Jerry Wang eventually came away with his third victory. He was also one of the players piloting their own variant on Kim's newest creation. It gets better; his opponent, Ryan Spicer, was using yet another new TeleDAD variant. Spicer and the brother's Bowling also made Day 2 with their own unique version. Take a look:

If you're looking at the list for the first time you might be thinking, "Gee, that has a lot of cards I want to play. How is it only 41 cards?" He doesn't play Emergency Teleport. "Wait, what?" That's right, Teleports have been cut entirely. "I didn't think you could do that." Turns out you can. Emergency Teleport is extremely good. With Destiny Hero - Malicious in the graveyard and at least one left in the deck, Teleport is like a card for card trade for any level 8 Synchro, and it doesn’t require your normal summon for the turn. It's always been the card you want to draw at least one and hopefully two of.

It's also the card that can cost you games in a long tournament. Every now and then you draw a hand that simply can't get Malicious into the graveyard. When that happens it just doesn't matter how many Krebons you can put on the field in one turn. There's pretty much nothing you can do except hope your opponent also has nothing. TeleDAD has always had this weakness; it's the risk of playing such a potentially explosive deck.

Now with Plaguespreader Zombie and Gorz the Emissary of Darkness in the card pool it's a whole new ball game. These two monsters changed the way TeleDAD would be played forever. Both monsters offer endless new ways to approach the game, and this no-Teleport build is a perfect example of that. Previously you needed Teleports to Synchro summon without losing card presence. With Plaguespreader Zombie available you can compensate for the loss of Dark Grepher when it gets destroyed in battle. By discarding either Plaguespreader or Destiny Hero - Malicious you can send the other monster of the two to the graveyard as well. Both are live cards there, essentially turning your two dead cards in hand into two live cards in the graveyard.

Players who have tested their TeleDAD builds with Plaguespreader Zombie a lot find that when they draw it they would rather be without Emergency Teleport at all. Plaguespreader can use up both free copies of Malicious, and can do it even if you've drawn your first copy of the Destiny Hero. It's easier, it's more consistent, and it's not going to land you with those unwinnable hands. I'm surprised this didn't win the whole tournament.

With no Teleports there were a lot of possible changes to be made. Obviously Krebons didn't have to be maxed anymore so Spicer dropped it to one copy. Plaguespreader Zombie is extremely easy to search out with Sangan and Mystic Tomato, so Krebons is more of a tech card than anything. In place of these cards Spicer has fit everyone's favorite monsters. It's a shame how many good monsters get cut from the standard TeleDAD build, but Spicer's got them all here.

Breaker the Magical Warrior, Caius the Shadow Monarch, Destiny Hero - Plasma, Necro Gardna, and Mystic Tomato are the monster cards not everyone can fit into Teleport versions of TeleDAD. These cards often get cut and for good reason; they don't create much of a problem on their own and don't really change the game at all. However, when you start stacking the effects of these cards together you paint a scary picture for your opponent. Use Breaker to destroy something for free, protect him with Phoenix Wing Wind Blast and Necro Gardna, then follow up with Caius the Shadow Monarch to destroy something else and drop the opponent below 4000 life points.

Spicer can also afford to play D.D. Crow. Crow is a card that TeleDAD usually can't run because if it's dead you'll probably lose. The TeleDAD engine is so fragile, and if your opponent does something as simple as Wind Blasting your Malicious, you'll be stuck with a dead Teleport and a dead Crow in hand while you're drawing another useless card. Not good. But in this deck it's a lot harder to make any card into a useless non-option. With no Teleports that kind of hand won't happen.

Taking out the Teleports is even going to help keep cards like Dark Armed Dragon live for longer periods of time. Right now it's easy to get your graveyard overloaded with Dark monsters thanks to Krebons and multiple copies of Emergency Teleport. But if you want Synchro monsters that's what you've got to do. Now with Plaguespreader you don't have that problem, since Plaguespreader Zombie removes itself from play.

Spicer can also afford to tech a copy of the increasingly-popular Royal Oppression. Oppression is downright nasty when combined with a sub par hand from the opponent, and if you're able to draw multiple protection cards to go along with it you should be able to prevent the opponent from doing anything to win. With all the draw power available, Spicer plays Oppression as a tech card as well, one that he can randomly draw and put to maximum use.

In my opinion, this TeleDAD deck should have won Houston. It is better in every way than the build that everyone else was using. Whether or not it's the next generation of TeleDAD decks remains to be seen.

-Matt Peddle