WIP: looking for side and main board recommendations. Please feel free to interact with and comment on. I appreciate hearing other people's opinions. I also appreciate up votes etc. but who doesn't?
Brief description/goal for each card:
Creatures:
Sacred Cat is efficient early game stall and late game board recovery, if you can embalm with Anointed Procession out you'll get 2 cats without losing any of your hand which can work out well for board recovery, especially if you've got a lord out or in hand.
Adorned Pouncer same as Sacred Cat, but not as efficient of a stall when it dies. Works great with lords against rush decks since double strike initiates as first strike. It can also work well coming in late game from exalted especially with Anointed Procession on the battlefield.
Metallic Mimic is the weirdest looking cat I've ever seen. Doesn't need much explanation, it's just a good colorless pseudo-lord.
Prowling Serpopard is an efficient large cat to come in on turn 3 and also helps to shut down a lot of control decks, ideally it's better with a lord against red decks to take it out of 3 damage range.
Pride Sovereign is mostly meant to be cat generation, but it can swing in late game for a win. It can also be paired with both sides of Prepare / Fight to help get rid of large creatures.
Regal Caracal is a cat lord, really nice in so far as it comes in with 2 cat tokens and thus 7 power on turn 5, or 11 if you have Anointed Procession out, it also gives lifelink to the all the cats that don't have it which can really motivate your opponent not to swing.
Majestic Myriarch is a bit of a stretch to fit in, it could win the game, but it's need to have a board state might make it end up as a bit of a dud off a board clear. I might want to replace them with Oketra the True, but I'd like some outside input on this.
Instants:
Heroic Intervention is mostly meant to come in against board clears, might sideboard up to 4 of them in against certain decks, and against aggro it can come in as a combat trick for all of my creatures.
Prepare / Fight: I know a lot of people don't like running combat tricks in a competitive standard deck since they often become a 1 for 1 or even a 2 for 1 and that's not great value, but this also can come in as removal, and pairs very well with Pride Sovereign.
Enchantments:
Radiant Destiny just like Metallic Mimic is an efficient pseudo lord, and if you can get a city's blessing with ascend it does extra, plus the token gen in this deck makes it very likely to get the city's blessing. Having it as an enchantment also serves well for board recovery since when Sacred Cat and Adorned Pouncer come back from the grave it just makes them bigger.
Anointed Procession is my favorite card in this deck. It works to synergize with all the token gen, but it is a dead play on turn 4. Ultimately it's not totally justifiable in a competitive deck, so it's included as a bit of a pet card, that synergizes enough to hopefully make up for a dead turn. On the bright side as the game progresses it might be able to make up for its cost.
Planeswalker:
Huatli, Radiant Champion ok so here's the thing with cats in general, they don't quite meet the threshold to make a legitimately competitive deck. As with all tribal, they're weak to board clears, and though they have a slight advantage in terms of being able to recover with Sacred Cat and Adorned Pouncer, they're also a bit higher on the mana curve than most other tribal decks. You think they might be able to make up for it by being green, but as you can see there isn't any ramp in this deck. The biggest problem with cats though, more so than many others, is a complete lack of card drawing ability, and this is the answer I came to Huatli, Radiant Champion. Like Anointed Procession turn 4 playing her then +1ing can be a bit dead, but the way she's set up (except against black which currently has a lot of planeswalker hate) you can pretty consistently ult her. So if you manage to pull that off, the emblem triggers from tokens too, which in this deck can mean a whole lot of card drawing ability. So while potentially jank it absolutely has some amazing potential. Outside of the ult though there's also its -1 ability which could potentially win the game or just add a lot of life on the fly by giving it to a Sacred Cat or just one of the cat tokens.
Land:
I'll just give a brief explanation of land choice in general instead of card by card. I'm running 24 because of the general curve demand of these cards, ideally this deck is best if it can get to 5 or 6 lands and without any ramp I'd hesitate to have fewer lands. Most of the land inclusion too is also pretty self explanatory, I'm not running any deserts, because I'm not quite sure if they're going to be worth it, and I don't want to risk Sunpetal Grove coming in tapped. If someone thinks I should, I might add a couple of Hashep Oasis or Shefet Dunes, but we'll see.
