Feline Sovereign

The protection-from-Dogs line reads like a joke until you remember it is doing real defensive work: a Cat tribal lord printed alongside a Dog tribal package, so the anthem and the protection are answering a specific rival tribe rather than gesturing at flavor. Underneath the gag is a lord that pulls double duty. The anthem is standard tribal glue, but the combat-damage trigger reframes what a Cat deck is for. Most creature-type lords ask you to go wide and swing; this one turns connecting into removal, stripping an artifact or enchantment off the defending player every time any of your Cats gets through. That is a rare tribal payoff: an aggressive board that also functions as recurring Naturalize, so the deck answers problem permanents without diverting slots to dedicated removal. The trigger keys off combat damage to a player, which means the Cats do not need to trade or attack the same target; a single unblocked one-drop cat with a claw is enough to fire it. As a body, a 2/3 is fragile enough that the Sovereign wants a board already built rather than a board it builds from scratch, which is the constraint that keeps it honest: the anthem and the protection reward the wide tribal deck that was already committed to Cats, not a splash. It is the piece that makes an otherwise cute creature type into a functional strategy.