway. Either your opponent blocks and potentially loses a creature, or you get free face damage; both of which bring you closer to the lethal alpha strike. Pretty good!
Sorcerous Spyglass
Name Hazoret the Fervent. Laugh.
