@ianlamin:
FYI, I did install MATE 1.6 now.
And after setting DEFAULT_WM=“mate” in /etc/sysconfig/windowmanager it did start fine here, without an ~/.xinitrc, even when using xdm.
OTOH, lightdm allows you to select the session you want to login to, just like kdm and gdm, so there’s actually no need to either change /etc/sysconfig/windowmanager nor create ~/.xinitrc. Just choose MATE on the login screen… 
You’re right, sorry for being off-topic.
TBH, I didn’t notice the different version numbers at first when I replied.
Unfortunately you are right, there is no pattern available for X11:Mate:Current.
You could use YaST’s repo view to select the packages.
The critical packages seem to be those:
mate-window-manager, mate-session-manager, mate-settings-daemon, mate-desktop, mate-panel, mate-notification-daemon, mate-keyring, mate-icon-theme, mate-dialogs, mate-control-center, mate-backgrounds
Those are installed by the mate-core pattern.
mate-desktop-environment contains those in addition:
mate-document-viewer, mate-file-archiver, mate-text-editor, mate-image-viewer, mate-power-manager, mate-screensaver, mate-calc, mate-utils, mate-applets, mate-character-map, mate-media, mate-terminal, mate-theme, mate-system-monitor, mate-indicator-applet, mate-menus.
Most of those are not really necessary to start/use Mate though.
You could of course also install 1.6 with the pattern, then change the repo URL (or remove 1.6 and add Current), and then do a “zypper dup --from X11:MATE:Current” (or whatever you named the repo).