So, it might take a couple of minutes for the main page to update but I've made a large update for RIX release. The main focus has been to improve card draw but (obviously) addition of cards means removal of others. This is by no means a "final" draft but I hope you can see where I am going with it and over the next few weeks I hope to hone it, which means some of the changes might get reverted!

Thoughts gratefully received.

Thanks everyone.

Could you perhaps view my cat tribal deck and give me your thoughts about it? It's a lot more aggro than yours, but, I like it.

Hour of Cat-astrophe

Standard Shyvana_

89 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

I like the addition of Huatli, Radiant Champion to this deck. In a similar deck, I went with 4 each of Adorned Pouncer and Sacred Cat, leaving out Feral Prowler

In place of Verdant Rebirth and Shapers' Sanctuary, I went with Anointed Procession and Growing Rites of Itlimoc  ^Flip and replaced your white 4-drop defence cards with Heroic Intervention.

My thought pattern is that you can dominate the field with 1/1 cat tokens (kittens) that are boosted by Radiant Destiny, Regal Caracal and Metallic Mimic and you want to get there as early as possible. Anointed Procession is a must. I have also played around with Lifecrafter's Bestiary to modify what you draw and Mirage Mirror to copy Regal Caracal, Pride Sovereign or Anointed Procession as required.

Could you make a non-budget version of this deck? I kind of want to see how this would work if you spent all the money you could.

So after a long time with my cat deck I really don't like Feral Prowler. I go 4 of on Sacred Cat, 4 Adorned Pouncer, 4 Pride Sovereign, 4 Prowling Serpopard, 4 Metallic Mimic, and 4 Regal Caracal. I find that the rest of the deck is personal choice at this point, and what I mean is, I see most people run these cats. Could be me, but I like my playsets of cats, and the ones present are great. My own paper and MTGO cat deck also include Huatli, Radiant Champion cause she's so good here. The rest are combat tricks/extra ways to draw. The ones I see for you are fine, once again. I like the Verdant Rebirth, but I don't run it myself. Do you not like Blossoming Defense? I realize it works for spot removal, but I find nowadays an extra combat trick or two can push you for the win. I use Shapers' Sanctuary myself, but only as a 1 of, and another in the sideboard. In my current deck my combat tricks are 2 Blossoming Defense, 1 Appeal / Authority, 3 Cast Out, and 1 Prepare / Fight. It's weird but it works. I'm starting to like these spell cards that work from your graveyard, it may make your opponent switch into extra graveyard hate, which is great since this is more tempo/aggro. 2 Radiant Destiny, 1 Shapers' Sanctuary, and 2 Huatli, Radiant Champion are the only non-cats other than the combat tricks.

That's pretty much how I run my cat deck, Pickacantaloupe, but, I have like 10 non-cats because Oketra the True is the God of cats, so, she obviously works so well in a cat deck, Resilient Khenra is incredible with an Appeal / Authority on a double strike creature because you add 4 (+2/+2) damage in addition to the massive hit with Appeal. I've never had a game run long enough to get a combo of an Adorned Pouncer token with a Resilient Khenra token, but, if I did, it'd be ridiculous because you get an 8/8 double strike in the later game, then you hit that Authority

Murphy77, Shyvana, Pickacantaloupe - thanks for all your comments and discussion! I will reply properly over this weekend (I'm opening a bunch of cards tonight).

Shyvana - One thing I will mention with regards this being "budget" - it isn't budget by design, I am not sure adding more expensive cards will actually help the deck, so I won't be attempting a "non-budget" version because I don't think there's anything to gain there. If a card is good, it's going in anyway, it just happens to be quite low-cost for the format right now anyway.

Pickacantaloupe - one direct question for you as well: if you don't run Feral Prowler how is your card draw? I added it for draw more than anything else but I haven't had as much opportunity to playtest as it sounds like you have. Interested in your thoughts on that point.

What kind of packs, sagramore?

Shyvana_ - I was playing some RIX sealed with some friends but had 12 boosters to open because one of my other friends was using my cards for it. Opened some nice bits & pieces but nothing that I needed for this deck sadly :/ May be time for a singles purchase next pay day! :)

sagramore To be perfectly honest with you my draw is sub-par. But I find that if I play against a creature/aggro deck this works for me cause I play fast and low anyway. But if I'm against control I go more for the slow play, and see if I can slip some critters under his control-radar. It's worked for me both ways. I find that I don't really need too much draw.

I should do more testing, and see what happens if I have more draw cards. I wanted to use Enter the Unknown, but it also lacks here. sigh I love it too. So spicy.

I'm still trying to work out the final few cards in this deck. I think I will leave the Feral Prowler in until I've had more chance to test it but I am going to take your advice with a few "1-of" cards to tweak the non-cat spells a bit....

One card that I have been thinking of trying in my cat deck is Path of Discovery (not Enter the Unknown). It is a bit of a nothing card until you start summoning creatures and tokens, then can give you added +1's to most of your creatures and tokens.

The way I read things is that you summon Regal Caracal or exert Pride Sovereign to get 2 tokens, which you double up with Anointed Procession. You then get to explore for each token. For the first explore you might get to draw a land - then you keep replacing the top card back on top of your deck and keep adding +1's to all your other tokens. With +1's from Regal Caracal, Metallic Mimic and Radiant Destiny, you could easily end up creating 5/5 kittens with lifelink instead of 1/1's.

Possibilities are more than card slots - you could then copy a Pride Sovereign for the turn using Mirage Mirror or double your explore triggers with Panharmonicon etc. All this rather changes the original strategy of swarming the field with 1/1, or 2/2 lifelink tokens, but if we can get the balance of the deck right, it starts getting rather scary.

I'm so sad rotation is soon!... The cat deck dies to rotation. Sadness is placed on the stack.

It was fun whilst it lasted though people! Thanks for all the updates, and explanations! Lets hope cats return someday....

Speaking of, where's Ajani?! Wasn't he supposed to come back?

Pickacantaloupe - I know... Time to start working out if it can be ported to Modern.

Bah, who am I kidding? :)

Core 19 puts a totally new spin on cats. I was still playing Kittens Play until I saw the new Ajani cards in Core 19. Have a look at 19 white kittens.