Three rounds into the tournament, the metagame is looking a little more diverse than it did at PC New York. Dan Bridy, the winner of the first round feature match, has kept up his winning streak and is now 3-0 with The New Brotherhood. In another match in the undefeated bracket, an Xavier's Dream deck—with the addition of the uncounterable Chopping Block from Green Lantern—was seen dispatching a Curve Sentinels deck. All in all, the top tables seem significantly more diverse than one might expect.

Green Lantern is making more of an impact than just a few scattered cards seeing play. There are several decks in the tournament that are built entirely upon the Green Lantern team affiliation, splashing older sets only for such staples as Savage Beatdown. Only time will tell whether or not these decks will join the ranks of Teen Titans and the Brotherhood as viable, stand-alone teams.

 

In another surprising development from this tournament, cards from the newly released starter decks are seeing some play. What might be one of the breakout decks of the tournament, or at least one of the most innovative and fun, is a Doom/League of Assassins control deck being played by Anthony Justice and his team. They are sitting near the top of the standings as of the time I am writing this.

 

But the biggest development, and certainly the deck generating the most buzz here, is the new Dr. Light combo deck. This deck uses such cards as the new Dr. Light, Rama-Tut, and Cosmic Radiation to gain infinite endurance on turn 4. One player running the deck lamented his run-in with a deck packing lots of disruption. “He had a fast draw,” remarked the player, “and two Breaking Grounds. So, I didn't manage to win until turn 5.” Players running this deck are also doing very well—none of them have yet lost a game—and regardless of how they end up doing on the weekend, I think people can expect to see this shiny new combo deck at a tournament near them very, very soon.

 

As round 4 begins, there's a lot of enthusiasm about the new format and a lot of chatter about how the new set has impacted Golden Age. Stay tuned to see all the new decks and all the action from this exciting tournament!