A Quick Look At Teklovossen in Bright Lights Draft
October 18, 2023 by
Peter Buddensiek 
(Teklovossen | Art by Simon Dominic)
Teklovossen In Draft
Welcome back! Today I’m doing a deeper dive into my favorite hero to play and draft in the latest set, Bright Lights. This draft format is an interesting one with a deep need of knowledge about what your game plan is and should be to get that 3-0 victory.
With an abundance of Mechanologist cards to choose from, let’s get right into it!
Hero
Teklovossen is quite the interesting hero in draft, and what I’d like to pinpoint as a fatigue monster, but that starts with his hero ability. Teklo allows you to play Evos from your banish zone, which gives you additional value from effects like scrap and boost. You never have to worry about accidentally boosting equipment pieces, because it’s better value if you do hit one!
Then there’s the second line of text on Teklo, which is a once-per-turn instant that costs three resources to play your next Evo as an instant. And if you do, you also draw a card. This not only gives you a unique decision of going first or second when winning the die roll, but also lets you filter cards when needed. This allows you to keep your action point on your turn and potentially draw into something powerful to arsenal or play, and sometimes to play on your opponent’s turn, which the Kano player in me knows is incredibly powerful!
Weapon
Why would you want to play Evos in the first place? Well, Teklo Leveler, the weapon Teklo always uses, is quite powerful in this set. It can only attack if you have one Evo equipped, costs less if you have two equipped, has go again if you have three equipped, and gets an additional one power if you have four equipped.
But why would you spend time and cards to play equipment just for this under-rate weapon? It’s because all the weapons in this set have conditions that need to be met to be able to attack with them, with Leveler being the easiest of the three.
Symbiosis Shot, Dash, Database‘s weapon, can only be shot if you’ve had Mechanologist items enter the arena under your control, and Banksy, which is Maxx Nitro‘s weapon, can only attack if you’ve cranked this turn. This in turn makes an incredible landscape of getting value with Teklo Leveler that the others can’t replicate.
Evo Equipment
For a Limited setting, Evo equipment may be my favorite card design idea ever. The possibilities are almost endless of what you can do with every draft. The best ones that you can draft are the Evo Steel Soul line, which are rare to get, but the value of them, especially Evo Steel Soul Memory, can turn a draft heavily into your favor.
The next best, which is common so will come up more, is the Evo Sentry line. Not only are these cards signals to be in Teklo, but are also an essential corner piece of what you want to be doing. Evo Sentry Base Head and friends allow you to block the small damage and breakpoints without giving additional cards from hand. If I could run two copies in each slot every draft I would! These get their value from blocking two and then one, then get to stay around for your weapon to be able to attack and get its value.
I won’t lie, I’m not so much of a fan of the other Evo equipment in this set in Teklo, but a special shoutout to Evo Charging Rods and the rest of the zero-cost line that can block two. I think the number you want for Evos is around five to eight, so you can see them and turn on your weapon quickly. Just be mindful of what slot your Evos are going into; try to get at least one of all of them and don’t load up on a lot of the same slot.
Mechanologist Attacks
My favorite avenue in Teklo is to draft the big boi attacks and play the best two-card hands I can. Cards that allow you to do that are Mechanical Strength, Junkyard Dogg, Scrap Harvester, Big Shot, Gas Guzzler, and my favorite card Big Bertha! Basically any card that can attack for six or more and can block three is a premiere card for Teklo in my eyes.
Every time your opponent blocks for six, giving you a two-for-one, just know I’m fist pumping for you on your way to winning that game.
Something I’d also like to talk about is some of the two-cost five-attacks. If you have enough Evos on the field, namely three or four so your weapon has go again, you can turn those two-cost attacks into a pure value machine. Swinging two go again into five or three go again into five allows you to break the six attack mold of the deck and swing for seven or eight, chipping your opponent down and breaking the mold to win the game.
Lastly, I’d like to leave everyone with a picture of one of my latest drafts that I did locally on Teklo, going 4-0 after both pod winners played each other at the end of the night. This deck shows how much the big boi attacks help push damage and get those two-for-ones and snowball the game into a huge lead. 
In Conclusion
This draft set has an insane amount of depth to it, and I can’t wait to explore it more! This is just one of the ways you can approach Teklo, and I’d like to hear everyone’s opinions on this and other strategies for Teklo, or any of the draftable heroes, in the comment section down below!
For now, have the peace of mind that I’m somewhere waiting to fatigue my next victim with Teklo.
