Many Flesh and Blood players ask the question “How good are the decks in Round the Table?” I got my start in card gaming playing Magic: the Gathering and watching Tolarian Community College (TCC) videos. Because of this, I was excited when I saw that the Professor would be collaborating on a product for my favorite card game.

Now it’s here and it’s time to talk about two of the decks. This article covers the Professor Teklovossen and Brevant, Civic Protector decks. To find a review of the Ira, Crimson Haze and Melody, Sing-along decks, check out the companion article to this one written by Mari Groh.

Professor Teklovossen

"Round the Table: Professor Teklovossen"

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Hero (1) 1 Professor Teklovossen Weapons (1) 1 Teklo Blaster Equipment (4) 1 Proto Base Arms 1 Proto Base Chest 1 Proto Base Head 1 Proto Base Legs Main (40) 2 Apocalypse Automaton 2 Firewall red 2 Liquid Cooled Mayhem red 2 Mechanical Strength red 2 Over Loop red 2 Throttle red 2 Under Loop red 2 Zero to Sixty red 2 Zipper Hit red 2 Firewall yellow 2 Throttle yellow 2 Zipper Hit yellow 2 Firewall Blue 2 Liquid Cooled Mayhem blue 2 Mechanical Strength blue 2 Throttle blue 2 Evo Energy Matrix 2 Evo Rapid Fire 2 Evo Scatter Shot 2 Evo Tekloscope

What Do You Get in the Professor Deck?

Reprints

If you’ve watched even a handful of TCC videos, you’ll know there is a thing that The Prof is passionate about: reprints. Well, in this product he made sure that you get the reprints that are required to make the decks play well. I won’t spend a ton of time talking about them, but the inclusion of cards like Zero to Sixty, Throttle, and Zipper Hit make sure that players using this as a starting point don’t have to hunt down cards that are currently in one “in print” set (History Pack 1).

Cards Shared with Bright Lights

This product releases close to the new set, Bright Lights. LSS and TCC decided to do a cool thing and included some of the cards from that set in this product.

Firewall stands out here, as this is the first time we’ve seen the Block card type. This card type’s only function is to block, but when they do you get some kind of upside. In the case of Firewall, you can check the top of your deck for an Evo, and if it’s not one, you put it on the bottom to dig closer to getting one. There’s also Under Loop, which is a riff on Over Loop from Arcane Rising that just helps mitigate the classic Mechanologist problem of running out of deck from Boosting.

Other good includes are Liquid Cooled Mayhem and Mechanical Strength. These serve as great fun cards to push some damage and give extra payoffs for having Evos equipped.

The Unique Stuff

All good standalone products need some cards that are specific to them. This deck doesn’t disappoint on that. When you go through the card list, there’ll be some new faces you aren’t going to find in Bright Lights or any previous set. The first and most obvious one is Professor Teklovossen. This hero is The Prof. They put him in the game and it’s really cool. As for the textbox, Prof is creating synergies between Evos and Boosting by making Evos playable from banish and easier to play after spending a lot of resources on your turn. The cost reduction in his textbox is cool because it scales for Ultimate Pit Fight (UPF). As you gain opponents your Evos are cheaper to play. Other than that, he’s a pretty standard young hero with four intellect and 20 life.

Next is Apocalypse Automaton, one of the coolest UPF cards. Once you get your Evos set up, it’s able to attack up to four people at once. When you play this, it makes sure that the person across from you can’t ignore you.

Now it’s time to talk about the engine of this deck. Prof’s Evos are built up to create a much better gun by assembling Teklo Blaster, Evo Energy Matrix, Evo Rapid Fire, Evo Scatter Shot, and Evo Tekloscope. Once you have all of these, you can, once per turn, attack anyone for three damage with go again. On top of that, depending on the number of opponents you have, you might be doing this at no cost. While not as strong as the pistol plan in traditional Mech builds, it has a lower opportunity cost because you don’t need to run non-block cards in your deck for it.

Brevant, Civic Protector

"Round the Table: Brevant, Civil Protector"

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Hero (1) 1 Brevant, Civil Protector Weapon (1) 1 Hammer of Havenhold Equipment (5) 1 Bastion of Duty 1 Civic Duty 1 Civic Guide 1 Civic Peak 1 Civic Steps Main (40) 2 Colossal Bearing Red 2 Crash Down Red 2 Earthlore Empowerment 2 Lay Down the Law Red 2 Smack of Reality Red 2 Crash Down Yellow 2 Earthlore Empowerment Yellow 2 Boulder Drop Yellow 2 Chokeslam Yellow 2 Disable Yellow 2 Boulder Drop Blue 2 Chokeslam Blue 2 Disable Blue 12 Chivalry 2 Cranial Crush

What Do You Get in the Brevant Deck?

Reprints

Brevant has fewer reprints than The Prof, but the ones that are here feel relevant. The biggest reprint in the deck is Cranial Crush. It’s a Guardian staple that hasn’t been printed since Welcome to Rathe because it wasn’t included in the History Pack 1 card list. This has made it a card that has held more monetary value than it should have as it is playable in every deck for the class. It’s a welcome reprint.

Next there are red and yellow Disables. This is one of the best crush effects in that they can be a budget replacement for Command and Conquer and they are also just generally good at being big numbers. Chokeslam is a solid Guardian attack that can be massively effective if your UPF table has heroes like Briar, another Brevant, Civic Protector, or Arakni, Solitary Confinement.

The Unique Stuff

While Brevant is using some of the Guardian classics, he also brings his own new toys to the table. The first thing that should be covered is Chivalry. It’s a block card type that can be used to defend for any player. This is the beginning of the politics with Brevant. Now that we understand that, Brevant’s own textbox will make a bit more sense. Brevant can run as many Chivalry as you want to put in the deck. If you really want to run 40, you could. The payoff for running these is seen in his second text line. Whenever Brevant defends another hero, he creates a Might token. This makes getting another new mechanic to work a lot easier. That mechanic is Tower and it’s a fun one. Tower says that, if the attack comes in for 13 or more damage, it gains extra effects. As a person that loves big numbers, this one has me hyped. Some examples of the effects available from Tower are on Colossal Bearing Red, Lay Down the Law Red, and Smack of Reality Red.

To help power out these Tower attacks, Brevant has some new cards for an underappreciated Guardian archetype, aura setup. These are auras that will consume your action point but provide a large buff for the next turn. The new ones are Crash Down and Earthlore Empowerment. These two auras provide at least four extra damage each and Earthlore Empowerment also comes with a little discount on the next turn’s attack.

Along with all of this, Brevant has a new set of Guardian Temper 2 equipment. Each of these have a political aspect because they make a token for an opposing player (or teammate in a PvE situation) of your choice. For those looking for something that might slot into their current Guardian decks, the best choice is probably Boulder Drop. While it may not come in the three-for-seven red that we like to see in Guardian, the lose-a-card effect on it makes it a card that at least needs to be respected at some level.

Evaluation and Grading

I believe that these two decks are a great inclusion to a product aimed at UPF. While both strategies could be considered underpowered in a Blitz scenario, they fit in perfectly at a kitchen table or LGS when just trying to have some fun with friends. I also like that these feel like an approachable entry point for new players while still being relevant to people who are long time fans of the game. Overall I would give this product and A plus. The effort put in by the TCC team and LSS is apparent in the final product. Prof stated that there were many iterations to get it to this point and I believe it. Rarely have I seen a TCG product that can match the value of this one. Make sure to get out to your LGS and pick one up to jam games with friends.

Jo O'Brien

Jo is an avid Flesh and Blood player, judge and, writer. She is one of the blitz specialists here at FABREC. Jo has played a lot of classes and heroes but, she has an affinity for two heroes in particular, Enigma and Valda. When not playing FaB, Jo is typically filling her free time playing guitar, playing Apex Legends, or building their next Rube Goldberg machine of a deck.