Arabo Prime, Rise of the Voltron King (EDH / Commander)

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Thesis: Voltron supported by Cat Tribal. Build them big and swing in. Use the cat tribal synergies to help with card management and shore up innate Voltron weaknesses.

Ede's Deck-building Philosophy: Build your deck to be both interactive, resilient, and competitive. Don't sacrifice one for the others. You only get to spend so much time at the table, build your deck so that you are able to PLAY MAGIC at all times. This means being able to bounce back from board wipes, prevent mana screw, plow through mana floods, and not stall out on card draw. Commander games can take a long time, build your deck to guarantee you always have something to do at the table; build to be "in the thick of it."

Specific Notes on Building This Deck:

1. Arabo and Miri are interchangeable. I prefer Arabo; I typically avoid commander centric decks and prefer something that is always on line, or not needed at all to make the deck function. I find Arabo's pump ability more devastating in the first few turns.
2. Depending on the playgroup, I keep a Rest in Peace and a Sigarda, Host of Herons handy in my deck box. If there is a lot of Golgari running around I remove two cats for these two substitutes.

Key:
Sub = Actual Card not owned. Using named card as a substitute.
SC = Shared Card. This card is shared among other EDH Decks and not kept in the box.

Sideboard contains cards that are relevant to the deck in some way, but are currently being played. These may be cards in consideration for inclusion. They may be there in the event the meta game shifts and specific effects are needed. They may just be fun cards I want to play in the deck someday.

Specific Notes on Playing This Deck:

1. This deck want to swing early. You will have the big creature early, make use of it.
2. It may feel like an early turn aggro deck, but building your mana base is extremely important if you want to be competitive in the late game. To achieve this, my early Equipment tutor target is Sword of the Animist. My early Enchantment Tutor target is Land Tax. (I have found opponents more likely to leave Land Tax on the board. Mirari's Wake and Zendikar Resurgent are more likely to get removed immediately.)
3. Equipment Trait Priority Order: Hexproof, Indestructible, Prot Color(Sword), Lifelink
4. Against Golgari Decks, tutor for Kemba as soon as you are able. Edict effects can really destroy your plans, loading up Kemba with your equipment cards can buy you some time.
5. Against Artifact Decks, set up a two spell turn with Quasali Slingers and Regal Caracal. They are expensive to cast together, so ramp early.
6. Don't bother bringing in Arabo until you need his activated ability to end a player. You likely only have one shot at it. The other Cats are cheaper and more expendable, use them first.
7. Land Tax and Key to the City are a wonderful thing. Draw more lands than you need, discard one, and send your biggest Cat.

Game Log:
10/20/2018 (1 - 0)
6 Person Rotator Game. No lesson's learned. Deck executed as expected. Nice curve into a few cats. Face some removal but was still able to swing every turn. Team strategy was pinching the opponent to my right (Chris on Freya). Using the Key to the City and Land Tax combo I was able to put in 35 damage by turn 8. Other pinching Teammate on Chris's opposite flank (Justin on Joira) was able to handle the rest. Trevor on Niv Mizzit (First Run) was able to control Chris's opponents while we bashed Chris.