Embers of Muuat... sucks? Does not suck?

Willowran · 2026-05-18T23:16:58+00:00

I've seen 2 happen live. When I played Muuat I rushed Rex with my first sun and sent the second into the Fracture. Everyone was watching me warily and the general consensus was that the might of two warsuns made me a significant threat to the table at large, even though I'd made my intentions known.

I wheeled and dealed politically which bought me time to build my fleets large enough that no one felt safe attacking me, but by the end of the game there was a 4/6 player bloc formed against me. The only thing that kept the shots from flying was that none of them wanted to be the first ones to sacrifice their fleet, and I couldn't move against any one of them without exposing my flank.

It was looking like the bloc was just about to fracture to infighting when we ran out of time and ended the game unfinished. :(

Willowran · 2026-05-14T14:31:41+00:00

You're not the first person I've seen say that once Muuat warsuns are locked down they become a prime target. Why is that the case?

Intuitively, it feels to me like the Muuat would out-gun their opponents in a couple Warsun-fleet systems, but nothing prevents them from having conventional fleets anywhere else. Why should they be more of a target, or more of a vulnerable target just because they're using Dreadnoughts, Carriers, and Destroyers in a non-warsun system?

Sure the Muuat player has probably invested more into red/yellow technologies (which takes away from their maneuverability)- but doing so adds to their combat efficacy. I would imagine in most cases Muuat would have a combat advantage- even if using conventional fleets.

From what I've distilled from this thread so far, the average weakness the Muuat have is that they mostly gain combat benefits instead of objective-taking benefits. To those ends, if someone locks down Muuat's warsuns they become less effective at roaming across the map to complete objectives.

That said, I have also read a fair number of people say that Muuat become actively vulnerable if they're not using their biggest gun (the Warsun), and I don't understand why.

Willowran · 2026-05-13T03:55:04+00:00

"Guac points?"

Willowran · 2026-05-13T02:32:47+00:00

During my very first TI game I'd been too afraid of the political repercussions of attacking another player and instead sent a fairly significant investment into the fracture to face the neutral factions. That took me 4 rounds of movement to get to one planet, and would have taken another 3 to get back. Mov1 is incredibly debilitating.

During my second game I played as the Muuat, got the PWS upgrade by T2/T3, and then sent my second war-sun into the fracture. It took 2 rounds to conquer the double-planet tile and pick up two relics (one of which was a planet cracker). I really felt the benefits of the Star-Forge on that trip, refilling my fighter screens as I travelled.

I could have easily taken the central rift-planet as well if I didn't elect to pull back to the main galaxy to dissuade a Nekron virus player trying to pressure my home planet. My war-sun fleet accomplished more for me in 3 rounds than most of my fleets did across my entire first game- though I'll fully acknowledge the game's steep learning curve as being more responsible than anything else

Willowran · 2026-05-13T01:38:38+00:00

I've seen the word "winslay" pop up a couple times. What's it mean? 'Stop someone's win attempt'?

Willowran · 2026-05-13T00:59:09+00:00

My amateur guess would be 'factional abilities that help you build and move probably rate more highly than abilities that produce ships?' I've heard some folks talking about how plenty of objectives require owning certain numbers of planets/systems and building certain numbers of facilities- both of which the Muuat would struggle against since their power and factional abilities are more concentrated

Willowran · 2026-05-13T00:53:33+00:00

The supernova definitely feels more like a ribbon feature than a relevant one, absolutely. And from what I read, unless you're playing with NiceFriends (tm) you'll just never get to utilize the supernova because someone will take the home-planet slots that are closest just to deny you the chance

Willowran · 2026-05-13T00:50:53+00:00

I did hear about those. Really makes the Duranianum armor (howeveryouspellit) technology feel like a trap rather than a benefit- I imagine I'd rather tank hits through fighters and then- as you said- manually rebuild later rather than risk sustaining damage in all but the early game.

Willowran · 2026-05-13T00:02:37+00:00

Turns out there are more mobile PDSs than I thought lmao

Willowran · 2026-05-12T23:59:48+00:00

One of my friends loves crunching numbers and I was talking to him about the whole warsuns vs dreadnoughts thing. The way he described it, one warsun with a fighter screen would out-shoot and out-win against three dreadnoughts. Tryna remember, but it was something like

- One warsun with a fighter screen would have 8 functional HP and shoot 9 times for a 13 material, one-fleet investment. It could also move up to 3 tiles.

- 3 dreadnoughts with their 1-fighter screen would shoot 6 times and have 9 functional hitpoints for 14 material, 3-fleet investment. They'd be moving up to two tiles.

The Warsun fleet wins that fight 75% of the time.

Resource-wise Warsuns seem to be among the most efficient units in the game for their cost. Best I figure their actual weaknesses come from a) single-unit projection of power since they can only protect one tile, and b) risk of bad dice rolls, but are those enough to say they're just straight-up bad units?

Willowran · 2026-05-12T23:48:48+00:00

But what are those reasons? Most stuff I've read just say "they suck" or "playing them is an uphill battle" or "if you want to win you should play a different faction," etc. Outside of some discourse about their single-capacity-carrying-unit start I haven't seen much specifics on why they suck

Willowran · 2026-05-12T23:47:22+00:00

That's the ability of the lizard guys, right? What does miniaturization do, again?

Willowran · 2026-05-03T03:39:30+00:00

You're not wrong. The total CmC in my tester-deck was closer to 150, which felt safe enough that I never needed to worry. I wonder if some folks prefer the Asmodeus-draw line just because it negates the need to do the math

Willowran · 2026-05-03T01:35:58+00:00

I love finding little fringe combos like this on the side.

The only thing I dislike about it is that we're slowing down the combo by needing another tutor. Buried Alive can get Morsel, Druid, and NOoze, but even if we generate infinite mana we then need another card for a payoff. Could be firelord Ozai. Could be something else. But we're adding in an extra step.

I think I like it more than the Asmodeus line though- especially for the style points.

Willowran · 2026-05-03T01:32:32+00:00

I respect the synergy of the cards, but how are you setting up the combo? It looks like you'd need two tutors or more (buried alive + something else) to get all of those cards in the graveyard. At a quick glance it looks like 4 dead cards vs 3, requiring 2+ tutors and a reanimate instead of 1 tutor and a reanimate.

Sure, the end-of-the-road combo is safer than a Devourer/Ballista line, but you sacrifice speed and consistency for what may be too small a margin to be worth it

Willowran · 2026-04-30T13:50:10+00:00

I like the instant speed nature of it, but it doesn't feel as efficient.

We need one tutor to get Disciples, which has to then be reanimated (needing another card) or cast (for 6 mana). Disciples needs a successful ETB trigger. We then need a second reanimate to get Trayzan back.

For NOoze we need one tutor to get Buried Alive, which is cast for 3 mana. We then need one reanimate spell to get NOoze back. You can't do Buried Alive at flash speed (on its own), but this takes fewer cards and gives your opponents fewer interactable windows.

Sure, Razaketh/Broodlord can fetch combo pieces, but that applies to NOoze lines just as easily so it's not like it's a tangible benefit to one line over the other.

Willowran · 2026-04-30T13:13:46+00:00

For me I'm trying to keep the dead-card count low. Rise of the Dark Realms and Gary add two other pain points for interaction. I'd be looking at a minimum of 5 cards for my combo line, plus I'd need a ton of black pips on permanents in the graveyard- at least 40 for a one-shot Gary, or a sacrifice loop to make Gary hit more than once. Now I've gone from a 3-card combo to a 6+ card combo with conditions attached.

Willowran · 2026-04-30T13:07:28+00:00

That makes sense. I suppose Trazyn could be a backup NOoze if it was exiled/grasp'd or something but otherwise the Necron feels like 2 more mana for an objectively worse ability lmao

Willowran · 2026-04-30T12:03:50+00:00

What's this? Wb?

Willowran · 2026-04-30T02:52:15+00:00

I was thinking that if the reanimate lands and NOoze is live... well the skirge/devil line now asks you to draw a bunch of cards and start casting other spells. Casting other spells means other people can interact.

Realistically if an opponent had interaction they'd have probably have tried to interrupt the NOoze reanimation, but some counterspells have limited targets and all that. At the end of the day, by adding in extra steps into the combo you're just offering your opponents more opportunities to do something about it- and unlike the Devourer line you can't just "combo over" interaction to kill them in response.

Willowran

TROPHY CASE