by Johnny Cycles, December 6th, 2024
Hello! Welcome to another edition of Keeping Modern Janky! This month I’m excited to highlight a janky tribal brew that can go wide and go big with the best of them: Cat Tribal. Cats have seen a recent influx of powerful cards from multiple sets, including a pair that have dominated Modern. Will this new blood power up some older cards to make a competitive deck? Let’s find out!
Modern Horizons 3 gave us two super pushed Cat mythics in Ocelot Pride and Ajani, Nacatl Pariah. These cards are so good that they can take over a game all by themselves, both by generating and growing an army of Cats. But with Foundations, we got even more new Cat toys. Arahbo, the First Fang is a Lord that pumps our team, while also increasing its numbers. Meanwhile, the unimposing Helpful Hunter keeps us from running out of gas.
With more than 300 Cats to choose from, the vast majority of which are either or or both, there are plenty of powerful options to fill out the rest of our 60. King of the Pride and Feline Sovereign give us more Lord effects, while Pride Sovereign can make an army by himself while functioning as a game-ending threat.
And I haven’t even gotten to my favorite card…in fact, one of my favorite cards of all time!
Brimaz, King of Oreskos is a powerful mythic from Born of the Gods that never really gained traction in any format that I’m aware of. And yet, his stats pass the eye test. In our deck, he is a must-kill threat that doesn’t die to Lightning Bolt. In conjunction with any of our other Lords, he can grow a lethal army by himself. Finally, playing him brings me about as much joy as any one card in Magic can!
Before I discuss the deck in detail, here’s the decklist I’ve been playtesting.
Decklist – Selesnya Cat Tribal
by Johnny Cycles
Format: Modern
Creatures (35)
Spells (4)
| 4 Collected Company |
Lands (21)
2 Cavern of Souls
1 Forest
4 Horizon Canopy
2 Lush Portico
4 Plains
4 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
Sideboard (15)
| 4 Sanctifier en-Vec | |
| 3 Suncleanser | |
| 4 Brutal Cathar | |
| 4 Skyclave Apparition |
Deck Tech
Primary Game Plan
Like most aggressive creature strategies, we’re looking to play creatures up the curve and turn them sideways until our opponent is dead. It’s pretty straightforward, though far from simple or boring. Our deck is full of synergistic threats and a handful of enablers.
Our curve looks something like the above, plus or minus one of our three Cat Lords. This kind of start lets us swing in for 10 on turn 3 if our opponent can’t interact with us.
Alternatively, since we’re a Collected Company deck and heavy on 3-drops, we play Noble Hierarch to help us jump the curve. This enables us to play a turn 2 Brimaz, King of Oreskos followed by any of our Lords. The above scenario lets us swing in on turn 3 for 6. Swap King of the Pride for Arahbo and it’s 8.
Our last Lord, Feline Sovereign does more than just pump our team. It grants all of our other Cats “protection from Dogs.” When I first read this, I smiled. Great flavor, I thought.
Then I played against a U/W Blink deck leaning on this 2-drop cutie from Modern Horizons 3. I guess that flavorful line of text is actually relevant.
Fringe protection aside, what really makes Feline Sovereign so great, other than the +1/+1, is that last block of text. Modern is full of powerful artifacts and enchantments we would like to destroy. Having main-deck hate for them that furthers our gameplan is amazing. Note also that Feline Sovereign doesn’t die to Pyroclasm.
A quick aside about Cats as a tribe. Unlike Merfolk or Humans, Cats don’t have a ton of ways to interact or interfere with our opponent’s gameplan. The best Cats largely make more Cats and/or pump each other. We don’t have a card like Tishana’s Tidebinder or Reflector Mage. Feline Sovereign is one of the few Cats that gives us a bit of game other than beating face better.
Enablers
Filling out our deck are cards that ensure we don’t run out of gas. Helpful Hunter replaces itself while synergizing with all of our Lords. Enduring Innocence, one of two non-Cats we’re playing, does a whole lot. The lifelink is not irrelevant given that we play Ocelot Pride. And it demands an answer only to return as an enchantment, making it a built-in 2-for-1…on top of all the other 2-for-1s it has.
The Sheep Glimmer also triggers when a token from Brimaz, King of Oreskos or Arahbo, the First Fang enters the battlefield. On the flipside, though, if we have enough Lord effects on the battlefield, our 1/1s will enter too big to draw us a card off of Enduring Innocence. If this is the case, hopefully we’re already winning enough.
The rug that ties it all together is Collected Company. I doubt I need to say anything about this card, but since it’s not very popular in Modern anymore, it’s possible some readers have never played with it or against it. Well, if that’s the case, trust me when I say it is a busted, busted card. It’s the closest thing we have to Solitude + Ephemerate that is such a blowout against us.
Sideboard
Being a Collected Company deck incentivizes us to find creature hate cards, like Sanctifier en-Vec over Rest in Peace. There are some obvious drawbacks to our decision to never board out Collected Company, not least of which is our limited options. The main drawback is that we water down our Cat synergies when we have to bring in a bunch of non-Cats to deal with our opponent’s deck. So far I haven’t been too disappointed with how the deck plays after boarding in upwards to all 15 cards, but I can see it being a problem.
As you can see, I’m putting a lot of emphasis on having interaction in the board. I hate playing a deck with no way of dealing with my opponent’s board, though I think in Cat Tribal we don’t want to water down our synergies with non-Cat removal spells in the main. Having access to Skyclave Apparition and Brutal Cathar gives us game against some of the must-answer threats running around Modern.
Meanwhile, Suncleanser is good against the Energy decks. That being said, I was largely unimpressed with it and have since cut it in favor of other hate cards. That we have to wait for our opponent to play the creature we don’t want to get counters kind of makes it useless against Psychic Frog and Walking Ballista (as we learned the hard way). Sure, nerfing energy is powerful, but we’re hoping to go wider and bigger than them anyway.
On to the games!
Match 1 vs. Cat Tribal (seriously…)
Match 2 vs. Eldrazi Midrange
Match 3 vs. Storm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQVUaV2U95E
Match 4 vs. Burn
Match 5 vs. Eldrazi Combo
Match 6 vs. Dimir Frog
Match 7 vs. Dimir Frog…again
Overall Record: 4-3
Impressions from Matches
Going into Cat Tribal I fully expected the deck to be fun and janky, but not that competitive. So I was pleasantly surprised by how powerful and consistent the deck was. We played one more match that I can’t seem to upload – the aforementioned U/W Blink deck – and lost, making our final record a 4-4. Not too shabby for Cat Tribal!
Of course, we didn’t play some of the top decks in the format, but I was still impressed with how competitive the deck was. We kept up with some of Modern’s broken cards and strategies, more often than not getting at least one game in the matches we lost. We were also able to slog through a great deal of removal, including sweepers, and rebuild and rebound. We rarely ran out of gas or got mana screwed. This tells me that the land count and the variety of ways we have to draw cards is right.
Of course, now that I’ve said that, I’m going to change it all up!
A New Direction
In writing this article, I wanted to see how many Cats are in Magic. In doing so, I was reminded of one of my all-time favorite cats (a close second behind Brimaz) – Fleecemane Lion! Printed back in 2013, this rare from Theros felt so pushed at the time, even with the highly restrictive color requirements. And, in reality, Fleecemane Lion was good in both the early game and the late, as casting it and making it monstrous made it nearly impossible to kill back then.
Would it be good in today’s Modern? Let’s reunite him with his best friend, Brimaz, King of Oreskos and find out!
However, it wasn’t just my rediscovery of Fleecemane Lion that inspired me to tweak the deck. In our matches, some cards just didn’t do enough.
On paper, this Cat does everything we want it to. In reality, it felt like a win-more card. Not being a Lord is its greatest flaw, but the more practical reason I’m cutting it is that we are pretty flush with 3-mana creatures. Sure, with Collected Company this is great, but when we’re staring at an opening 7 of 3 lands and 4 3 drops, it feels pretty bad. Cutting Pride Sovereign for Fleecemane Lion feels like a win-win. We get an on-curve threat that is good in the late game, even if it can’t take over a game on an empty board the way Pride Sovereign can.
Speaking of being flush with 3 drops… this Sheep Glimmer didn’t disappoint. It drew us cards, triggered Ocelot Pride with its lifegain, and was hard to get rid of. Cutting it could just be wrong, honestly, but there’s only one way to find out!
There are two reasons I’m taking it out. First, when we have a big board with several Lords, it’s pretty hard to trigger its card-draw clause. And second, I want to see if the card advantage we get out of Helpful Hunter, Horizon Canopy, and Collected Company is enough to keep us from running out of gas consistently. Sure, it’s always fun to draw cards, but when we’re winning with 7 cards in hand, maybe we can cut our non-Cat card draw engine…
So, what are we replacing it with? Well, I’m still interested in lowering our curve a bit. Furthermore, without Pride Sovereign, we don’t have any one Cat that can get truly big. Ajani’s Pridemate comes down early and poses a legitimate threat, particularly with our final change. Quick note: Bronzehide Lion was the other Cat I was considering.
Cutting some of our 3-drops for 2-drops incentivizes us to find a replacement for our fragile mana dork. Don’t get me wrong, Noble Hierarch is a great card in our deck and led us to some really busted starts. Its synergies with Brimaz, King of Oreskos are particularly fun. And its exalted trigger gave us some free attacks on an otherwise clogged up board.
But there is another 1-drop that is hands down superior. Yes, I know…Guide of Souls and Ocelot Pride are centerpieces to one of the best decks in the format, but our deck is going to abuse these besties even more!
You know who really likes Guide of Souls? Ajani’s Pridemate! There will be turns when we untap with both of these creatures out and grow the Pridemate to a 5/5.
But that’s not all! In case you didn’t realize it, cats don’t fly. Having a way to grant a threat evasion will be the difference in winning and losing sometimes.
Here’s the new decklist!
Decklist – Selesnya Cat Tribal 2.0
by Johnny Cycles
Format: Modern
Creatures (35)
| 4 Guide of Souls | |
| 4 Ocelot Pride | |
| 4 Ajani, Nacatl Pariah | |
| 3 Ajani’s Pridemate | |
| 4 Fleecemane Lion | |
| 4 Helpful Hunter | |
| 3 Arahbo, the First Fang | |
| 3 Brimaz, King of Oreskos | |
| 3 Feline Sovereign | |
| 3 King of the Pride |
Spells (4)
| 4 Collected Company |
Lands (21)
2 Cavern of Souls
3 Forest
2 Horizon Canopy
2 Lush Portico
4 Plains
4 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
Sideboard (15)
| 4 Sanctifier en-Vec | |
| 2 Qasali Pridemage | |
| 1 Ajani, Caller of the Pride | |
| 4 Brutal Cathar | |
| 4 Skyclave Apparition |
Our sideboard continues to fluctuate. I wasn’t impressed with Suncleanser, but I’m also unsure we need Qasali Pridemage. It’s possible March of Otherworldly Light is worth watering down our creature count. Meanwhile, Ajani, Caller of the Pride is a great way to close out a game against decks that clog up the ground, while also being a flavor win!
Match 1 vs. 4-Color Control
Match 2 vs. Tron
Conclusion
That’s all for Cat Tribal…for now! I play a lot of janky decks for cyclesgaming.com and oftentimes I don’t really ever want to play them again (thinking of you Dimir and Affinity Dragons!). But not this one. I really enjoyed the deck, and not just because I got to play Brimaz, King of Oreskos.
I really like the synergies of the different Cats. I like that we have powerful, must-answer threats up the curve. And I like turning big creatures sideways! So if you’re looking for a creature strategy that leans on synergies between cards, rather than sticking a single bomb, then give Cat Tribal a shot!
As always, thanks for reading and watching!
