Twenty-year-old Henry Su hails from Georgia, and was one of several duelists here in Day 2 playing highly innovative versions of TeleDAD. Su’s deck packs Synchro Dude tech like three copies of Diamond Dude, two Mind Control cards, and two Lightning Vortex cards, and plays totally original cards as well like Magical Mallet and Threatening Roar. It’s well-constructed for the mirror and has a great long game, but Su was up against veteran Andrew Fredella. Could tech win out over experience?
Su opened with two Lightning Vortex cards, two copies of Destiny Hero - Diamond Dude, Mind Control, and Emergency Teleport. He summoned Diamond Dude, activated its effect, and hit Allure of Darkness! Play was to Fredella.
He summoned Elemental Hero Stratos, searched out Destiny Hero - Malicious with its effect, and discarded it for Destiny Draw. Fredella sent Stratos to smash through Diamond Dude, set a spell or trap, and ended. Su drew into a Destiny Draw of his own on the turn that followed.
He briefly weighed the situation: with only one Dark monster in hand and that Allure only available this turn, his plays weren’t completely straightforward. He activated Emergency Teleport, searched out Krebons, and special summoned it. He activated Allure’s effect, removed Diamond Dude, and didn’t have another monster for his Destiny Draw.
“I’ll use Magical Mallet.”
“Alright.” Su activated it, shuffling back two copies of Vortex and another card that couldn’t be verified. He wound up with Mind Control, Threatening Roar, a copy of Vortex he’d shuffled back, Destiny Draw, and Giant Trunade. He activated Mind Control, Fredella reluctantly passed over Stratos, and Su Synchro summoned Goyo Guardian! Goyo made a direct attack for 2800 damage and Su ended, not setting the Threatening Roar.
Fredella summoned Snipe Hunter and discarded Breaker the Magical Warrior with priority to try and destroy Goyo Guardian: the die roll missed, and Fredella discarded Destiny Draw for another shot. The second attempt missed as well! Fredella had just three cards left in hand, with one card set in his back row and Snipe on the field. He shuffled his hand for more than thirty seconds, thinking. Su had four cards in hand plus Goyo Guardian on the field, so both duelists were even in total card presence with five cards apiece. But Su would draw next turn, and Goyo might take Snipe Hunter. Fredella ended his turn, either playing it risky or banking on his set card.
Su drew, and when Goyo attacked Fredella flipped Phoenix Wing Wind Blast! He discarded Brain Control for Wind Blast’s cost and blew away Goyo Guardian. Su set Threatening Roar and ended.
“Remove,” announced Fredella next turn. He removed Malicious from his graveyard to summon another from his deck in defense mode. “Reborn your Krebons.” Su passed his Krebons over, and Fredella Synchro summoned Stardust Dragon! When he tried to attack for 4000 damage Su flipped Threatening Roar, leaving Fredella to set a spell or trap and end.
Su drew Malicious! He discarded it for Destiny Draw and drew two, leaving him with two Lightning Vortex cards, Allure of Darkness, Giant Trunade, and another Destiny Draw. He removed Malicious to summon another from his deck in defense, then ended. He really wanted to see another monster before activating that Allure.
Snipe Hunter took out the Malicious and Stardust made a direct attack: another set spell or trap ended Fredella’s turn. Next turn, Su drew Prometheus, King of the Shadows!
He activated Giant Trunade, and Fredella activated Solemn Judgment to negate it. That left him with one face-down card and 2600 life points: Su still had 5100 life points. Su activated Allure next, removing his Prometheus after drawing Reinforcement of the Army and Monster Reborn. He activated Reinforcement, and Fredella spent some time checking graveyards before letting the card resolve.
It got him Elemental Hero Stratos. He summoned it and Fredella had no response: Su fetched Destiny Hero - Doom Lord from his deck. He removed his second Malicious, special summoned his third in attack, then pitched Doom Lord for Destiny Draw. Fredella again spent some time considering a response. He activated Solemn Judgment!
“That’s game then,” remarked Su. He activated Lightning Vortex—discarding his other copy—and Fredella tributed Stardust Dragon. That left him with nothing but Snipe Hunter on field, and Su activated his last card: Monster Reborn! Fredella had just 1300 life points remaining, and with Stratos attacking over Snipe Hunter for 300 damage and Malicious attacking for another 800, any monster in Su’s graveyard could deal the final 200 damage and end the duel.
Henry Su is one game away from scoring a big upset in this match! Could he really beat the veteran Shonen Jump Champion with his teched out version of TeleDAD? We were about to find out: both competitors dove for their side decks.
Fredella opened Game 2 with Reinforcement of the Army, grabbing Stratos and using it to dig out Malicious. He discarded Malicious for the classic opening of Destiny Draw, then set one card to his back row.
Su was up. He activated Destiny Draw—discarding Destiny Hero - Diamond Dude—then activated another Destiny Draw to discard Malicious. He removed the Malicious to special summon another from his deck in defense mode, and was holding two copies of Allure! He activated the first copy and looked at his hand: Malicious, Allure, Diamond Dude, Stratos, Krebons, Lightning Vortex, and Heavy Storm: he removed Diamond Dude for Allure’s effect. He normal summoned Stratos, searched his deck for Destiny Hero - Doom Lord, then pitched his third Malicious for the second Allure. That left him with Trunade, Heavy Storm, Vortex, Doom Lord, Krebons, and Teleport. He activated Giant Trunade.
“Is that game?” asked Fredella.
“No, I drew a lot of nothing. Kind of sucks!”
He activated Emergency Teleport, searched his deck for Krebons, and plopped it to the table. He Synchro summoned with Stratos for Goyo Guardian, attacked Fredella’s Stratos to take it, then used that Stratos’s effect to search out another Diamond Dude. He ended his turn holding Heavy Storm, Doom Lord, Diamond Dude, Krebons, and Vortex. “Go ahead.”
Fredella removed his Malicious to summon another, then activated Emergency Teleport. He tributed Malicious for Caius the Shadow Monarch, removing Su’s Malicious from play and dealing 1000 damage. He removed the second Malicious to special summon his third, then discarded Destiny Hero - Defender with Destiny Draw. He Synchro summoned with Krebons and the last Malicious, brought out Colossal Fighter with 3200 ATK, and activated another Teleport!
That let him tune another Krebons to Caius, Synchro summoning Stardust Dragon. Colossal Fighter took down Goyo Guardian, and Stardust destroyed the borrowed Stratos. Two set cards to the back row ended Fredella’s turn, and as Su drew for the turn that followed Fredella had two Synchros, two spell or trap cards, and two cards left in hand. This match looked like it was headed to Game 3.
Su had Crush Card Virus, Lightning Vortex, Diamond Dude, Doom Lord, Krebons, and Heavy Storm. The Stardust was threatening three of his cards: Vortex, Storm, and Virus, so it all came down to the order in which he played his cards. He discarded Krebons for Vortex, and Fredella tributed Stardust to negate it. That left him free to activate Heavy Storm, destroying Fredella’s Torrential Tribute and Skill Drain. The problem now was that Su could activate Crush Card Virus, but it wouldn’t hit Stardust Dragon.
He summoned Doom Lord and used its effect to remove Colossal Fighter from the field. He set Crush Card Virus and ended, allowing Fredella to bring back his Stardust Dragon. I’m not sure if Su could have done any better in that situation, but it sure didn’t work out very well.
Fredella drew to three cards in hand, and after briefly considering what Su could have set (even his side deck had nothing helpful for this situation), he sent Stardust to run over Doom Lord. Doom Lord went down, Fredella set a spell or trap card, and Su was up.
He topdecked Fusilier Dragon, the Dual-Mode Beast, and normal summoned Diamond Dude. He activated its effect with priority, but lost it to Phoenix Wing Wind Blast: Fredella discarded Zombyra the Dark. Diamond Dude was sent back to the deck, then sent to the bottom of it by its own effect (a rulings reversal from yesterday’s feature match, which ironically also featured Fredella). Next turn Fredella summoned Sangan, attacked for a combined total of 3500 damage, and ended. Su drew and Fredella got his Colossal Fighter back. Su was scooping up moments later.
Andrew Fredella goes off perfectly and picks just the right Synchros to destroy Henry Su! This match is going to Game 3. Siding was lengthy on both sides of the table.
Su opened with Reinforcement of the Army, searching out Stratos, then Malicious. He had Malicious, Mind Control, Allure, Heavy Storm, Sangan, and Brain Control. He activated Allure, drew Krebons and another Malicious, and removed the extraneous Malicious. That ended Su’s first turn.
Fredella summoned Stratos, searched for Malicious, and activated Emergency Teleport to special summon Krebons. He followed it up with Allure of Darkness, removed another Krebons, then discarded Malicious for Destiny Draw! This was looking like a huge turn in the making.
“Remove.” Fredella kicked Malicious to his graveyard to special summon another in defense mode, then Synchro summoned Colossal Fighter at 2900 ATK. Another Teleport got him another Krebons, and he Synchro summoned Goyo Guardian! He special summoned Dark Armed Dragon, destroyed Stratos with Dark Armed’s effect, then special summoned Stratos with Monster Reborn! That was a combined ATK of over 10,000—way more than Fredella needed to win the match. Fredella didn’t even realize the level of overkill he was dishing out.
Andrew Fredella defeats innovator Henry Su in high style, blowing him out of the water with a massive series of plays in Game 3! Fredella moves on to the Top 8.