The Past and Future of Teklovossen

My History with Teklo (Teklorigins, if you will)

The date is January 13, 2024, the event is the January AGE Open of the second season. Lexi has just entered Living Legend and Bright Lights is the most recent set, the meta is wide open. Having spent almost my entire competitive career playing Lexi, I decide to give Teklovossen a whirl. The first five rounds go almost as well as I could possibly hope. Aside from an auto loss to Eugene on Kano (because my list has zero AB and zero ability to kill him quickly), I get three ideal matchups in Bravo, Decimator Dori, and Arakni Huntsman and a close win over Dash IE. Going into the last round, I'm praying that I dodge the Fai and other Kano at the top tables and get one of the three Bravos that end up top 8'ing the event. Instead, I get Zayne on Azalea. I breathe a sigh of relief. What is Azalea other than a slightly more aggressive Bravo? Your Red in the Ledgers mean nothing to me. This is win and in for top 8, so naturally the game is chosen for the feature match on stream. I lose 40-0.

Teklovossen historically has been an anti-meta pick, requiring you to rely on GEM luck to carry you through tournaments as his matchups are very polarizing. Midrange and slow, defensive decks are what he preyed on, but in the days of the Bright Lights meta, anything that was hyper aggressive, relied on board states, or did any amount of arcane damage bullied him mercilessly. Over time, he slowly received small injections to his card pool to lessen the severity of certain matchups, but Compendium of Rathe has given him the biggest boost (pun not intended, don't boost) to his resources. Before we get to the present/future, let's talk about how control Teklo has historically been built.