The first official Cat printed in Magic was Canyon WildcatCanyon Wildcat back in Tempest. This was just a Cat, no secondary creature type or any change to its creature type after release. However, it is not the oldest Magic card to later become a Cat.

The first card that would eventually come to be part of the Cat creature type was Savannah LionsSavannah Lions in Alpha, originally the now-defunct Lion creature type. This was then expanded-upon with Cat WarriorsCat Warriors in Legends, though this was technically the single creature type Cat Warriors.

It would later be changed to the dual "race and class" creature type format as introduced in the Grand Creature Type Update, unsurprisingly being both a Cat and a Warrior.

Throughout all of this and into modern Magic, Cats have always had a strong tie to and above all other colors, though features quite regularly as a tertiary splash. Multicolored Cats typically have an anchor in either or , though many appear across all colors.

Cats appear both as feline animals as well as humanoids with feline traits called Catfolk. These two subtypes tend to have different specializations within the Cat creature type, but are mechanically the same.

Big Litters

Cats synergize with and enjoy the company of other creatures. However, these aren't often static benefits that affect all other Cats, they're often based on the number of creatures you have under your control or trigger upon a creature entering the battlefield (ETB).

Sometimes this specifies Cats, but not always! Many Cat abilities are reliant on having large board states with multiple creatures or whose main strength comes from affecting many different low-power creatures.

A Cat's Best Friend

Cats have a few specific synergies with other creature types, often dependent on which flavor of Cat is being depicted.

Housecat felines and other Cats related to real-world animals tend to have synergies with other animals, such as Beasts and Dogs. These effects tend to reference other creature types directly and have some mutually supportive effect, such as Dogs creating Cats and Cats creating Dogs or creating either Cats or Dogs that fulfill different niches.

Catfolk Cats tend to synergize more with specific "class" creature types such as Knight and Cleric but most commonly Warrior. They can be just about any class a Human or Elf or Vampire can be, though they certainly have some they focus on more than others. They also tend towards having synergy with Equipment, either gaining benefits upon equipping them or making them more accessible.

Incremental Utility

Given how many Cats will be on the board at a given time, they incrementally improve upon one another by adding keywords and stat bonuses. These generally range the various standard keywords across each of the colors, with vigilance and first strike and trample being some of the most common.

Further, many Cats provide specific utility value upon ETB or their death. This means they can then be used either for growth as a body on the battlefield or as a non-combatant utility piece, setting up other combos or Cats.

Declawed

Despite their abundance, Cats rarely have direct combat applicability. A few have decent power with vigilance or first strike to supplement it, particularly for catfolk and Cat Warriors.

Overwhelmingly, though, Cats have numbers and utility over combat abilities. This means that their greatest strength are those spells that provide a small benefit to every creature you control, maximizing its impact.

Explosive Growth

Despite their ability to increase the power and utility of other creatures, Cats don't have much in the ways of dramatically boosting their combat performance. Most of their synergy with other Cats is based around creature token creation. To a lesser extent, utility such as card draw or life gain as applies.

There are a few exceptions to this, such as those that add +5/+5 to all creatures or provide a creature double strike. These aren't common enough to expect them consistently across turns, but there's enough of them to use liberally throughout the game to press advantages and respond to threats. It's just necessary to have enough to push through adversity and overcome the limitations of unempowered Cats.

Rin and Seri, InseparableRin and Seri, Inseparable

Rin and Seri, InseparableRin and Seri, Inseparable is the 41st most popular commander at the time of this guide's writing. That's due not only to supporting both Dog and Cat typal, but also granting a very well-rounded set of abilities for a commander.

Whenever you cast a Dog spell, create a 1/1 Cat. Whenever you cast a Cat spell, create a 1/1 Dog. These token generations aren't casting spells, meaning it doesn't stack on itself, though it can potentially double your creature output. Then for , Rin and Seri deals damage to any target equal to your number of Dogs and you gain life equal to your number of Cats.

This allows you to hit an opponent for decent ping damage, remove a single threat, or weaken a blocker prior to attacking all while sustaining your life total. Building off of the token generation grants additional incentives to cast more creatures which will naturally stack upon itself with their effects as you build a solid board state.

Arahbo, Roar of the WorldArahbo, Roar of the World

Arahbo, Roar of the WorldArahbo, Roar of the World has Eminence, a quite powerful keyword that grants an effect both while on the battlefield or while in your command zone. Arahbo's eminence ability grants another Cat you control +3/+3 at the beginning of combat on your turn.

Outside of that, Arahbo allows you to pay whenever another Cat you control attacks to grant it trample and +X/+X where X is its power. This can turn what is traditionally a quite middling creature type into a formidable beast for a turn. Not only can you do this multiple times per turn, but any amount of power increases from tokens or spells will increase the value of X, granting further value.

Arahbo, the First FangArahbo, the First Fang

Arahbo, the First FangArahbo, the First Fang grants your other Cats +1/+1 and whenever Arahbo or another nontoken Cat ETB under your control, you create a 1/1 Cat. Which thanks to Arahbo is functionally a 2/2.

The useful thing about Arahbo is that it's entirely Cat-recursive. Casting Cats grants you Cats which means you can support more Cats, allowing for more focused deckbuilding. But additionally, this is whenever a Cat ETB. Not when you cast a Cat spell. This means any number of other effects up to and including graveyard reclamation will work with Arahbo's effect and give you additional 2/2 bodies.

Ajani, Nacatl PariahAjani, Nacatl Pariah

Ajani, Nacatl PariahAjani, Nacatl Pariah is an unimpressive 1/2 that ETB with a 2/1 Cat Warrior. However, upon one or more other Cats you control dying, you may exile Ajani and return him to the battlefield transformed as a planeswalker.

As the Nacatl Avenger, it gains the following abilities:

+2. Put a +1/+1 counter on each Cat you control, which is great to build up a wide board of 1/1 tokens.

0. Create a 2/1 Cat Warrior token and if you control a red permanent other than Ajani, it deals damage equal to the number of creatures you control to any target. As with most other Cat synergies, having lots of Cats leads to lots of effects, in this case damage.

-4. Each opponent chooses an artifact, creature, enchantment, or planeswalker and sacrifices the rest. It's not quite a board wipe, but it certainly clears up the board state of your opponents. It still allows them to save their most valuable nonland permanent, but it also only costs four loyalty counters.

Jinnie Fay, Jetmir's SecondJinnie Fay, Jetmir's Second

Jinnie Fay, Jetmir's SecondJinnie Fay, Jetmir's Second allows you to replace any tokens you would generate with an equal number of 2/2 Cat tokens with haste or 3/1 Dog tokens with vigilance. This is useful for ensuring you can maintain a supply of Cats and can promote 1/1 Cat tokens with no keyword into a strict improvement.

But Jinnie Fay's real value comes from replacing noncreature token generation with creature token generation. Treasure, Food, Clues, and Blood are all common tokens that can be generated in vast quantities. Jinnie Fay allows you to simply skip ahead to where they grant you board presence, with the flexibility of a Cat or Dog based on circumstance.

Mirri, Weatherlight DuelistMirri, Weatherlight Duelist

Mirri, Weatherlight DuelistMirri, Weatherlight Duelist is a 3/2 with first strike that limits the bandwidth of your opponents' combats. Whenever Mirri attacks, each opponent can't block with more than one creature this combat. And as long as Mirri is tapped, no more than one creature can attack you each combat.

This acts as a fantastic defensive measure that's just accessible-enough for your opponents to continue their strategies that it isn't their largest priority to remove. Against a swarm deck that rushes out hordes of creature tokens, this is a floodgate that stops them. And even against a deck prioritizing one or a handful of elite creatures, this ensures that your opponents have to commit their main resource to whatever combat you send their way.

And of course, with how numerous Cats are, the ability to rush past an opponents' blockers is incredibly useful.

Jetmir, Nexus of RevelsJetmir, Nexus of Revels

Jetmir, Nexus of RevelsJetmir, Nexus of Revels grants a series of stacking benefits depending on how many creatures you control.

If you control three or more creatures, your creatures gain +1/+0 and gain vigilance. If six or more, they get an additional +1/+0 and trample. And at nine or more, they gain an additional +1/+0 and double strike. This means that with eight other creatures in addition to Jetmir, all of them have +3/+0 with vigilance, trample, and double strike.

Even with a series of 1/1 Cat tokens, that's eight 4/1 Cat tokens that don't tap when they attack and swing twice with trample. The main issue is maintaining that threshold of nine or more creatures, which isn't hard to reach but can be easy to lose if you're not careful with your creatures. The best way to maximize its value is to ensure you can always create more creatures and to avoid overcommitting in attacks.

Marisi, Breaker of the CoilMarisi, Breaker of the Coil

Marisi, Breaker of the CoilMarisi, Breaker of the Coil makes it so that your opponents can't cast spells during combat. This applies to their turn as well as yours. And whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to a player, you goad each of their creatures. This forces them to attack on the opponent's next turn and target a player other than you, if able.

This requires dealing combat damage to an opponent, meaning it's unlikely you'll be able to trigger it against a well-guarded opponent. But with enough Cats, even a single 1/1 sneaking by their defenders allows you to goad their creatures. This is great for dealing damage to other opponents, but also forces trades and blocks that opponents might not have wanted to make. It's useful for thinning out opposition across the board while you build up your Cats to deal the real damage.

Prowling SerpopardProwling Serpopard

Prowling SerpopardProwling Serpopard is a 4/3 that can't be countered and prevents your creature spells from being countered.

Being a 4/3 that costs and can't be countered is already a good inclusion for a Cat deck. But the ability to prevent countering to your other creature spells is what makes it so great to include. Outside of being standard protection, Cats require casting many creature spells. This comes with multiple opportunities for countering and disruption, lending greater value to protection from it.

Kaheera, the OrphanguardKaheera, the Orphanguard

Kaheera, the OrphanguardKaheera, the Orphanguard is a 3/2 with vigilance that grants each of your Cats, Elementals, Nightmares, Dinosaurs, and Beasts +1/+1 and vigilance. It also can act as a companion if your deck only has creature cards of those types.

Assuming you're only including Cats in your deck, a blanket +1/+1 and vigilance can provide much-needed value to 1/1 token generation. Particularly when paired with other Cat bonuses. The timing of this is important, though, given companion's restriction to being cast once. It's best used prior to an attack where you want to keep yourself defended, vigilance grants you that extra flexibility.

Ocelot PrideOcelot Pride

Ocelot PrideOcelot Pride is a 1/1 with first strike and lifelink. It also has ascend, which means you get the city's blessing upon controlling ten or more permanents. The city's blessing is a state you retain for the rest of the game.

Each of your end steps, you create a 1/1 Cat if you gained life that turn. Then you create a copy of each token that ETB this turn if you have the city's blessing. This leads to a ramping effect quite quickly, where your token generation can outpace the threats opponents raise against you so long as you can gain any amount of life on your turn. Lifelink from Ocelot Pride aside, that's trivially easy for decks.

Esika's ChariotEsika's Chariot

Esika's ChariotEsika's Chariot is a 4/4 Vehicle with crew 4 and an ETB effect to create two 2/2 Cat tokens. Crew 4 means that you can tap a number of creatures with power equal to or exceeding 4 to make this Vehicle become an artifact creature for the turn. Then whenever it attacks, Esika's Chariot creates a copy of a token you control.

With how many tokens you're able to produce with Cats, being able to add to that will give you multiple more Cat ETB triggers and enhance the size of your board. Each individual Cat token isn't likely to provide much value, but some may have keywords or have above-average statlines due to favorable source cards. These are the tokens to prioritize, which you can then improve further later.

SkullclampSkullclamp

SkullclampSkullclamp grants a single creature +1/-1 and whenever the equipped creature dies, you draw two cards. Because its equip cost is only , you can easily swap this between your own Cat tokens as needed. Given that most of your tokens generated will be 1/1, equipping this to a token will instantly destroy it, allowing you to draw two cards.

This doesn't work if you have anything to improve the toughness of your Cats, nor if you struggle to find the mana for it. It's a useful boost for card draw as needed, but isn't a long-term strategy by itself.

Impact TremorsImpact Tremors

Impact TremorsImpact Tremors deals 1 damage to each opponent whenever a creature you control ETB. This has no limit, meaning the token generation of Cats can cause significant damage across the board simply by building its board.

Beastmaster AscensionBeastmaster Ascension

Beastmaster AscensionBeastmaster Ascension takes the strength of numbers Cats have one step further, gaining a quest counter each time a creature you control attacks. So long as it has seven or more quest counters on it, your creatures get +5/+5.

Not only does it grow based off of the number of attacking creatures regardless of power, it also provides the most benefit to low-power tokens. If attacking with seven or more 1/1 tokens, the quest counters get added to Beastmaster Ascension upon attack declarations. This then would grant all of these easily-produced tokens +5/+5, potentially the same turn it was played.

Warleader's CallWarleader's Call

Warleader's CallWarleader's Call takes both of the above examples and combines them into a +1/+1 for all of your creatures paired with 1 damage to each opponent each time a creature you control ETB.

White Sun's ZenithWhite Sun's Zenith

White Sun's ZenithWhite Sun's Zenith creates X 2/2 Cat tokens, where X is part of its mana cost. While is a fairly steep fixed cost before contributing to the X value, White Sun's Zenith gets shuffled back into its owner's library after being cast.

It isn't ideal to cast White Sun's Zenith where X is one or two or even three. This is a card that requires investment to properly get value from, though being shuffled back into the library means it doesn't have to be. Casting White Sun's Zenith with X being a low number isn't a bad decision, it just tends not be worth the mana spent.

Titanic UltimatumTitanic Ultimatum

Titanic UltimatumTitanic Ultimatum grants all of your creatures +5/+5 and first strike, lifelink, and trample until end of turn. This is across , where most Cats fall, and supports their strategy of boosting weak creatures en masse.

Its largest downside is its cost which has no in-built reduction, but it's most effective in the late game anyways. By that point, you'll have both the Cats and the mana production to be able to activate it when you're ready.

Lord WindgraceLord Windgrace

Lord WindgraceLord Windgrace begins with five loyalty counters and has the following abilities:

+2. Discard a card, then draw a card or two cards if a land card was discarded. This gives consistent card draw while allowing you to remove lands you don't need from your hand, particularly later in the game.

-3. Return up to two land cards from your graveyard to the battlefield, providing even more incentive to discard lands with its +2 ability.

-11. Destroy up to six nonland permanents, then create six 2/2 Cat Warrior tokens with forestwalk. This both clears your opponents' key permanents and gives you a decent boost to your board. Lord Windgrace's +2 is useful enough to be used every turn, so this is a natural activation should your opponents not have a response.

Ajani, Caller of the PrideAjani, Caller of the Pride

Ajani, Caller of the PrideAjani, Caller of the Pride begins with four loyalty counters and has the following abilities:

+1. Put a +1/+1 counter on up to one target creature. While useful, it doesn't scale with what Cats are attempting to do as well as multi-target counters.

-3. Target creature gains flying and double strike until end of turn. This, however, is very useful, particularly for anything with lifelink that can gain your life or that has an ability triggered off of dealing damage to an opponent. It's not a guaranteed direct attack, but an effective threat.

-8. Create X 2/2 Cat tokens, where X is your life total.

This can absolutely flood the board, particularly if you were able to gain life from a flying double strike creature on a previous turn. And when paired with any amount of power improvements, 2/2 creature tokens are no joke! But they're vulnerable to board wipes and removal, so timing is critical.

Ajani, the GreatheartedAjani, the Greathearted

Ajani, the GreatheartedAjani, the Greathearted begins with five loyalty counters and has the following abilities:

All of your creatures have vigilance.

+1. You gain three life.

-2. Put a +1/+1 on each creature you control and a loyalty counter on each other planeswalker you control.

This not only scales your Cats much faster than something like Ajani, Caller of the Pride but also makes planeswalkers like that much easier to reach the ultimates of. This doesn't quite double the loyalty counter gain of other planeswalkers due to it not being able to be used every turn, but it very nearly halves the time to reach a planeswalker's ultimate.

Animal SanctuaryAnimal Sanctuary

Animal SanctuaryAnimal Sanctuary allows you to pay and tap it to put a +1/+1 counter on a Bird, Cat, Dog, Goat, Ox, or Snake. This is an effective means of spending spare mana you might have at the end of your turn. As a land it's consistent and protective, meaning it can support your creatures throughout the entire game.

It's cheap enough it can be used early and scales continuously. It just gets outpaced later in the game.

Gavony TownshipGavony Township

Gavony TownshipGavony Township allows you to pay and tap it to put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control. This is a more expensive but more broadly-applicable buffing piece to enhance your Cats all at once.

With how many creature tokens you'll have on the board, it's worth it.

Cats want to establish token generation with a large number of Cats that you can then build off of one another.

Using a lynchpin creature like Bast, Panther GoddessBast, Panther Goddess, the scale of your battlefield directly increases the power and toughness of one of your creatures. This then synergizes with a creature like Sovereign Okinec AhauSovereign Okinec Ahau who can increase the power of your Cats based on the difference in power between then. Then a support ability such as Jetmir, Nexus of RevelsJetmir, Nexus of Revels can grant all of these creatures additional power or keywords such as trample to ensure damage goes through.

Going "tall" with Cats and improving upon a single large creature isn't always a bad option.

Nethroi, Apex of DeathNethroi, Apex of Death has deathtouch, lifelink, and mutate, allowing it to gain additional abilities from other mutate creatures you cast. This gives graveyard reclamation each time you mutate, allowing you to have a strong -aligned sacrifice deck when paired with utility Cats such as Nine-Lives FamiliarNine-Lives Familiar. Any number of effects that trigger from a creature dying can be prioritized from here, such as Blood ArtistBlood Artist.

Ygra, Eater of AllYgra, Eater of All is alternate way to build up a single creature by creating and sacrificing Food tokens. Something like Lucky the Pizza DogLucky the Pizza Dog can synergize this with casting Cat spells and a creature like Cauldron FamiliarCauldron Familiar can add a bit more utility to Food tokens. The life gain from sacrificing them will sustain you throughout the game as Ygra is built up and you can use other Cats as blockers or sacrifice fodder.