Solved Coteaz

*scribbling down notes*

 

Well, you know I respect both your deckbuilding and gameplay skills, so if you say its solved, thats good enough for me. Though you should consider me very surprised by your choices in multiple places.

 

First off, Space Marines?

 

As Shoota Mob = 10th Company Scout, and as Eager Recruit is quite easily replaced by EAT, I'm guessing its all about the AoE provided by Cardinis? I see that, but Snakebite Thug is really damn good: you feel Cardinis is better, I take it?

 

And 3 Emperor's Warrants? I don't diss the high level of 2-shields, I think thats awesome, though I admit I've not run them at all and had 1 more Void Pirate plus 2 Rogue Traders. Of course, this could explain why I never have enough shields.

 

As I said though, I've gone with your deckbuilding advice before and never regretted it. Am going to build and try this deck

Well damn, first outing with this deck and the strongest Coteaz game I've ever played. Planet 5 win vs Eldorath. Nice deck, jeer.

I wouldn't say Eager Recruit is a direct replacement for Elysian, though they serve a similar role. The recruit costs a resource, but has more flexibility about where and when he gets deployed. With Recruit, Coteaz can show up somewhere by himself to snipe and be ok. With EAT, Coteaz is outta luck.

Second game played, and won with it again. Emperor's Warrant is actually surprisingly useful, as very often the threat presented by Coteaz plus a couple of bodies keeps the enemy warlord away. 

 

Helped as well that the command game proved consistently strong, and that Interrogator Acolyte actually worked a lot better than anticipated.

 

I'm still not sure though: are we really still better off than with Snakebite Thug and Warbiker? Those are great cards for Staging!

First off, glad you enjoyed playing the deck!

 

I'll address the most important points in chronological order:

 

1) How good is Eager Recruit?

Sokhar has the right idea. There are a few technical reasons why the Eager Recruits are amazing in this deck: mainly their great interaction with The Emperor Protects, adding a very versatile combat trick to your arsenal and allowing you to play fewer copies of Staging Grounds. However, the main reason why they're so powerful has more to do with the general game theory behind Conquest. Where you commit your warlord is the single most impactful decision you make each turn. Now, as Sokhar already mentioned, Coteaz can't really show up at a planet without units to back him up, thereby limiting your commitment options and as a direct consequence facilitating your opponent's choice of commitment. And that last bit is the biggest issue with Coteaz. He helps your opponent with their most important decision each turn. Eager Recruit helps to mitigate that serious weakness. With Space Marine allies planets without or very few friendly units are now viable commitment choices for you, forcing your opponent to take them into consideration during commitment.

 

2) Is Tactical Squad Cardinis really better than either of the excellent Ork 2-drops?

In a Kith meta, definitely. I'll freely quote fanfan here: "Against Coteaz with Ork allies I can just put everything on a key planet without much fear. There's nothing that can punish me for that."

 

3) Orks or Marines, that is the question!

I'm solidly in the SM camp at this point. The Thugs and Warbikerz are too one-dimensional, whereas Cardinis and Eager Recruits provide a necessary level of versatility. Coteaz doesn't need more ways to punch things really hard. What he needs are ways to mitigate his inherent weaknesses: swarms and predictability.

I think I'm sold as well, and I definitely noticed the freedom of commitment that Eager Recruit gave me. You're right - mitigating his weaknesses makes him a lot more playable than enhancing his strengths.

 

I am thinking however, that while Staging Ground is a great card, is this deck suffering from lack of an Inquisitorial Fortress or two? I'm not sure where to make room, but I can see this deck definitely suffering if the wrong decisive unit turns up at the wrong time.

cgdb swallowed my thorough reply whole and I'm too lazy to type it all out a second time. Short version:

 

-only units that worry me are fat elites and Emperor's Warrant is a decent solution against those

-inclusion of Fortress would decrease overall efficiency of the deck

-every deck can lose "if the wrong decisive unit turns up at the wrong time". At some point changing your deck will only change what the "wrong decisive unit" and "the wrong time" are, but not significantly change the frequency with which they occur.

Nice build and very effective. I got a question though, I understand how important the element of surprise can be but in choosing Sm exept the AoE of Cardinis, is the difference between Snotling Attack and Eager Recruit so big?

In my experience the Recruits are clearly better than Snotling Attack. The biggest downside of the event is that you have to invest 2 resources, which do not contribute to command, during the deploy phase. That's a deal-breaker in a deck that already plays between 13 and 16 2-drops.

 

1 shield is alright but drawing a recruit in the command or combat phase will have a much greater immediate impact on the game. The recruit always hits for at least 2 damage, is less susceptible to AoE, triggers Formosan Blackship when he gets sacrificed to Coteaz and turns The Emperor Protects into an actual card.

 

Snotling Attack probably has a slight edge over the Recruits against Dark Eldar and Eldar. That said, the Recruits are also excellent against these factions. There really aren't any match-ups where they aren't at least decent. Snotling Attack however is basically a blank 1-shield card against Zarathur and to a degree Cato.

why not eat and eager recruit in the same deck?  2 eat and 2 eager

Why not both eat and eager? 2 of each

What is your tactic? Do you focus on planet capture?

And why pirate? You have interrogators for some draw engine. Will be traders more effective? 

 

Warrant not helps vs Solarite and IF helps

Can't answer for Jeer personally, but I've found with this deck that its always worth aiming at cards > resources, just because so much success in AM hinges on getting those 2-shield events in hand when you need them. Also, check out this decks cost curve: All but three of the cards cost 2 or less, and 1s are higher frequency than 2s.

Yup, even with the bare minimum of resources you can usually make 3-4 relevant plays each turn with this deck. And Void Pirates put more pressure on your opponent in terms of command than Rogue Traders. They can help divert your opponent's attention away from planets you really need to win command at.

 

It's also much more important to have a decent game plan on draw-light planets than on resource-light planets. The latter lead to a game where both players hold all the options in their hands and the one with the cheaper, more efficient cards will win. Needless to say, Coteaz is doing rather well in that department. On draw-light planets however, it's more about topdecks and who can spend his abundance of resources in a meaningful way. Not really our strengths in a deck that mainly consists of low drop units and cheap events. Even worse, Coteaz will run out of gas at some point, if we're not drawing enough cards to fuel his ability.

 

All that being said, I'm still playing around with the deck and might end up at 1 Trader, 1 Pirate. I doubt that 2 Traders is the way to go though.

Played this deck at a small tourney lat night. I didn't do very well but that's mostly due to an Aun'Shi heavy meta and me making to game costing misplays against him.

The deck itself is solid and a hell of a lot of fun to play. I've always liked Coteaz's explosive play style, and this deck amplifies that my letting you do it by surprise. It definitely make your opponent weary of you even if you have a hand full of nothing.

You took a deck to tourney that you've never played before?

 

That's never gone well for anyone!

Lose to shadowsun. Just cant deal damage through 100500 shields with 1 attack unit :/

have a suggestion

You took a deck to tourney that you've never played before?
 
That's never gone well for anyone!

Haha well when I say small I mean there were like 6 people, and I already had everything but the mat from the kit. But I took Coteaz to top 8 at the regional here so I was no stranger to how he plays.

Check out the latest episode of "Deck Deconstruction" in which Mitch and Florian discuss my Coteaz list:

 

youtu.be/XJwxZq7DVp8

 

A thorough analysis of the deck, the thoughts behind each card, and general tips and tricks to help you get the most out of Dr. Hammer!

Hey Jeermaster! Could you elaborate on some cards that are missing from the deck like Suppressive Fire, Inquisitoral Fortress, Mystic Warden, Elysian Assaul Team

I watched it yesterday, very interesting analysis and very interesting deck.

Do you think it can compete with T1 decks/warlords?

I watched it yesterday, very interesting analysis and very interesting deck.

Do you think it can compete with T1 decks/warlords?

Dont think so.

Played with this deck vs Kith few times. Its still so hard. Only in 1 game i realy surprise him with SG+TSC. Other games when she noticed that ally is SM, just not uses her terror and w8 while you drop TSC.

She still have better economy and a lot of 2xshields.

Vs Ragnar pretty random but eager realy helps you to none-obvious-commit. But SM is SM... Indomitable, DPA and ragnar ability just oneshot most of your units. Cato just realy happy to see 1hp units on the table...

I watched it yesterday, very interesting analysis and very interesting deck.

Do you think it can compete with T1 decks/warlords?

 

Difficult to assess. I've played maybe 20 games with the deck so far, including a few against each of the top warlords, and in my experience it can definitely compete with them. Then again, "a few games" isn't exactly statistically significant and I might just be lucky when it comes to my draws or opponents.

 

What I can argue however is that Coteaz has the tools to win each top match-up. His command game is stellar. His combat tricks are powerful. The deck doesn't depend on the planet flop. Coteaz has everything he needs to be a tournament-worthy deck. Is he better than Kith or Cato? Probably not. Can he mess with the best? Hell, yes!

I'm up to 6 test games myself, and am on 6 wins. However, I've not felt opposition is high level yet - very competent and not newbie players, but not of the Jeermaster level!

 

Also, I've only run into a top tier build once - a typical Kith/chaos build that had a good game but couldn't deal with the spike damage output of Coteaz. Other decks have been lesser used warlords - Nazdreg, Urien, and so on.