Introduction

This weekend, I went to Memphis for the Classic Constructed Calling and finished in the Top 8 with Teklovossen, Esteemed Magnate. If you read my previous article about Teklo where I predicted his competitive viability, I was cautiously optimistic about how much Compendium helped him. I took Teklo to Memphis to put him to a serious test, since I wasn't able to play him in any ProQuests after winning one in SAGE. I probably would've brought him anyway, but Verdance hitting LL the previous weekend did make the endeavor much more promising. I spent all of Friday playing SAGE side events to prepare for what I figured was an inevitable Showdown run on Sunday, even making it to the finals of the Gold Foil event before losing in the mirror (Kayo OP). But instead, I finished day one with a 6-1 record to qualify for day two and ended up in the Top 8. Here's how all my matches went down.

Match Breakdown

Day One

Round 1, Andre Francis on Katsu

Luckily, I had practiced this matchup with my teammate, Moises, a few times so I knew the drill: over block important starters to keep them from being able to utilize Katsu's hero ability. I saw Evos early but didn't get a ton of Overpower attacks to push the advantage. I stripped the only blue from their hand with Pulsewave Protocol but got punished with an incorrect block by a decent Breeze Rider Boots turn. Close game that I managed to squeak out in the end.

W 1-0

Round 2, Coleman Beam on Boltyn

I arsenaled Evo Magneto early and waited for Spirit of Eirina to come out, but they resolved all three Lumina Ascension before drawing Spirit. I got online and used the Overpower attacks to keep their offense from going too crazy. At one point, they IP'd a Blunten because their life total was getting low which they did use to save a good amount of life on the following turn, but I finished it with Singularity shortly after.

W 2-0

Round 3, Robbie Valdez on Boltyn

My first game on stream of the tournament. I had three Evos out by turn two and drew lots of Overpower attacks early to keep them on the backfoot. This time, the Boltyn player resolved Spirit of Eirina relatively early in the game, but I drew Evo Magneto two turns later, so I was able to commit NTR against them (short for neurological/technological recruitment, don't Google it for confirmation) and steal Boltyn's wife. Singularity ended things after a while, though I did have my worst ever six card post-Singularity hand.

W 3-0

Round 4, Wesley Dong on Victor

Team kill unfortunately. I drew terribly early on, seeing no Evos and having to pitch three important reds to activate Teklo's hero ability and pass, letting him do whatever he wanted. I did manage to Ripple Away his first Visit the Goldmane Estate to slow down his offensive output, and I either had the defense reaction or the soul read for all three of his Pummels. Eventually my deck started to click and I killed him.

W 4-0

Round 5, Austin Revera on Oscilio

Only win condition for Teklo in this matchup is fatigue. I blocked out as much as I could and dug hard for Amulet of Echoes, but only found one before they dropped three Sigils of Brilliance on the table and nuked me the following turn.

L 4-1

Round 6, Hans Schubert on Victor

Decks lined up better for each of us than my game against Wesley. I got Evos out quickly and once again Rippled the first Visit, but didn't have the defense reactions to deal with their moderately annoying Pummels. I didn't throw as many Overpower attacks at them as I would've liked pre-Singularity, but the soul stack was large enough and their life total low enough that it got the job done.

W 5-1

Round 7, Charlie Heavilin on Dash I/O

Plan here is mostly fatigue, but if they give you enough space while setting big combo turns you can hit them hard with Terminator Tank and Pulsewave Protocol. They got unlucky with their Boom Grenades, most of them coming out of hand or arsenal instead of off the top of the deck, and I was able to pitch two cards to play a Steel Soul Evo the first three turns of the game. They put on consistent pressure after, but Warmonger's Diplomacy bought me space a couple of times to refresh my armor and I ended the game at 4 when their deck ran out.

W 6-1

Day Two

Round 8, Mara Faris on Vynnset

I got to go first and had three Evos equipped by the end of their first turn while they got no meaningful setup. My Warmonger's were banished randomly off the top multiple times, but two Ripple Away discards got serious value on what would've been very powerful turns. The Blood Debt started racking up and I hit them with a Pulsewave Protocol that stripped the only non-attack from their hand and then a Terminator Tank that prevented an insane pop-off turn. Eventually they died to Blood Debt.

W 7-1

Round 9, Kyle McKeough on Dorinthea

I got to play a Steel Soul Evo and arsenal a Sink Below on turn zero, but they started with an Emboldened Blade which allowed them to get a +1 counter on his first turn. I got the counter off the following turn and blocked very defensively the rest of the way while I got my Evos online. My Overpower attacks for 9 always got covered up by three cards from hand, but this meant I could just do my thing while he blocked and my Singularity emptied the rest of his deck.

W 8-1

Round 10, Lucas Oswald on Mario

This matchup is very tough. They output a lot of damage at reaction speed and Tarantula Toxin and Shred make blocking with equipped Steel Soul Evos a dangerous proposition, so our biggest strengths don't work well against them. I blocked with my equipped Steel Soul Memory when I had the replacement ready to deploy, which they did Shred and I had to rescue with the Teklo hero activation. I got little time to do any setup while they aggro'd me down and I died quickly.

L 8-2

Round 11, Damien Riggins on Pleiades

Pleiades' normal game plan of fatigue is very ineffective against Teklo, so they just attacked me with Pec Perfect several times, which is a very dangerous card to block with if you don't know where Singularity is in your deck. I did get lower in life than expected, but their aggressive line meant they had to take a lot of damage from my Overpower attacks and an early Singularity finished the job.

W 9-2

Round 12, Austin Redington on Prism

This matchup is almost impossible to win if they have any sort of gameplan into slow, defensive decks. They get out auras and angels out much faster than Teklo is able to kill them and eventually the board state becomes overwhelming. Even with three Midas Touches killing the most annoying angels, my poppers were quickly exhausted and they used Avalon to get back Figment of Erudition and play it a second time. Also, according to Fabrary I have a 4% chance of drawing multiple yellows to kill Library and that did not happen.

L 9-3

Top 8, Jacob Clements on Mario

My second game on stream of the tournament. I had a slightly better idea of what I should do after my game against Lucas, but it was basically the same thing. Lots of reaction speed damage I couldn't block effectively and didn't get four Evos out quickly enough to start throwing big disruptive attacks at them. Might have had two or three slight misblocks (blocking Kiss of Death is just asking to get Tarantula Toxin'd which I did), but I feel you need to high roll this matchup.

L 10-3

Deck Tech

This is the list I used in the Calling. 20 Evos plus three Ghost Protocol: Architect felt like the right number since all I want to do the first couple of turns is equip Evos to get my defenses online and power up my Evo Upgrade attacks. There are a lot of cards in this deck that need to be drawn at specific times to get full value out of them, but I was rarely unhappy to see an Evo. Nine defense reactions also worked pretty well for what this deck is trying to do, which is to block a lot until I can throw big disruptive attacks at my opponent. Two Fabricates and two Scrap Traders are the right ratios for cards with powerful effects that you don't necessarily need to run three of.

The choice to mainboard three Adaptive Dissolvers over Adaptive Alpha Molds is correct I think. The three health does not make enough of a difference in most games, plus if I equip any Evos over the Alpha Molds before I block with them, they give no extra value. I don't know if I activated Synapse Sparkcap more than once this tournament, but it's still the best in slot headpiece and it's a gold foil so it stays.

In terms of the sideboard, Ripple Away and Warmonger's Diplomacy were the most common additions to my 57 card mainboard. Ripple Away came in most often to deal with Boltyn (Courage tokens), Victor (Visit the Goldmane Estate), Vynnset (Runechants) and Mario (Graphene Chelicera, Ponder). In matchups where I needed both Ripple and Warmonger's (Vynnset), I would cut the two Scrap Compactors and one Mechanical Strength. Oscilio tech took up seven spots in the form of Arcanite Skullcap (to get to Arcane Barrier 6), three AB Evos, and three Amulet of Echoes. The fatigue plan for Oscilio is difficult against Oscilio players who are prepared for it and good at pitch stacking, so I just try to find my Amulets ASAP. Midas Touch is there to combat board state decks (Prism and Gravy) and Evo Magneto is there to combat item-centric decks (DIO and Boltyn).

Going forward, I will probably make a couple of changes to the deck to better deal with the current meta. I'll probably cut Midas Touch as Teklo doesn't have much chance against competent Prism and Gravy players even with it included, so better just to dodge those matchups entirely. Evo Shortcircuit is the AB Evo of choice vs Vynnset because the swapping of the chest and leg pieces is more relevant so that one stays. Evo Heartdrive and Evo Speedslip are candidates for cutting because they only come in against Oscilio so you can throw disruptive Overpower attacks at him eventually, but since you just need one Evo to win in fatigue, they aren't necessary. Evo Magneto stays in the deck as long as DIO lives, but if she hits LL in the next few weeks, you can cut it as the Boltyn matchup is probably still favored even without stealing his wife. Evo Recall is just there for Huntsman because your Singularity will get banished by him at some point, and he's popular enough to include it to avoid losing the game when that happens.

Tournament Summary and the Future

As I stated in my previous article and proved in this event with the help of yet another Top 8 Teklovossen (shoutout to Matthew Bowar), Teklo is a great anti-meta pick. With almost a quarter of the field being Guardian and a good number of other slower, more defensive decks being represented, Teklo was poised to succeed with a little GEM luck, which I definitely received. I won the matchups I was even or favored in and lost the matchups I was unfavored in, but got rewarded as I got nine games in the first category and three in the second. Matthew had a similar run, facing multiple Guardians, Warriors, Vynnset, and one mirror (RIP), while only having to deal with a single Oscilio and Marlynn (errata Overpower please). The unwinnable matchups made up about 18% of the overall field, which was close to the rate he and I saw them in Swiss.

So, to answer the question on your mind as your read this, should you play Teklovossen? The answer is yes, but only for a relatively small group of people and only until May 29th 2026. Why that date? Because that is when Omens of the Third Age pre-releases begin and those cards become legal and Teklovossen goes back in the trunk of the car. We don't know most of the cards in the set yet, but there's not a single Illusionist that Teklovossen has ever had a decent chance against and the meta share for Zyggy will be insane if the pre-set hype is to be believed. Old Aurora and Oscilio have also been historically bad matchups for Teklo, so new versions will be probably be more of the same even with weaker looking hero abilities.

Now that we've established the date of Teklovossen's return to obscurity, who should devote money to acquire all those Bright Lights Majestic's they couldn't find in their bulk box? There are five large Classic Constructed events between now and the World Premiere for Omens: Calling Rotterdam, Calling Jakarta, Calling Sao Paulo, and Pro Tour/Calling Yokohama. Teklo's card pool and the current Guardian/Fatigue-heavy meta give him the best shot he's ever had to compete in high-level events. Prism refusing to die in the most recent PQ season is unfortunate, but since all those players would probably just migrate to Gravy Bones, it wouldn't have really solved much. If you are attending any of those events and expect to see a similar meta to what was present in Memphis, Teklo is definitely a solid pick.

As I am not going to those events, the remainder of my Teklovossen career before Omens release will be one or two AGE Opens where I will attempt to win at least one event with him before he begins another long wait for a meta that suits him. I will root for any souls brave enough to bring him to these larger events (especially Yokohama). May the GEM gods smile upon them the same way they smiled upon me in Memphis, and I will continue to pray that LSS will give Scrap Trader Go Again one day.