Sacred Cat MTG Card


Embalm offers a solid two-for-one creature deal, enhancing field presence and value from one mana spent. Low casting cost allows for early play, while embalm adds strategic flexibility at a later stage. Sacred Cat’s lifelink and reusability via embalm make it a resourceful choice for life-gain decks.
Card setsReleased in 5 setsSee all
TypeToken Creature — Zombie Cat
Abilities Lifelink
Power 1
Toughness 1

Text of card

Lifelink


Cards like Sacred Cat

The allure of Sacred Cat in the realm of Magic: The Gathering lies in its multifaceted abilities. Its most direct comparison is with Steppe Lynx, another one-mana creature. While Steppe Lynx can potentially attack for more damage due to landfall, Sacred Cat offers a steady advantage with lifelink, ensuring player sustenance throughout the game. Plus, the prowess of embalm allows Sacred Cat to make a return from the graveyard, essentially doubling its value.

Leonin Vanguard is another creature that shares similarities with Sacred Cat. It also costs one mana, and while it lacks embalm, it provides a potential life gain during each of your turns, contingent on controlling three or more creatures. However, the resilience and certainty of Sacred Cat’s lifelink, combined with its embalm ability, often make it a preferred choice for decks capitalizing on life gain and graveyard strategies.

For the MTG player seeking stability on the battlefield, Sacred Cat holds its own when pitted against similar low-cost creatures. Its ability to return for a second act and consistently contribute to life gain makes it a reliable player in various deck strategies, enhancing its value in the one-mana creature slot.

Steppe Lynx - MTG Card versions
Leonin Vanguard - MTG Card versions
Steppe Lynx - MTG Card versions
Leonin Vanguard - MTG Card versions

Decks using this card

MTG decks using Sacred Cat. Dig deeper into the strategy of decks, sideboard cards, list ideas and export to play in ARENA or MOL.

#NameFormatArchetypeEvent
Caw-GatesCaw-Gates PauperCaw-GatesPauper Challenge 32 2024-05-03
WBWB PauperPauper Challenge 32 2024-05-10
Mardu SynthesizerMardu Synthesizer PauperMardu SynthesizerPauper League 2024-05-07
WBRWBR PauperPauper League 2024-05-06

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Sacred Cat comes with the trustworthy embalm mechanic, providing a second life once it’s in the graveyard. That essentially gives you two creatures for the price of one, potentially doubling the value you get from a single card.

Resource Acceleration: While not directly accelerating resources, Sacred Cat offers a low investment cost of just one white mana. This enables you to deploy other spells sooner, providing indirect resource acceleration by allowing you to maintain mana efficiency.

Instant Speed: As a creature, Sacred Cat can’t be cast at instant speed, but its embalm ability can be activated during either player’s turn, much like an instant. This flexibility allows you to bring the Sacred Cat back on your opponent’s end step, keeping mana open for instant-speed responses and then presenting a blocker when needed.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: While Sacred Cat boasts an embalm ability, bringing it back requires the player to discard it first. This condition can be restrictive as it hinges on the card being in your graveyard to utilize its full potential.

Specific Mana Cost: Sacred Cat requires white mana to cast, which may limit its inclusion to mono-white or white-inclusive multicolor decks. Players running other color combinations without mana fixing may find it challenging to incorporate Sacred Cat into their strategies.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: Embalming Sacred Cat costs one generic and one white mana, which is the same as its casting cost. While the embalm ability offers resilience, some players may find the cost steep for a 1/1 creature, considering other options available that may provide more immediate board presence or value for the same investment.


Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Sacred Cat fits snugly into a variety of deck strategies, particularly those revolving around life gain or the embalm mechanic. Its low mana cost also makes it an easily deployable creature in the early game.

Combo Potential: The lifelink ability of Sacred Cat synergizes well with cards that track life total changes for incremental advantages. Additionally, the embalm mechanic allows it to come back from the graveyard, making it a persistent nuisance and a resource for creature-based combos.

Meta-Relevance: In metas where aggressive strategies dominate, Sacred Cat serves as an excellent early game defense mechanism, providing life stabilization and challenging opponents to deal with it twice. Its relevance grows in a meta teeming with control decks that struggle to efficiently manage recurring low-cost threats.


How to beat

The Sacred Cat card in Magic: The Gathering is a resilient creature thanks to its lifelink ability and the Amonkhet set’s embalm mechanic, allowing it to return from the graveyard. To effectively neutralize this nimble feline, consider using graveyard disruption strategies. Cards like Scavenging Ooze can exile Sacred Cat from the graveyard, preventing the embalming advantage. Additionally, employing removal spells that exile rather than destroy, such as Path to Exile, can effectively ensure that the Sacred Cat doesn’t get its proverbial ninth life. Board wipes are less effective here as they might temporarily clear the field but can’t stop the embalm action later on.

Another approach is to outpace the incremental lifegain provided by Sacred Cat. Strengthening your offensive capabilities to apply decisive pressure can overshadow the minor life swings that Sacred Cat offers. Ultimately, the key to dealing with Sacred Cat lies in preemptively managing the graveyard and maintaining a formidable enough offense to render the lifegain inconsequential.


BurnMana Recommendations

Understanding the mechanics and subtleties of the Sacred Cat card can invigorate your MTG deck with new strategies and turn the tide of battle in your favor. With its lifelink and embalm abilities, Sacred Cat is built for resilience and incremental advantage. The right knowledge can transform this unassuming one-drop into a pillar of your deck’s strategy, especially in life-centric or embalm-based decks. Mastering the art of using and combating cards like Sacred Cat is what distinguishes good players from great ones. Interested in enhancing your gameplay with this versatile creature? Dive deeper and uncover the strategic uses of Sacred Cat in various MTG decks. Join us to expand your MTG expertise and refine your deck to perfection.


Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Sacred Cat MTG card by a specific set like Amonkhet and Amonkhet, there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.

For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.

Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.

Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the Sacred Cat and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Sacred Cat Magic the Gathering card was released in 4 different sets between 2017-04-28 and 2020-08-13. Illustrated by Zezhou Chen.

#ReleasedNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12017-04-28AmonkhetAKH 102015TokenBlackZezhou Chen
22017-04-28AmonkhetAKH 272015NormalBlackZezhou Chen
32019-11-07Mystery BoosterMB1 2152015NormalBlackZezhou Chen
42020-08-13Amonkhet RemasteredAKR 342015NormalBlackZezhou Chen
52020-09-26The ListPLST AKH-272015NormalBlackZezhou Chen