A Mech in the Mists: Teklo's Place in the Mistveil Meta

When Teklo was first released, he was widely considered to be one of the worst heroes of the game. 4-cost Evo equips caused some clunky hands, and he offered no true disruption as he set up his Singularity flip turn, lacking good threats to push back with as he tinkered. Teklo essentially had one narrow play pattern for the start of the game: blocking out, equipping an Evo, then passing - assuming your opponent gave you the breathing room to even do that. While his late game was incredible, the time it took to properly set up led many potential Teklo mains to drop the hero altogether.

With time, dedicated players were able to refine their lists and use the slow setup to their advantage. Instead of trying to play him as an (arguably worse) Dash, Inventor Extraordinaire, many players were carving out their lists to be highly effective control decks. With cards like Scrap Trader and Junkyard Dogg allowing some effective plays off one blue pitch - and allowing you to set up a new Evo in your banished zone to equip when needed - it allowed Teklo ample time to set up his big Singularity payoff turn, or use two blues to shoot Leveler for 3 and Terminator Tanks for 9 with on-hits. As the game wore on, it was tough for any deck to handle 12 damage with on-hits being thrown consistently.

With Teklo being re-established as a control deck, it's safe to assume he operates best against heroes that are more midrange and even control themselves, since those playstyles give Teklo enough breathing room to execute his gameplan instead of having to worry about fending off 30 damage turns right out of the gate (Ninja anyone?). Last February, LSS followed up Bright Lights with Heavy Hitters - and with it came 6 new heroes centered around the classes of Brute, Guardian, and Warrior. As luck would have it, Teklo has an outstanding matchup into 2 of those classes, and the other is a decent 50/50 matchup.

This allowed Teklo players to position themselves in the same way Kano players did when they tried to spike tournaments and Armories as people decided to quit bringing Arcane Barrier. Savvy Teklo players began scoping out their own local metas and decide for themselves if it was an ample opportunity to bring the Mechropotent - especially as a lot of players had little to no experience facing seasoned Teklo mains. So while the meta was dominated by Guardians, Warriors, and Brutes, Teklo players scooped up a fair number of wins during the most recent ProQuest season - enough that it was no longer considered a “bad deck”. Teklovossen was now a very real and effective deck - when piloted correctly into the proper matchups.

You may be asking yourself though, “Yeah you talked about his good matchups and targeting the meta, but what about his bad matchups?” Well, it can be boiled down to this:

• Aggro (Ninjas) 
• Board State (Illusionist)
• Arcane(Kano)
• Equipment Hate (Assassins using Shred)

A scientist like Teklovossen can appreciate that Newton’s 3rd Law states every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If Heavy Hitters introduced a field of heroes Teklovossen is great into, Part the Mistveil introduced heroes he struggles into. 

Despite being an Assassin hero and the most skill-intensive matchup a Teklo player can have, a lot of Nuu lists do not seem to be using Shred - so on the surface, she is an easier pill to swallow then Uzuri or Arakni; however, that doesn’t guarantee Nuu players won’t sideboard that Evo hate card into their decks should Teklo rise up again.

With Zen being able to combo wide, aggressive Crouching Tiger turns that can go upwards of 50 damage, he simply  pushes way to much damage, too widely to defend effectively.

Enigma's instant speeding an army of ward (that can also attack) can flood the board to the point that, even if she couldn’t swing with her auras, by the time you could get set up with your endgame, she would be too far ahead for Teklo to make an impact. 

You don’t have to be Oppenheimer to deduce that this is not the type of field that does Control Teklo any favors.

Now before you go off and slide Teklo under the workbench until everyone decides to play Guardians again, you will be pleased to know that all is not lost. Sure, Ninja and illusionist are still very difficult matchups. However, LSS has given Teklo some new toys that not only shift the tide a little more in his favor, but also provide some much needed help into his literally unwinnable game into Wizard. All this help comes into the form of the expansion slot Evo lineup, complete with the low cost of 0 to equip, the ability to play them at instant speed, and last but not least: the AB 1 attached to every piece of the new equipment, allowing him to have AB 4 when the full suite is equipped.

With Teklo's innate ability to play Evos from the banished zone, having 0-cost instant speed options to equip can allow Teklo to pivot into a more aggressive, boost-focused gameplan, enabling him to start firing off his big payoff attacks, like Liquid Cooled Mayhem or the above-mentioned Terminator Tank, as early as Turn 2! That, coupled with the pressure and go-wide capability of a boosting Mechanologist, can potentially out-match even Ninjas when it comes to damage and pressure. Let’s not forget the AB 4 either: being able to full send to Kano and still being able to prevent his arcane damage is an addictive and cathartic feeling.

While the new Evo line does offer its upsides for Teklo, it also has some downsides. The biggest issues are that they aren't Base equipment - so they cannot be stacked - and that they don't have the payoff that Steel Soul Evos do when you become the Mechropotent. They do, however, offer different things instead. Evo Recall lets you take a banished mech card and put it on top of your deck; Heartdrive lets your next attack cost 1 resource less; Short Circuit deals 1 damage on equip; and Speedslip gives your next attack the ability to Boost.

This can offer some surprising synergy with some Control Teklo lines of play, allowing you the ability to craft a hybrid list that can effectively combine the best of Boost and Control, or maybe sideboard whichever set you feel is appropriate. If you’re facing a Zen, then equip those instants and boost away; if you're facing the last Victor player in an Enigma meta, then pray for the poor soul and throw in the Steel Soul package. 

Now if you’re like me and love resolving Singularity by any means necessary but realize you can’t fully commit to Control given your local meta, I suggest using 2 of the head and arm pieces of the instant speed Evo set, and 3 of the Steel Soul chest and leg equipment. This allows you to get back your Singularity you have banished from boosting by using the equip effect of Evo Recall, and Steel Soul Processor and Tower allows you to get the initial flip pay off of gaining 6 resources and 2 action points to swing the Mechropotent twice. Granted, you will not be able to gain 5 intellect or tutor back a Tank to throw at your opponent the next turn, but with effective deck building and carefully riding the line between Boost and Control, the opponent will probably be dealt with before that becomes a concern.

It's understandable to look at the current spread of popular decks and be discouraged about Teklo’s position in the meta, because quite frankly it realistically is not kind to him at the moment. This does not mean you shouldn't play him though - with his new Evos and access to an already-powerful card pool, cunning Teklo players should be able to carve out their own niche even in this less-than-hospitable meta. Other Teklo mains, however, may decide to wait it out, theorycrafting and sharpening their lists to a fine cybernetic edge, then striking when the time is right.

Because at the end of the day, Teklo is like the Mr. House of Rathe - and those of you who know about Fallout New Vegas must also know that, no matter what, when everything is said and done, The House Always Wins.

When this article was initially written, it was intended as a primer to a potential meta - there really were not any definitive tournament results to go by, just some educated guesses and good hunches. With a few weeks of Nationals season behind us, we now know that Mistveil heroes are pretty dominant at the moment. and Zen in particular. With that in mind, you can probably already visualize your local discord and facebook groups scrambling to pick up Ancestral Harmonies and breaking open their still-sealed Round The Table product to pull out the Mauling Qi from the Ira deck. So what do you, as a Teklo player, do when you’re looking up at the wave of Ninja players? It’s simple really: Boost and Pray.

All my naysaying and pessimistic metaphors aside, that truly is your best option. Teklo cannot stay alive long enough to set up Singularity, and a hybrid list could very well not provide you with enough sideboard slots to appropriately handle the matchup. Boosting is your best bet by far, hoping they brick some hands and you are able to get your max value attacks off by equipping your Evo suite. With the help of the new instant-speed Evos, it is very possible that, if you draw lucky, you could be fully equipped by turn two and throwing overpowered disruption Zen’s way on top of the already-solid damage numbers that come with boosting. However, that goes back to you getting lucky, which quite frankly is about the only true chance you have of beating a Zen. While the new Evos being instant speed and offering effects like giving any attack boost or recovering a big attack from the banished zone is nice, you also can only equip them once; after that, you have blue pitch no blocks that could very well completely stop your turn should they clump up together.

Deck builders much better than I may very well be able to navigate the math and probabilities of that happening and tweak their lists to avoid it, but that still does not change the fact that Zen is a very unfavored matchup. Boosting is a viable strategy, and the instant speed Evos are a help for sure, but it still doesn’t negate the fact that the matchup relies too much on luck and Teklo players are too calculating to rely on something as random as luck.

A closing note on the instant Evos: as we saw revealed at US Nats, the next set will feature Wizards and Runeblades as the heroes; and while currently the new Evos are like putting a bandaid on a bullet hole when it comes to Zen specifically, I would be willing to bet next set is when they will really have a chance to shine. With equipped AB4 combined with above-rate damage and boosting, it is entirely possible he can out-damage the new Wizards; and with Runeblades, Teklo could easily use the hybrid plan to get out an instant AB1 for runechants while still becoming the Mechropotent. So while the Mists have not been kind to Teklo, I truly believe the elements will be in his favor in September.