Against fattie strats like Shadow and Eldrazi, she freezes the board and lets us get in a couple of big attacks. For more manageable board stalls or when we’re ahead (either on the ground or on life), her plus draws us a couple cards every combat. She’s less good against decks where we just want a ton of removal to break up their synergies (we’re already well set-up here regardless), but absurd vs anyone wielding efficient bodies, Tarmogoyf, Shadow, and Smasher especially.

Huntmaster is better for breaking up synergies and dealing with boards of smaller bodies, so the two kind of compliment each other in the board while both providing bursts of value and a clock of their own against grindy decks (think of the coverage shared by LotV and LtLH). There’s no elegant answer to a 4CMC ‘walker in Modern besides the fringe-played Maelstrom Pulse, which against us is likely to have been spent on something else by the time Tamiyo comes down, so she forces fair decks to remove her in combat. That draws us cards, buys us time, and lets us blow opponents out with blocks and freshly-picked removal.

Counter-Cat has long wanted a ‘walker in the side for the midrange matchup, and Tamiyo does a lot of what we like. Besides, older options like Elspeth Knight, Gideon Ally, and Chandra Torch have never been available to us because costing double W or R makes them uncastable should opponents Seas/Quarter/Edge (or we mill with Scour) a single land of those colors.

can you please explain the role of the SB Tamiyo?

Thanks in advance

Glad you enjoyed it! Against Moon decks, prioritize fetching Forest and Island and take out Paths if you can and you are pretty much immune to the card. Pierce/Bolt will also tide you over while you find your basics with cantrips. Sometimes you keep hands where you don’t have basics but generate so much pressure on the board that tapping out for Moon is a death sentence for your opponent anyway.

As for Merfolk, hold off on finding both red sources or white sources, or you risk getting cut off a color by Seas. Just sandbag a fetch in hand or in play when you can so you can break it and kill something. Not uncommon to blow out attacks by killing lords, and Pyro + removal spell often wipes their board. Remove all counterspells in this matchup.

Faeries doesn’t really beat a Mandrills in my experience, and of course EE/Pyro turn their own Blossom into a win condition for us. Nacatl is great in this MU bc they can’t block it favorably and it’s a high-priority target for Push. Huntmaster will wreck them too. Don’t walk into Spellstutter Sprite; set up a clock and force them to do something. Going wide against all three of these decks is a winning strategy; Faeries is likely to have 1-2 Damnation, but Pierce/Leak/Negate stop it.

This deck is tough to play but once you start learning the matchups you will have a lot of fun and do well. Kelsey almost Top 8’d a 67-man PPTQ with it this weekend (she conceded to me in Round 1 and then was undefeated until the 7th and last round, where she lost her draw-and-in to a pair-down). It’s fun to watch her because she’s learned to play differently against every deck in the field. Counter-Cat has so many tools at its disposal that success with the deck is largely a matter of understanding how its roles shift in different matchups.

Good luck!

Coincidentally, the monthly Modern at my LGS was yesterday and I was planning to bring Counter-Cat! Had to make some not-so-optimal adjustments on the fly but I was able to buy the charts at the store and play something close to your list.
Ended up with:
Main: +1 snap, -1 mandrills
Side: -1 snap, +1 grafdigger’s cage
26 people, went 2-3 (win vs EldraTron and TitanShift, lose vs Merfolk, a brew with 4 magus of the moon main, UB Faeries). Games were mostly close and the deck was a lot of fun to play.

Talking about the list, the 3rd mandrills was missing A LOT, the 2nd Snap wasn’t that useful main and the grafdigger was completely useless side so I’m 100% updating my list for next time. On to the main course (pun intended), chart was amazing every single time. The drawback was relevant maybe once and I casted the card quite a few times. Other than that, it was excellent as a drawing engine. 4 would definitely be clunky but so far, 3 seemed like the correct number.

Cannot wait to play more and to maybe hear some tournament reports from you 😉

Cage > Ashes which isn’t playable in Modern IMO. I actually cut Cage for the second Snap. Needle and Surgical are two of the most skill-intensive sideboard cards in Modern, but I feel both handsomely earn inclusions here, which says a lot since space is tight. So I would think you just need more practice with them. The jury’s of course still out on the third Chart.

Based on testing I am indeed preferring Sleight in the majority of matchups. On the other hand, the third Chart is feeling pretty clunky but the card is so good in spots that it’s hard to cut. Surgical and Pithing Needle have felt pretty low impact in the matchups I tested them in though. I actually think a couple Ashes of the Abhorrent could be really good in here if Snapcaster was out of the picture (the small nonbo may come up so rarely that it doesn’t matter anyways). What are your thoughts?

I mean I think there is a way stronger option that all but invalidates it. Miserable is just the first word that sprang to mind, and I want to keep things PG 😉

We often want to cantrip in main even with say, Leak mana up on the chance we pull say, Pierce and then can play Nacatl and hold up permission anyway, or say, Goyf and would rather play that out, or say, Shoal and then can safely tap out for something else while still having interaction for a given spell. Try with Opt yourself. You’ll see that you are heavily incentivized to cast it in main, meaning Sleight’s “drawback” is actually a boon—sorcery is important for Goyf. And of course, the effect is better, which can’t really be argued.

Sometimes we want to cast instant-speed cantrips, but we have found only often enough to want that kind of effect at 2. Scour is significantly better in that slot since it contributes to our gameplan in other ways. So Opt isn’t even in line to replace Sleight at all, but Scour if anything. Again, refer to the older Extended lists that maxed out on Sleight and rarely played any Opts, despite it being legal; thresh decks prefer Sleight for many reasons, as outlined. Counter-Cat ain’t no UR Breach!

I think miserable is a bit strong of a word but I see where you are coming from. I feel like Opt may be worse on Turn 1 because of the awkward case you mention in that article. But in a deck with so many blue instants (and commitments to three other colors) being able to hold up card selection and a counterspell is very relevant. However, Disrupting Shoal makes it significantly safer to tap out on blue than it is in a non-Shoal deck. So I think it Opt is a consideration. I do understand why you chose Sleight though; pros and cons to each card

Ha, and I know these words as Magic terms. Maybe I should enroll in business school myself!

Yeah, I’ve found Opt to just be miserable in this kind of deck. Follow this link for a deeper analysis: http://quietspeculation.com/opting-in-modern-cantrips/

And I would suggest testing with Sleight if you haven’t, the card is really good! FWIW, Legacy (formerly Extended) thresh players used to run 4 Sleights alongside 4 Brainstorms pre-Serum Visions, and only played a single Opt at most (usually preferring 0 copies). Having 2x as much info with which to make a choice is big game. Source: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=sideboard/strategy/sb20020124b