Trying to make Backstab Kaleos work, discovered The Scientist

[leadfootslim]

I’ve been trying to get Kaleos to work with the new ROTB cards, because I’ve always loved the teleporting-positioning aspect of the faction but have never gotten it to work well enough. With the addition of Obscuring Blow, however, things open up very nicely. The only problem I run into late-game is running out of fuel… and on a whim, I decided to try The Scientist. The results were astounding.

I played it in a corner on 6 mana with just 1 other card in hand, and on 7 mana, I played and subsequently drew about 5 cards in 1 turn, including a free draw from Killing Edge and my BBS, with an 11/8 minion on board to show for it. I’m curious if anyone else has looked at this as a Songhai tool, or is it better to just run straight burn like Spiral Technique for a finisher?

[phayze]

It used to be a card that some Songhai decks definitely attempted to run. It dropped out of favour due to the meta speeding up and Kaleos (who used the card a lot more often since Reva didn’t tend to run too many bodies anyway) fell out of favour as he was considered a bottom tier general right down there with Starhorn, Sajj and Zir’an (pre-RotB anyway). I think the meta may still be a tad bit too fast for it but if you can make it work, by all means, go for it, it is by no means a bad card.

[whyb0t]

I put it in my Kaleos decks, but only because I have very few Songhai cards. I feel like with Xho and Ancestral Divination and that ‘draw three spells’ spell you really would rather have lategame combos than the Scientist. But if it works in your deck by all means use it

[akurane]

It has the possibility to work, I might try it out in my own Kaleos deck. Thing is, the late game is not Songhai’s strong suit, and at 6 (really 7) mana, most Songhai decks will aim to burst the opponent down using crazy combos (like Onyx Jaguar+Beastmaster shenanigans in my case). You would need to have some methods in your deck for control for the best potential of it I feel.

[BlankTrack]

I play it in Lyonar, and I think it is strong if the game is dragging on, but against more aggressive decks it does nothing for you. On mana 6 against aggro if you are spending all of your mana you need to be removing something, provoking something, or healing yourself or you will die the next turn.

That being said, lategame he is extraordinary. Having a BBS that targets him guarantees that you can cycle, and if silenced a 6/6 for 6 mana is still a great body. Like you said he is one of the best cards you can topdeck lategame when you are running out of steam.

Also, just curious, what does your decklist look like? The scientist is also an Arcanyst, so if you happen to be running Chakri Avatars or FWMagi it might be fun to throw in 1 or 2 Owlbeast Sages for some Arcanyst cheese