What MATE? Ubuntu MATE? Mint MATE? Some other MATE?
What exactly do you mean by "source based distro"?
Strictly speaking, any distro under the GPL is a source-based distro, as sources must be available for download, inspection, and redistribution.
If you mean "source-based" in the sense that
Gentoo is source-based (as opposed to a distro that installs pre-compiled binary files), most distros are not source-based in that sense.
Generally, there would be no point in recompiling a distro's files. If you want to go the compiling route, install Gentoo.