First serious attempt at making a deck, so it's going to be pretty scuffed.
Advice is appreciated, it's not the most viable tribe but I want to make the best of it.
The two win conditions are Collected Company and Jetmir, Nexus of Revels. CoCo should summon at least one lord, potentially as a combat trick, boosting the cats summoned on turns 2-3. Jetmir is slower, but grants access to trample and works nicely with Ajani and Pride Sovereign's ability to make multiple bodies.
Feline Sovereign and King of the Pride are the CoCo summonable lords, who usually aren't attacking on their own but still provide reasonable defence while others do. The king is very vulnerable to damage based removal without support from other lords, so it's important for him to come down later. Feline Sovereign can also be held back to catch artifact based decks by surprise.
Ocelot Pride is the deck's only one-drop. Turn one is either to be spent on playing them or fetching Jetmir's Garden for fixing later. First strike is considered a separate instance in time for technical purposes, so it triggers "one or more" separately from other combat damage in the same turn, which is helpful for Feline Sovereign and Kutzil. Additionally, the deck is usually playing enough creatures to hit the city's blessing around turn 4, particularly if Ajani, Pride Sovereign, or Collected Company get to drop multiple bodies.
Pride Sovereign is a nice mana sink and able to go both wide and tall. Additionally, the vigilance that Jetmir and Kaheera provide allow them to both attack and create tokens. Attacking in this way leaves the threat of getting +2/+2 and can force opponents to block or let them through unfavorably. The tokens also help against decks that threaten my life total or decks that force trades, and Ocelot Pride can trigger from their lifegain as well as clone them.
Ajani, Nacatl Pariah
is an easy way to get two bodies on the board. He helps with getting the city's blessing for Ocelot Pride, and the token he comes with can also be cloned by them. He can also potentially flip into a highly synergistic planeswalker. Opponents may hesitate to remove other creatures before him, so he may have trouble flipping, but it's not a bad thing if the rest of my board isn't dying. Additionally, I can legend rule him or Kutzil to flip on command anyways. His planeswalker side's +2 is extremely valuable if the board is already established, and if it isn't, his 0 can help rebuild. If Jetmir and Etali's Favor are out, the 0 is also valuable for removal or closing out a game where attacking isn't an option. The ultimate is also fairly reasonable to reach, and the mass edict effect can allow an established board to swing through for lethal damage.
Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar can be very valuable in stopping counterspells and other instant-speed interaction during my turn, giving me nearly full knowledge of what actions my opponent can take during it. Additionally, the card draw she provides on a successful attack can be very important in not losing steam during longer games. Generally most helpful against control decks, but still valuable otherwise.
Dromoka's Command's modality is very nice for mainboarding. The first mode is pretty situational, but the rest have nice value. Most often it's just used to combine the last two modes for fairly decent creature removal, but the enchantment edict can be valuable against Sterling Grove and decks that tend to only have one enchantment at a time.
Etali's Favor grants +1/+1 and trample to help with overpowering chump blockers and it usually discovers into something valuable. Probably the least individually valuable card, but a random other ≤3 mana card in the deck with a free aura stapled onto it is an alright deal for 3 mana.
The sideboard is probably the part of the deck that needs the most development. There aren't really any anti-meta cards here, just situational ones that are helpful against certain kinds of decks.
Kaheera, the Orphanguard is the companion, and having unconditional access to her means that mulligans are less painful. The deck always has something to do on turn 3 even when mana flooded. Additionally, vigilance is very nice for a few cards.
Fleecemane Lion has the best vanilla stats of anything I'm running, so they're a good start for the board, but they also pose a long-term threat to control decks that aren't running some form of edict or mass exile. This is also one of the nontoken creatures that's more comfortable attacking, as losing them doesn't weaken the rest of the board much.
Pick Your Poison is just generally nice against decks where I need to hit more artifacts and enchantments than Feline Sovereign can handle. Flying creatures are also sometimes only out one at a time in certain decks, and are unblockable for my creatures, so this can be an important answer.
Solitude is an elemental, so they're legal under Kaheera's companion restriction. Pitching feels bad when I need as many cats as I can get, but it's still a valuable emergency option against faster creature decks.
Surgical Extraction is going to require 2 life no matter what, but it's Surgical Extraction. Instant speed graveyard hate and combo disruption is very valuable, and can singlehandedly swing games in my favor depending on the deck.
All help is appreciated, I don't expect the deck to see anywhere near widespread success, but I want to do the best with it that I can.
(The deck name is a reference please play Purrfect Apawcalypse)
