The release of MH3 had an absolutely massive impact on Legacy. Various Eldrazi builds featuring cards like Sowing Mycospawn have been consistently putting up results. Dimir Reanimator, a dominant, well-established archetype prior to MH3, got even better with the introduction of Psychic Frog to the format. What if I told you we’ve even seen a breakout performance from a Cat typal deck, too?
That’s right. This past week, mono-white Cats made top eight of a major 62-player Legacy event. This would not have been possible without MH3 cards in the mix. It’s absolutely incredible to see such an off-the-wall archetype have this level of success, so we definitely felt the deck needed to be highlighted.
Payoffs for Staying with Cats
- Mana Value: 1W
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Stats: 1/2
- Text: When Ajani, Nacatl Pariah enters the battlefield, create a 2/1 white Cat Warrior creature token. Whenever one or more other Cats you control die, you may exile Ajani, then return him to the battlefield transformed under his owner’s control.
As a whole, there are a decent number of similarities between this deck and traditional Death and Taxes decks of old. For instance, both strategies are heavily creature focused and are built to maximize Aether Vial. Outside of a few elite noncreature spells like Swords to Plowshares, this deck is made up almost entirely on creatures to put in with Vial and lands to help cast them otherwise.
The major difference is that this Cat typal shell is much more aggressive. Instead of relying on cards like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben to keep the opponent off-balance and Flickerwisp shenanigans to generate value, the goal here is to try to flood the board as quickly as possible and get the opponent dead.
Two huge additions from MH3 that help give this archetype some legs are Ocelot Pride and Ajani, Nacatl Pariah. As you’ve likely seen in Modern, Ocelot Pride is incredibly strong. The token production gets out of hand rather quickly. Ajani is a great follow-up, adding more pressure to the board and making things very awkward for the opponent. If any of your other Cats die before Ajani, Ajani can flip. From there, you can either make more Cat tokens or put +1/+1 counters on all of your Cats.
Ajani is a nice payoff for sticking with the Cat theme. Another card that rewards you for going all-in on Cats is King of the Pride. King of the Pride turns all of your tokens from Ocelot Pride and Ajani into absolute monsters. Being able to flash this card into play out of nowhere off Vial can make combat a nightmare for the opponent.
As you might expect for a typal strategy, this deck gets to abuse the power of Cavern of Souls, too. Cavern of Souls is incredible in Legacy, helping you jam your threats with no fear of Daze or Force of Will. Between Vial and Cavern, this deck is well set up to fight through the permission of blue decks.
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Supporting Cast of Cats
- Mana Value: 1W
- Rarity: Rare
- Stats: 2/2
- Text: Players can’t search libraries. Any player may pay 2 for that player to ignore this effect until end of turn.
The rest of the deck is mostly just made up of other Cat creatures to synergize with Ajani and King of the Pride. Leonin Arbiter is a pretty strong inclusion in a format ruled by Fetchlands. There are plenty of other cards that see tons of Legacy play that get affected, too, such as Entomb and Crop Rotation. Stalking Leonin is another disruptive element, letting you get a one-time exile effect on any creature your opponent attacks you with. This is a nice card to put into play off of Aether Vial to catch your opponent off guard.
From there, we have a bunch of creatures that help push through damage. It’s interesting to see a playset of Guide of Souls here, given the lack of Energy synergies. However, it has proven to be an elite turn one play. Token producers like Ajani and Ocelot Pride make it easy to start getting value out of its ability to buff your threats.
Guide of Souls works incredibly well in conjunction with Ajani’s Pridemate, too. The life gain triggers enable Ajani’s Pridemate to grow substantially. Then, you can give Ajani’s Pridemate Flying and deal a boatload of damage. All things considered, Ajani’s Pridemate is a very weak card by Legacy standards, but perhaps this combo still warrants its inclusion in this archetype.
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Fighting the Good Fight
- Mana Value: 1B
- Rarity: Rare
- Stats: 1/1
- Text: Flash. When Orcish Bowmasters enters the battlefield and whenever an opponent draws a card except the first one they draw in each of their draw steps, Orcish Bowmasters deals 1 damage to any target. Then amass Orcs 1.
At the end of the day, it’s unlikely that mono-white Cats will gain a ton of traction as an elite archetype or anything of the sort. There are some strategies, such as Storm or Doomsday, that should have a relatively easy time executing a game-winning combo before this deck can apply enough pressure.
This deck’s sudden breakout performance is indicative of a couple things within the format. First, the metagame has evolved in a way where mono-white Cats actually has game against multiple of the top decks in the format. We already mentioned how well this deck does against counter magic. If the opponent is playing a fair deck and they can’t kill threats like Ocelot Pride and Ajani on sight, they’re going to be in for a rough time.
The combination of Ajani and Karakas is incredible in grindy games as well if the opponent doesn’t have Wasteland at the ready. Speaking of Wasteland, much like Death and Taxes decks of old, this archetype can freely use mana destruction tools to its advantage once Aether Vial is up and running.
The other aspect of the format that has helped this deck succeed suddenly is the shift away from Orcish Bowmasters. As good as Psychic Frog is in Dimir Reanimator, Orcish Bowmasters is significantly more powerful against Ocelot Pride and the like. Psychic Frog has earned its place as more players gear towards facing the Reanimator mirror and such, which helps give a rogue deck like this a glimmer of hope.
Seeing a unique typal deck thrive in a big event in a format as powerful as Legacy is really something. There’s almost assuredly more room to explore within the archetype, too. If anything, this goes to show just how incredible Gift of Souls, Ocelot Pride, and Ajani are as threats, even outside of Modern.
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