Duelyst Forums

Need help with Calculator Songhai

#1

Inspired by Miguel’s pet-calculator deck lists (Abyssian, Vanar, Vetruvian), I tried making one for songhai.

Theoretically, it shouldn’t be that bad:

  • Xho’s a decent pet.
  • Calculator has a really cool interaction with second self. Example: If you have 2 yuns in your hand and play calculator - second self - calculator, the first calculator will be a 11/9, and the second calculator will be a 21/17.
  • Songhai’s cards makes running away difficult.

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I then lost 6 out of 7 games. So… I need help with this.

Here’s what I’ve got so far:

tga9rG0.png830×475 71.5 KB

  • Crimson coil didn’t work out very well, since pet health is low.
  • Unfortunately, the calculators were being removed immediately. I needed something else to bait the dispel/removal, so I added Ki Beholders. (The one game I won was thanks to Ki Beholders + a lucky Pandatentiary from Xho)
  • Flamewreath - Jux often needs to hold on to a couple cards in the hand to make an effective combo, which clashes against calculator, where you want to hold on to pets. (Not sure about this, might try it out a second time.)

What would you recommend?

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#2

At the moment I just wanna say, I love your approach!

#3

I recommend you to take the spell who reactivates your battlepets, for me its the only way to make worth to play battlepet with songhai :slight_smile: and Rawr could be helpfull too :slight_smile:

#4

Nice idea with the Second Self.

Maybe try fitting Zendo. Make everyone a battle pet :slight_smile:.
If it doesn’t get removed Calculator will hurt.

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#5

You need Rawr, Calc is almost useless without him. A 15-health Calculator on curve is much harder to remove than an 8-health one. I will eventually make my own version for Songhai too, but that is quite far in my list of decks to make :stuck_out_tongue:

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#6

Calculator decks are inherently meme-y, but to make the most of them, you need to make sure you’re including the following elements:

  1. Enough pets to make Calculator big. Here, that means you need to include Rawr, the pet with the most total stats. (This is a painful craft if you’re pinched on spirit, since it’s legendary and isn’t played in any other sort of deck, but it will make this deck much better.)
  2. Some way of forcing through damage from your big dumb beater. Here Songhai has pretty good options: teleports for positioning and Zendo to get in extra swings.
  3. Ideally, a backup plan for winning if your Calculator is dealt with or never appears. Songhai doesn’t have any global buffs, but Shiro is a good neutral option and Zendo also helps out some. Crimson Coil is another possibility but as you said, it’s tricky to make good use of it.

Taking all of these into consideration, I’d recommend making these changes:
Gotatsu, Sojourner, Paragon out
Juxtaposition, Rawr, Zendo in

This gives you less card advantage and removal, but you’re not set up to win the late game anyways. Your path to victory is to go all-in on a big Calculator. Unfortunately this also close to doubles the spirit cost of the deck, but if you have the cards, I believe it should function significantly better.

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#7

You go all out-than get blown up by almost every removal.
I think ion coil OTKs are far more relyable.

#8

Ion OTK is a different deck altogether, with an almost entirely different set of minions and support cards. The only thing it has in common with Calculator builds is that both run some battle pets. (Also, I think everyone can agree that both the Ion deck and the whole Calculator archetype are pretty bad overall. I’ll take your word for it that Ion decks are better, having not played either too much, but I doubt the difference is that large.)

And while hard removal is Calculator’s bane, I think Songhai should be able to do a better job than most factions at keeping Calculator alive, since having teleports allows you to play it backline and dodge some proximity-based answers. Second Self is also cute to give you backup copies.

2 Likes
#9

Calculator decks tend to have a positive winrate against the most popular trial decks, which is a huge bonus in their current useability. All of my three builds have had a 50-60 % winrate in Diamond-Gold level (with a total of 50+ games). So while the decktype is definitely a gimmick, it’s also definitely playable enough to have some fun and get some occasional free wins.

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#10

That’s a Calculator list Hsuku built:

[Album] VDT: 1.96.12 Explain_Truck R5 Calculator - Oak in the Nemeton
#11

Can’t believe I forgot about rawr. I’ll craft some and tested it out.

2 Likes
#12

I’m surprised that there’s only 2 battlepets in that list, and it’s pretty cool how it doubles as a nemeton deck.

#13

Going back to Songhai Calculator Deck:
image

  • Ghoulie counts as battle pet if you need controllable 3 drops (though i actually dont know if it interacts with your hand)
  • Crimson coil and sol activates Ghoulie.

I remember some people saying this interaction is particularly effective for Calculator/BattlePet and baconator hybrid decks.

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#14

If Ghoulie actually combos with Calculator, he would be pretty viable in most Calculator decks :thonk: nice catch!

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#15

Testing in sandbox confirms that Calculator receives stats from Ghoulie. Good eye! I’ll do some testing, but my guess is he’s probably better than Mantella for the 3-drop slot in Calculator decks.

As far as I can tell, Ghoulie’s tribal tags work when in the deck (Cryogenesis), in the action bar (Metallurgist, Calculator), and on the field (Bond, etc.); but for some reason not after it has died (Death Knell, Sirocco).

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#16

@ThanatosNoa made a post that explains how Ghoulie works.


tldr: Duelyst has “simple lookup” and an “advanced lookup” and which one used by a card decides if it reads the description or not(and in turn, decides if ghoulie is counted or not). I’m not sure how to tell which card uses what tbh.

Telling them apart gets even harder when deceptibot does not “tutor” ghoulie.

PS: iirc sirroco doesn’t count living ghoulies either, but i forget.

2 Likes
#17

Rawr hasn’t been working very well. Since my biggest problem is hard removal, there’s not much difference between a 9 health calculator and a 15 health calculator.

Ghoulie is definitely a great idea, especially since it also has arcanyst - second self synergies. I’ll continue testing these ideas.

#18

Hmm maybe you’re doing something a bit differently. Songhai does not have the best uses out of Rawr though, which might be the problem in this particular case. Early Calculator getting removed opens up tons of ways for abusing Rawr and later Calcs, if the opponent exhausts their hard removal.

#19

Now I’m going to try Nemeton Battle Pets. This is all your fault.

2 Likes
#20

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