Coteaz Swarm 1st place SC Philippines/2nd place Regionals

HohoCongrats! Whats the meta like and attendance?

12 player attendance, faced Kith a lot. Meta here in PH is diverse but Eldorath and Kith are expected.

Are you strictly mulliganing for Blackship or Muster?

Not really, if I see blackship in my opening hand, that's a keep as long as you have other core or capping units. I've kept hands with just core and capping units. God hand though is Muster the guard with AM units allowing you to empty your 8 card hand. Mull so that you have a good start of capping and core. You'll be able to Muster the Guard later on with the help of Ammo Depot and card draw from command.

One thing I realised, though I'm not sure if it came up in testing (it's unmentioned in your tournament report), is that it's possible to Muster and re-ready Coteaz before command. Not sure how practical it is, but noticed it's a novel line of play.

One thing I realised, though I'm not sure if it came up in testing (it's unmentioned in your tournament report), is that it's possible to Muster and re-ready Coteaz before command. Not sure how practical it is, but noticed it's a novel line of play.

Indeed sir, there was one instance where Markis was with a henchman in an uncontested first planet, i sacced the henchman and exhausted my own unit just to give Coteaz his golden hammers and be able to swing at a different planet. Power Jank Indeed! What's amazing with Markis is that he can exhaust once in deploy phase, once in command phase and once in combat phase tipping the battle specially by eating Psykers or guardsman tokens. Markis allows Cadian shenanigans and tips the battle hard in your favor.

Oh, and did I mention he can sacrifice himself to exhaust another unit? If he's at two damage and it will win you the battle, way worth it.

Yep, Cadian Mortar Squads in Coteaz are like Experimental Devilfish of Tau, their sure to be coming in ready even from HQ.

Yeah, was pointing at instances where they are with coteaz and he can eat an army unit at the planet he commits to, making the Cadian ready.

Yes, and that's why at start of combat phase you sac someone and ready the Cadian.

I find myself surprised to see a report of Muster working well in this deck, given that it only has 21/50 that can benefit from it, so on an average 8 card pull that includes Muster, you're looking at a mean 3R discount (21/49 x 7).

To generate that 3R discount, you're costing yourself 1 card, plus whatever command struggle your warlord would have won: lets call it 1C1R on average. 2C1R to save yourself 3R, while your opponent probably gets 1C1R extra too? That sounds pretty bad. Of course, the 3R extra of units will probably make back a command struggle on its own, but less definitively than a warlord. So, instead, lets call that 1C1R to save yourself 3R.

As for combat? Yes, 3R extra of units will give some extra punch, but so will having a ready Coteaz,

So overall its not bad, but doesn't seem to me like Muster will make the deck stronger.

If you were consistently saving 5-7R, you basically got lucky, especially if you were doing so with Ammo Depots in that hand. I think its more realistic to say that the card will save you 3R on average, and thats fairly strong, but that the cost of doing so means the marginal gain from playing that card is probably only about 0.5R total

Re the Ammo Depot synergy, while 11R is certainly enough to consistently empty most hands, your deck is low cost enough that you can pretty consistently trigger depot anyway. And, of course, both Depot and Muster are weak cards when you are in the endgame, as you generally want 2-shielders or combat-turning events. Thats pretty much why I'd ultimately rather be playing Jeermaster's Coteaz deck, that has those extra 2-shielder events plus Eager Recruits, plus Catachan Outposts instead of Depots.

Despite all that, your results speak for themselves: winning a National makes you a top player, even in a 13-player National. Would you care to tell us more about the decision to run Muster?

The exhausted warlord situation is a little different with Coteaz than what it would be with other Warlords (except Zarathur, to an extent). Because an unequipped Coteaz cannot snipe cappers alone, his commits tend to be more constrained. The net value of his golden hammer is a little less than the golden hammer on most other Warlords.

The average total cost per card in this deck is about equal to a typical Zarathur, who represents the gold standard for effective Ammo Depot usage. Cost reducers go a long way toward keeping Ammo Depot operating smoothly and I would assume that Muster functions similarly to what PoG and SPA do for Zarathur.

As for shields, keep in mind the deck has Preemptive, Fortress and Markis (and Mortar Squads). Shields are over-rated if your opponent can't attack you.

Henchmen mitigates the exhaustion of the warlord. I target card planets when trying to win command. On turn 3 or 4, (more so on the opening hand) a Muster saves me at least 4 resources. Muster for 3 resources is sub optimal but if needed, I'll play it. Otherwise, saved as shield. I saw myself late game with a lot of cards in hand and drew into a game-winning Muster in the finals. I emptied almost 8 cards on planet 1 including a snotling attack. And Syntax is right, with the amount of ranged units I have, including preemptive barrage, shields are overrated here because I get to punch them with all i've got before they can do anything against me. At which point I would have killed 1 or 2 of his units, exhausted one with Markis and reduced the damage I'll be receiving when they hit back.

I fought Kith and Eldorath a lot of times before the Nationals and I know how painful choke is. So regarding the decision to run Muster, the deck is resilient to resource choke because of it. Add Ammo depot to the fray and you are resilient to card choke as well. Yes, there are only 21 out of 50 cards that benefit, but I only need 4 to 5 of those cards to benefit from Muster and gain 4 to 5 resources. And that is why I fought Kith again and again in swiss and nationals and won decisively. Jeermaster's deck is hunt type, which needs the powerful events such as to arms and the two shields as they brawl in normal combat. This deck is swarm type that focuses on command and battle. The amount of units I pump out, ranged units and Markis wins the games.

I believe you are only factoring Muster in the opening hand. I pull Muster off consistently from turn 3 to 4. A turn 5 muster with a lot of cards is a monster. So really, 4 to 5 resource is not impossible with Muster. Hence, if you have an event that says gain 4 resources, wouldn't you play it?

Congrats man! Nice and fun deck ^^

Good arguments ellonellanfair and I brought up very similar points when Muster was first spoiled.  I pointed out that it didn't have to be a first turn play, and I pointed out that Ammo Depot helps fuel Muster to make it better.  I'm glad to see people experimenting with stuff and finding uses for cards that clearly have a place. 

Thanks for the explanations, that certainly helps understand the deck. Will be sure to try it out.

Interesting concept.

I've been thinking about Muster the Guard, since you claim it is was key to your success: my concern with that card is the fact that to make it save you 4-5 resources you need to have 4-5 army units in hand. Now, considering you don't have any means to draw additional cards beside the Depot, and, in addition to this, your deck certainly doesn't have a high-cost curve my question is this: how comes you have lots of army units in hand you wouldn't have been able to play without Muster the Guard? If you had cards with a higher cost, how were you winning command to draw so many more in the first place?

It looks to me if you are able to gain that many cards in hand ( not to mention your deck is not particularly army-heavy and, as Asklepios noted, there are only 21 valid targets for MtG ), you're alreadying steamrolling your opponent in command. However, that is far from granted when facing someone like Kith, for example.

"I saw myself late game with a lot of cards in hand and drew into a game-winning Muster in the finals."

This is a bit puzzling for me: your command is certainly good but Kith's, Eldorath's and, probably, Tau's too command games are stronger (for a variety of reasons: not just the number of 1-1s and 2-2s).

Coteaz strength in my eyes is that he is extremely efficient resource-wise and really hungers only for cards; Jeermaster's build for example - this is my impression at least - runs without extra resources on 4 cards each round, meaning that as long as you can draw a couple of cards with command you're doing fine; you usually don't need extra resources quite as much, so this makes it a resiliant build against Kith-choke.

Your deck however employs a different concept, so my second question is: how do you manage to draw the cards you need when you don't draw any Depots or Formosa early on, if you also have to care about resources?

Is just aiming for card draw planets, hoping to get the Muster that swings the game for you ASAP, enough to keep you in a good shape?

Thanks for the report and the decklist.

Actually to be fair, Jeer's list isn't without weaknesses. It has trouble with big flying Elite units (regenerating shrieking harpies are a bugger for most decks, I'm sure you'll agree), it relies wholly on Cardinis for swarm control, and aside from Interrogator Acolyte it really suffers in a low card-draw array. If anything, I'd expect this deck here to have better resilience against Kith-choke (as Ammo Depot really is a great answer to that).

However, I'd still be inclined to tweak this, replacing some units that can't be Mustered with ones that can, and perhaps trimming the Snotling Attacks for more AM units again.

Sure Asklepios, I agree. I think every list has its weaknesses though - even Kith, as people are arguing in a thread just recently opened.

If your opponent is investing 7 res, 2 cards and manages to infest the planet then sure it's a bugger; I'm not saying it's impossible to do, but it doesn't happen often enough (both due to the setup required and the meta we currently have) to warrant a specifc answer as costly as the Fortress (2 res and telegraphed) - at least until now.

Ammo Depot is very good, but the Acolyte can make up for it, in a way.