Renovating the Table

Round the Table hit shelves last weekend and has been a smash hit with gamers all over the world! Cobbling together mech suits, entertaining the crowd, protecting those in need, and kicking butt crouching tiger style is a lot of fun, but the question remains...

What's next?

What should you do with your Round the Table decks once you and your mates have had a crack at playing all of them in boisterous bouts of Ultimate Pit Fight? Each of the Round the Table heroes can be played in Blitz, but their mechanics are designed with multiplayer in mind. Let's dive into some cheap and easy upgrades you can make to these decks so you can start using them for other events, like Armory and Skirmish!

These upgrades are extremely easy to find, most of which have been printed in multiple sets, and are very affordable at common or rare. Many of them are staples that still see play in several different decks to this day, even in high level competitive events!

Let's get cranking...

Ira, Crimson Haze

Ira is an aggressive deck that can build wide combat chains but also pivot to a more defensive strategy, blocking heavily while chipping in with her weapons and cheap attacks. Many useful cards for Ira can be found in both the Ira Welcome Deck (free from your local game store), and History Pack 1.

Whirling Mist Blossom is a great aggressive tool, specially designed to work well with Ira's hero ability, forcing the opponent to block or allow you to draw more cards. Scar for a Scar is another great attack that you can play for free, and enables strong comebacks when you're behind on life. Torrent of Tempo is great value for Ninjas, defending for 3 while only costing 1, and threatening more attacks if it hits.

Outsiders introduced a wide range of new tools for the Ninja class, from new combo cards to several cheap attacks with go again. A pair of Harmonized Kodachis are a huge boost for Ira, as they allow her to really leverage her hero ability turn after turn. Twin Twisters is very flexible when combined with Ira's ability and weapons, and can be used for both aggressive turns as well as low-cost value turns. Spinning Wheel Kick offers the same strengths, but with added benefits like putting itself back into deck, as well as being a combo card for defensive Ira decks that run several copies of Flic Flak. Speaking of Flic Flaks, put them in your deck!

Brevant, Civic Protector

Brevant plays like any good Guardian deck should, defending heavily and setting up big turns with giant hits. Unfortunately we can't rely on the benefits of chivalry in a two-player game, but the deck comes with an incredibly powerful suite of chunky armour on par defensively with other Majestic and even Legendary equipment often seen in the Guardian wardrobe. Good pickups for Brevant come in a variety of sets released between 2021 to 2022 such as Monarch, Tales of Aria, and Everfest, as well as the trusty History Pack 1.

Blue attack actions with 6 or more power are key to a strong Guardian deck, converting into resources to keep up with heavy costs, while still presenting a considerable amount of damage in the late game. When both players have burnt through most of their red and yellow cards, having copies of Debilitate, Thunder Quake, and Macho Grande still in your deck makes you a formidable threat.

Brevant ushers in the new tower mechanic, which rewards reaching the critical breakpoint of 13 power. The Brevant deck comes with power-increasing auras like Crash Down and Earthlore Empowerment, so cards like Thump allow you to gain greater payloads from setting these up. Pummel is a classic staple that not only supports this big bonk strategy, but has a nasty on-hit effect too! It also works with Brevant's hammer, and can be slotted into a variety of other decks as a cheeky surprise for your opponent. Zealous Belting is another popular aggressive choice, pairing well with the blue and yellow 6+ power cards in your deck, perfect for laying the smackdown on pesky arcane tricksters!

Melody, Sing-along

Melody has a unique playstyle that focuses on supporting other players, while building towards a massive endgame. Because a lot of her cards help the opponent, and we're not raking in as much copper as we do in Ultimate Pit Fight, Melody will likely face an uphill battle in two-player Blitz games. However, there are many ways to make the deck more consistent and flexible for Ultimate Pit Fight, and who knows, maybe you'll even be the first person to make One-Turn-Kill Melody work in Blitz!

Round the Table is the first product to feature Bard class cards (aside from promotional cards like Yorick, Hummingbird, and Tales of Adventure), which admittedly leaves a bare bones pool to work with. But there are several generics you can build into Melody's deck to make it easier to pull off that Final Act. Most of the cards can be found in ol' reliable History Pack 1, with a few others from Everfest and Uprising.

Sink Below, Fate Foreseen, and Oasis Respite are awesome defensive tools that help filter through your deck, digging for the cards you need while tucking away important cards for later, and keeping you alive long enough to set the stage. Staples like these are extremely useful in almost any hero, which makes them great pickups for the long term.

Another approach to Melody in both Ultimate Pit Fight and Blitz is making bank a little quicker. She needs several components to put on the perfect show: Final Act, Encore, and a sizeable copper trust fund. Cards that draw and opt let you find those pieces to stash away in your arsenal, or let you stack a large number of blues together so when it's time to pop off, you can be confident that the performance will play out exactly as rehearsed. High Striker is another way to get more value out of generic attacks, and is much more rewarding than busking in a two-player game.

Professor Teklovossen

While the Professor's hero ability is less impactful in two-player games than it is in Ultimate Pit Fight, it's still very useful - we just need to find other ways to use it to our advantage. One way is by replacing the Teklo Blaster with Teklo Leveler, and incorporating different sets of Evo armour to support it. The gameplan is still the same: build a mech suit, then stomp the competition!

Luckily, everything we need to streamline the Professor deck can be found in Bright Lights. An easy place to start is with the Cogwerx Base equipment, which serves the same purpose as the Proto Base equipment while also having nifty steam counter effects attached!

Switching to Teklo Leveler gives you more bang for your buck alongside a new suite of Evo equipment. Feel free to mix and match any of the common and rare Evos in Bright Lights for a variety of different effects, and remember that the Professor's hero ability will make them cost 1 less in a two-player game. Some sweet starter pieces are Charging Rods and Command Center, which offer advantage while still blocking and pitching.

The Professor deck is well equipped with a variety of boost cards, but Bright Lights introduces a vast roster to add to this line-up. Look for cheaper costed boost cards with good effects, such as Data Link and Sprocket Rocket, which will help streamline your deck's efficiency. Cards like Scrap Compactor are also super useful, since you can block with an Evo from hand, scrap it from your graveyard, then play it from your banished zone!