(Professor Teklovossen | Art by Simon Dominic)

Greetings and salutations once again, my fabulous FAB folks! I’m Donnie K., aka some random #FABDad, and one of your favorite Siblings in Cardboard! We’re back today for the next installment of #FABDad’s Fighting Pit. Per a reader’s request, today I’ll be brewing with Professor Teklovossen of Round the Table.

So let’s dive straight into making The Professor more than human!

Running the Table with Professor Teklovossen!

Like the other heroes designed for the Round the Table set, Professor Teklovossen is well balanced right out of the box. To have a good time with your friends, you don’t need to upgrade the Professor deck. If you’re reading this though, you’re already wondering how to get the most out of what Prof can do in Ultimate Pit Fight. So let’s start by looking at the base list:

Like I said, the deck is balanced and well tuned for its macro game plan. Boost into your Evo pieces and assemble the mech suit with Teklo Blaster power ups. Once that’s done, beat everyone down with the gun and red Evo payoffs in the late game.

If The Base List is Fine, We Won’t Need to Do Much Tweaking, Right?

Actually, there’s a lot here that I want to change. First off, the Proto Base equipment are do-nothing cards. We have strictly better options in the Cogwerx series. Second, we’re entirely reliant on boosting to get our most important cards into a synergistic position. Not only that, but we risk losing our biggest payoffs for finding them while trying to get there. Finally, the deck wants a full mech suit, but only runs eight total Evos!

We can be better. We can be… more!

What Do We Want to (Evo) Upgrade First?

The Proto Base pieces do get the job done and, if you happen to possess the Cold Foil promos from the Bright Lights prerelease, they look great. In a casual format, sometimes it can be fun to choose bling over function.

The Cogwerx equipment fill the same role with bonus effects that can occasionally be useful though. Any potential upside at all is better than a blank text box. (Also the Cold Foils happen to look cooler, in my opinion.) That will be the first change we make.

I did give the Teklo Base pieces consideration as well, but I don’t ever want to be tempted to block with them. There is a world where you play those and have two Fabricate in your list. You could block with up to two of the Teklo Bases and replace them when you draw Fabricate by having one of each Proto Base in your inventory. But I’d rather not go that route. It sounds risky at best, and clunky at worst.

Are We Feeling Scrappy?

The short answer is yes, but I’m leaving in the above-rate boost cards Zero to Sixty and Throttle to provide opportunities to get value out of the Cogwerx pieces. I’m also drastically cutting the total amount of boost attacks overall. I want to play more defensively, and I’d prefer not to risk accidentally losing out on the Singularity we’ll be adding by boosting aggressively.

In their place, we’ll add some scrap cards to pair with all the Evos we intend to block with. Professor Teklovossen tends to draw a lot of aggression from the rest of the table, since he has the strongest late game of almost any hero in the whole game (Illusionists might have him beat, but I believe it’s close). Because of that, we’re focusing on playing defense, and should have plenty of Evos in the graveyard to scrap.

Guess That Means We’re Upping Our Evo Count Next?

Absolutely! Not only that, but I want to make a drastic change to the core game plan with the switch. The Evo set that comes in the base list will turn Teklo Blaster into an extremely effective weapon, but I want to be more than a human shooting a gun. Transforming into our demi-hero is the new primary game plan for this build, and Singularity doesn’t care if our mech suit has mismatched parts when we transform. We’re going to take advantage of Prof’s ability to make Evos cheaper and run the two-cost Evo Sentry set.

I’m adding in one of each red Evo Sentry Base piece and switching out the blue Evo Blaster pieces for the Steel Soul series from Bright Lights. Each of the red pieces can be played for free if we have at least two opponents left in a UPF game and every single Evo we’re running is now a Base. That’s relevant because it means we get to take full advantage of each Steel Soul piece’s text box when we swap from Evo to Evo.

Is That It? Build Complete?

Almost. The only other tweaks to the main deck will be some minor quality-of-life adjustments. I’m cutting all the copies of Firewall and replacing them with Sink Below, Steel Street Enforcement, and UPF staple This Round’s on Me. Firewall is decent, but we don’t have nearly as many boost cards to synergize with it in this list.

We’re also upgrading some of the payoff cards to the Heavy Hitters (pun intended) from Bright Lights. Namely, one copy each of War Machine and Terminator Tank, because we don’t want to draw them early if we can help it.

With most cards in the deck coming in pairs, we’re left at an odd 39 cards total in the main. Extra block value never hurt anyone, so we’ll add a blue Unmovable to up the blue count to a healthy 17. Now we’re looking at 45 cards between the main deck and inventory with seven more slots left available. Let’s discuss some sideboard options.

In Case of Emergency, Bring These!

Prof doesn’t want to mess up his suit of armor and eventual ascension to full mech. Because of that, we’re going to completely ignore every other equipment in the game. Scary, I know, but we’ll be fine.

I like the flavor of the Mech guru being completely flabbergasted by Wizards and magic, so I can forgive Legend Story Studios for not giving any of the Evo pieces Arcane Barrier. (Also, the idea of The Professor from Tolarian Community College being unable to deal with magic is just deliciously ironic.)

Just because the hero would be caught off guard by magic doesn’t mean we have to be though.

Two copies of Oasis Respite and two Mini Forcefield go in when there’s a Wizard nearby. One Annihilator Engine and Scramble Pulse as well, to switch out with our other finishers in case of an imposter Teklovossen. Lastly, one Heavy Artillery just in case the table is loaded with low-to-the-ground aggro decks that we want to squash under heavy fire.

Put all these tweaks together, shake them up in a big hat, and here’s the final result!

Final List!

If you want to save the list for yourself on Fabrary.net, you can find it here.

Closing Thoughts

This list will not only hold its own in Ultimate Pit Fight, but it could also have potential as a starting point for a Blitz deck. The Evo Sentry Bases will only cost one in a single opponent game thanks to Prof’s hero power, so the core game plan doesn’t really change. I’d swap out Apocalypse Automaton for some other big attack, but otherwise, stay the course. Block and scrap as much as possible until you’ve built your suit, then crush your enemy with extreme malice! (And lasers! Malice and lasers!)

What are your thoughts on the list? Would you have stayed closer to the original design from LSS or gone even further from it than I did? Which of the payoff cards is your favorite and why is it Singularity? Let me know in the comments or reach out to me on Discord or Twitter/X as Dracohominis87 and we can compare notes!

The next young hero that I’d like to brew up for you all will likely be one of the young Shadow Runeblades built in a “group slug” style. If you’d like me to brew up an Ira, Crimson Haze or Brevant, Civic Protector list next instead, let me know and I may move them to the front of the line. If not, expect the next Fighting Pit to happen closer to the Demonastery!

If you’d like to hear me and a couple of other goofballs chat about the latest FAB news and gossip, consider checking out my podcast (Siblings in Cardboard – A Flesh and Blood Podcast) on YouTube or Spotify!

Further Reading:

Multiplayer Card Design in Flesh and Blood

Flesh and Blood’s Living Legend System, and the Power of Storytelling

Don’t Let Break-Even Decisions Break You in Flesh and Blood