There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home . . .

                                      ~Loo, Fistful of Yen*

I live in Indianapolis, Indiana. Anyone who knows anything about Indiana knows that it is a glorious state known primarily for three things—its tradition for basketball greatness, its overabundance of delicious corn, and the annual event that draws hundreds of unwashed tourists to our beloved capitol.

The Indianapolis 500? Never heard of it.

No sir, the event to which I’m referring is PC Indianapolis. Held in the gamer paradise that is Gen Con, PC Indy is a good time wrapped in a good time for three times the good time flavor.

Good times.

The best part is that we’re actually pretty decent at this game. I mean, if you guys look at all those Other Games™, Indianapolis isn’t too well represented. Vs. System, on the other hand, is another story. This is our game. We’ve got Dair Grant, one of the top ranked Sealed Pack players in the world. Team Misunderstood, a force to be reckoned with on the Vs. System professional scene, calls Indianapolis home. We even have the walking caricatures that are Nick “Know a” Little and Gabriel “Hee-Haw” Walls. That’s a fine collection of players by anyone’s standards. Not to mention that we have an extended family that includes any players who spend more than one night on Gabe’s floor anytime one week prior to a PC event. I’m expecting at least 37 artificial cousins for this PC**.

For anyone who didn’t get the memo, the format for PC Naptown is DC Modern Age. That means you have to build the best decks you can, using only Superman, Man of Steel and the recently released Green Lantern Corps. Constructed formats with a limited card pool, such as this one, really test a deckbuilder’s ingenuity. Personally, I love Modern Age formats. I get so tired of seeing the same matchups day in and day out. If I won the “Head Judge for a Day” contest***, I would make it legal for a player to jump across the table and savagely beat any opponent who made a first turn play involving Boliver Trask. That might stem the purple tide, at least for one PC****.

Luckily for all of us, Indianapolis has a citywide restraining order out on all cards with the Sentinel affiliation. Yay! A clean slate! With no established metagame, this PC will give a distinct edge to those players who take the time to thoroughly test the format.

This game is much easier if you know the good decks going into a big event such as this. For those of you who shun this blasphemous concept known as work, I might be persuaded to help you. It’s gonna cost you some spicy garlic boneless wings from the Buffalo Wild Wings down the street from the convention center, though.

For now, I’ll whet your appetites with a brief overview of the decks I’ll be looking at later. I’m going to start with what Green Lantern Corps brings to the party. I love the names of the characters in the DC universe, and some of the best are here in Green Lantern. The corps (Hooah!) brings four new teams to the mix. And where would a set named Green Lantern Corps be without its namesake, Manhunter.

Gotcha.

Manhunter is the army deck of choice in this format, and they most definitely are being all that they can be. They take full advantage of their army recruiters, such as Manhunter Excavator and Manhunter Guardsman, to power out a huge army of . . . well, army guys. Add in a few Sleeper Agents and a Rocket Red, and the board soon looks like an overturned bucket of those little plastic army dudes.

Another really explosive team is the Emerald Enemies. This team is reliant on their control over their resource row. Cards like Myrwhydden and Goldface, the bling daddy of all villains, allow you to sacrifice your resources to gain tremendous combat bonuses. This also allows them to control the size of their other dudes, such as (did I mention how much I love the names in this set?) Tattooed Man and Major Force. Together with a couple of insane locations in Prison Planet and Empire of Tears, Emerald Enemies packs more punch than a pre–facial tattoo, pre–child eating, pre–ear as an appetizer Mike Tyson.

The common theme amongst Anti-Matter characters is their control over the hidden zone. This was a successful strategy in the Marvel Modern Age format, and I don’t see why it can’t be viable here in DC. Dead-Eye, Fiero, and Element Man all pack a powerful punch from the hidden zone. The only real downside I can see is the lack of supporting hidden zone–specific plot twists in Superman, Man of Steel.

I suppose that I should start talking about the Green Lantern affiliation. UDE did go to the trouble of naming the entire set after them, after all. The Green Lantern Corps offers the most possibilities of any team in the set. You have the amazing smaller guys who reward you for playing off the curve, such as Arisia and G’Nort. You also have some of the best late game cards in the set in Hal Jordan ◊ Reborn and Kyle Rayner ◊ Ion. I fully expect both the big Lanterns and the little Lanterns to serve up the beats at the upcoming PC.