Tech. For TCG purposes, it means "an unexpected card designed to combat expected ones." Asura Priest, D.D. Crow, and Mobius the Frost Monarch are three good examples of tech cards. They aren't normally useful enough to be main decked, but if they happen to be good against what most people are playing they may be worth a spot in your line-up. Tech cards are best played when they suit your play style. For an example an aggressive player teching D.D. Crow is going to find it much more effective than a passive one.

Jae's been to The Champions on several occasions. Each time it's because he's accurately predicted the metagame and prepared to beat it. Many times he's taken rogue strategies and applied appropriate tech to beat the expected field. This time he's taken the best deck there is and suped it up. It's amazing how little can do so much, but with only a few changes Jae has created a completely different deck. Let's take a look:

Monsters: 18

2 Dark Armed Dragon
1 Breaker the Magical Warrior
1 Sangan
3 Krebons
1 Plaguespreader Zombie
3 Destiny Hero – Malicious
2 Destiny Hero – Diamond Dude
1 Dark Grepher
1 Necro Gardna
1 Elemental Hero Stratos
1 Spirit Reaper
1 Caius the Shadow Monarch

The changes Jae has made to the standard TeleDAD build are quite minimal. He's taken out both copies of Phoenix Wing Wind Blast for Royal Oppression, dropped Mirror Force for Divine Wrath, dropped a copy of Emergency Teleport, and doesn't play Snipe Hunter, Mystic Tomato, or Destiny Hero - Doom Lord. Instead he plays Caius the Shadow Monarch, a second Destiny Hero - Diamond Dude, and Spirit Reaper.

I absolutely love these changes. Royal Oppression in TeleDAD is something many players have tried but haven't really succeeded with. The idea is similar to that of Robert Ackerman's use of Oppression in Gladiator Beasts. Usually making all your special summons first is a good way to lose. You set all your stuff up nice and neat for your opponent to make his or her own special summons and knock yours down. So how do you win the game? Prevent the opponent from knocking your stuff down. How do you do that? Stop him or her from special summoning.

So you bust out a huge Synchro and throw up Royal Oppression and your opponent can't ever summon anything bigger than your Synchro because doing so requires a special summon. Also the Synchro monsters happen to have super cool effects that help you dominate the field with Oppression. Thought Ruler and Oppression can shut down a lot of cards in the opponent's deck, so combined together it's not unlikely that your opponent will be completely unable to deal with it.

Stardust Dragon offers a one-shot potential protection of your setup as well. You can protect the Oppression from destruction but you'll be losing Stardust to your own Oppression the next turn. However, keeping that Oppression alive is a good way to win, and there actually aren't that many forms of destruction out there threatening it. Perhaps the best Synchro to be protected by Oppression is Colossal Fighter. Able to dodge Oppression because of the damage step, Colossal Fighter offers an infinite battle wall and can beat up anything your opponent plays. Red Dragon Archfiend is another card Jae could drop that covers cards Oppression doesn't.

Divine Wrath is a great card for this deck. It can protect Synchro monsters from all the standard threats. Dark Armed Dragon, Snipe Hunter, Destiny Hero - Doom Lord, and Caius the Shadow Monarch are all one-card answers to your Synchro monsters and Divine Wrath shuts them all down. The three big monsters in that list can all take care of multiple threats in one turn as well, so Divine Wrath can protect multiple things at once. At the same time Divine Wrath can save Oppression from another list of threats. Breaker the Magical Warrior, Elemental Hero Stratos, as well as the Snipe and Caius each threaten to turn special summons back on. Divine Wrath is an ultimate answer card.

Emergency Teleport is a card most players keep at three. If they drop it, they take Krebons down to two as well and eliminate the potential to Synchro summon with 2 Krebons in one turn. I like what Jae's done here by keeping the third copy of Krebons in the deck; it's a strong card when Oppression is out. Krebons is just an all around good monster, so it's nice to be able to normal summon one. That's why Jae's playing three copies. The missing Teleport is because of Oppression, but I believe Jae will run into fewer dead hands with only two copies of Teleport anyway. He probably never missed it.

Jae's monster line-up is only missing two really good monsters. Mystic Tomato and Snipe Hunter were taken out in favor of Caius the Shadow Monarch and Spirit Reaper. In this deck those two make more sense because they're better with Oppression. Tomato and Snipe both work with it of course, but they're small and get dominated in battle. Attacking directly with both isn't really punishing either, so they don't put any pressure on your opponent. Reaper puts battle pressure on the opponent for obvious reasons, and 2400 ATK should make you worry.

The final thing I like about Jae's deck is the use of two Diamond Dudes. All of the normal spell cards in this deck are power cards, adding speed and consistency. Diamond Dude can at times produce them for free or can at least get you to them faster. With a Malicious stuck in your hand, using Diamond Dude will help you get it free much quicker. Anything you hit can help get the Malicious out. Reinforcement of the Army gets Dark Grepher, Brain Control provides a tribute, and the draw cards help you search out other methods of ditching it. If you hit nothing then you send something that probably wouldn't have helped get the Malicious out of your hand to the bottom of your deck, keeping yourself from drawing it. It's a very subtle advantage but it's one that can make a difference in a close game or if both players have drawn poorly.

Jae's build is very good. Not only has he put in some incredibly strong tech, but he's built his deck properly so that the tech cards can be used to their fullest and won't backfire on him. A 9-1 performance at Shonen Jump Championship San Francisco is proof enough of that.

-Matt Peddle