Introduction and History

Out of all the teams in the Justice League expansion, Secret Society has gotten the least amount of attention. JLA and JLI got instant recognition when Good Guys showed up, and Injustice Gang at least received a decent amount of hype before any major tournaments took place. But at the recent $10K Hamilton, Michael Brierley managed to take the Society to a Top 4 finish. The prominence of Ivy League and Deep Green overshadowed Society’s accomplishment, and many people failed to notice this rouge deck making a stand. Now that DC Modern Age is the focus of everyone’s attention, Secret Society may finally get some of the notice it deserves.

The Build

Characters

4 Fiddler

4 Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster

4 Poison Ivy, Deadly Rose

3 Kelex, Faithful Servant

1 Deadshot, Floyd Lawton

4 Captain Cold, Leonard Snart

2 Dr. Sivana, Thadeus Bodog Sivana

4 Lex Luthor, Criminal Genius

1 Fatality, Flawless Victory

4 Scarecrow, Fearmonger

3 Gorilla Grodd

2 Mark Desmond ◊ Blockbuster, Mindless Brute

Plot Twists

4 Straight to the Grave

4 Removed from Continuity

4 Magical Lobotomy

Locations

4 Slaughter Swamp

3 Sinister Citadel

2 Gorilla City

1 Satellite HQ

Equipment

2 Quadromobile

This build is based on the $10K Hamilton list, but all of the non-DC Modern Age cards have been replaced by Justice League and Infinite Crisis cards. Secret Society is very similar to X-Mental from Marvel Modern Age; both decks play a very controlled game in a format dominated by off-curve and short-curve decks. Two noticeable differences between the decks are the lack of a defensive pump (which will be addressed later in this article) and no 8-drop. The reason there is no 8-drop in this deck is because the game rarely if ever gets to turn 8 in a format where games are either won by Good Guys on turn 5 or by control decks on turn 6 or 7. Poison Ivy, Deadly Rose and Kelex provide a small location toolbox for you, and Straight to the Grave lets you search out any character card in the entire format. Secret Society also has a sub-theme involving +1 ATK / +1 DEF counter manipulation, which may not seem like much at first, but after playing a few games with the deck, you’ll notice that the counters add up pretty quickly.

The Strategy

It’s unclear which initiative DC Modern Age revolves around (if any, for that matter), but with this deck, you always want odds. It seems as though many people have severely underestimated how ridiculous Gorilla Grodd can be, especially when he’s used in the middle of an attack. For this reason alone, Secret Society wants to be defending on turn 6. You want to mulligan for Poison Ivy, Deadly Rose, but sometimes you can justify keeping a hand that contains Kelex and some other important cards. Basically, your mulligan condition is a 2-drop and access to some locations.

Turn 1 isn’t very important. If you draw into Fiddler or Mr. Mxyzptlk, then you can recruit them, but otherwise you won’t really have a play. Secret Society is one of the few decks where you actually want to recruit Mr. Mxyzptlk, because not only does he have the Secret Society team affiliation, but you also need all the Poison Ivy fuel that you can muster. If you need him to bounce back to your hand, you can just suicide him into one of your opponent’s characters and choose not to recover him.

I wouldn’t say that Secret Society needs its locations to survive, but it does rely pretty heavily on them to function. Optimally, if you hit a 1-drop, then you want to recruit Poison Ivy, Deadly Rose and KO your 1-drop to search out a location on turn 2. Assuming you aren’t in a matchup where you would need to search out Satellite HQ, your first search target should be Slaughter Swamp. Without Swamp, Straight to the Grave doesn’t do much for you, so it’s extremely important that you set it up as soon as you can. If you already have Swamp, then you have a choice between searching for Gorilla City and Sinister Citadel. Generally, it doesn’t matter which one you get, but I default to Gorilla City simply because it’s more likely that you’ll draw naturally into a copy of Citadel. These same rules apply if you have to recruit Kelex on turn 2 instead. Because Ivy can’t KO herself to her own effect, you’re going to need other characters to sacrifice so that you can get your locations into play. KO’ing characters with higher costs isn’t a very good idea, but luckily, Fiddler has an alternate recruit cost that can bring him into play for free. He can be brought back to your hand after he’s been KO’d with Slaughter Swamp, but his effect burns away your hand size. Make sure you don’t use him too many times, but also be sure that you have all the locations you need in your resource row by the end of turn 4.

It’s pretty safe to assume that Ahmed Samsarra will be a pretty popular card at Pro Circuit Indianapolis and that plenty of people will be looking for ways to exploit his weakness and KO him. Fortunately, Secret Society has a pretty convenient way to assassinate Ahmed in the form of Deadshot, Floyd Lawton. Getting ten cards into your KO’d pile by turn 2 is nearly impossible, so it’s better to recruit Deadshot once his effect becomes relevant. Sometimes, you won’t be able to use Deadshot’s effect until as late as turn 5, but as long as you can KO Ahmed, missing a drop will be worth it. However, if your opponent has a face-up Threat Neutralized or had searched for a copy of The Science Spire earlier in the game, then you should abandon your attempts to take down Ahmed. Playing Deadshot on turn 2 isn’t the best play in the world, but if you can keep him around long enough to get ten cards into your KO’d pile, then he nets you a strong board position by KO’ing your opponent’s 3-drop, even if it’s not Ahmed.

Captain Cold is your primary 3-drop because of the counter he comes into play with. The +1 ATK / +1 DEF counter interacts well with cards like Sinister Citadel and Scarecrow, Fearmonger that play off the sub-theme of counters in this deck. If you’re in a situation where you feel it’s either unsafe to attack or you don’t have enough firepower to ensure a successful attack, then you can remove Captain Cold’s counter to prevent your opponent from attacking back at you with his or her biggest character. But once Captain Cold’s counter is gone, there’s very little reason to keep him on the board, because not only does he become a mediocre 4 ATK / 4 DEF, but also his effect is no longer relevant to the game. At that point, you should usually KO him with Citadel to make one of your other characters bigger. Dr. Sivana is an acceptable backup 3-drop, but his ability will rarely be game-breaking, and aside from being a leader, he doesn’t have much else going for him. If you missed Ivy on turn 2, you can always recruit her and a 1-drop on turn 3 instead and grab a location.

On turn 4, you want to try to brickwall one of your opponent’s attacks using Lex Luthor, Criminal Genius. At this point in the game, you should still have your 2-drop and 3-drop in play, so you can exhaust both of them to make Lex a 9 ATK / 9 DEF. Other things you can do to make Lex bigger are using Sinister Citadel to transfer Captain Cold’s counter, using Citadel to KO Poison Ivy after she becomes stunned, and using Slaughter Swamp for multiple power-ups. Don’t think that you absolutely must brickwall your opponent on turn 4, because stopping the attack itself isn’t your primary goal. Even if you can’t manage to brickwall an attack, the least you should be aiming for is forcing your opponent to waste some pumps. Most of the resources you use to make Lex bigger are reusable throughout the game, while the pumps your opponent uses to stun him will probably be plot twists that can only be used once.

Straight to the Grave is arguably the second-best character search card in the game (behind Enemy of My Enemy) because it can get any character regardless of affiliation. Straight to the Grave opens up a whole new level of versatility in Secret Society, effectively allowing you to run single copies of matchup-specific cards like Enemy of My Enemy did in Silver Age. Fatality, Flawless Victory is one of those matchup-specific cards. If you were unable to draw Deadshot, Fatality is another option for getting a cheap win by KO’ing Ahmed Samsarra. However, to make Fatality’s ability truly effective, you need to have searched out your single copy of Satellite HQ with Poison Ivy so you can get to your opponent’s hidden area. Fatality is also a decent 4-drop in non-Checkmate matchups, just because there are plenty of pesky low-cost characters in this format that she can get rid of.

Your plan for turn 5 is to recruit Scarecrow, Fearmonger, stun your opponent’s biggest character, and use Removed from Continuity to remove it from the game. Remember that just because your opponent doesn’t have any counters on his or her characters doesn’t mean that you can’t use Scarecrow’s effect; you can still transfer counters that are on your own characters. It doesn’t really matter what you do with the rest of the turn as long as you can remove your opponent’s 5-drop from play. What I like to do to ensure that I can successfully stun my opponent’s 5-drop is team attack with all my characters except one, and then exhaust that character for Removed from Continuity.

Turn 6 is where you seal the deal against most rush or short-curve decks. Your opponent should be left with his or her 4-drop and 6-drop, and possibly the 3-drop if you couldn’t get many stuns in last turn, after the 5-drop is off the board. Once you drop Gorilla Grodd and steal your opponent’s 4-drop, you should be able to tackle the 6-drop without too much work. Most decks don’t expect a turn 6 Gorilla Grodd (assuming that they can end the game on turn 5), so once you drop the big ape, you can generally expect your opponent to either scoop quickly or struggle against overwhelming odds. The problem is actually getting to turn 6 in one piece, though, because there will be some games where opposing decks will get extremely explosive draws and be able to finish you off before higher-cost characters begin hitting the table. However, even if you have to limp to the finish line, Grodd stealing your opponent’s 4-drop will usually be enough to win you the game. If, for some reason, the game goes past turn 6, you have Mark Desmond ◊ Blockbuster, Mindless Brute to clean up.

The non-character cards included in this deck are pretty self-explanatory, so instead of going over them in detail, I’m going to talk about the cards that didn’t make the cut. The first absent card you might notice is The Plunder Plan. In a vacuum, The Plunder Plan isn’t a bad card; it’s pretty easy to get three characters in your KO’d pile, and +3 DEF can often brickwall an attack by itself, but the card doesn’t do what you want it to when you want it to. There’s also a tension in how many copies of it you want to play versus how many copies of it you’ll successfully be able to resolve throughout the course of the game. Like I said, it’s easy to get three characters into your KO’d pile, but managing six is much more difficult. You want to run four copies of The Plunder Plan because you want to draw into it every game, but you don’t want to be stuck with multiple copies of it because you won’t have the characters in your KO’d pile to get the most out of the effect. Also, if you draw a copy of The Plunder Plan before turn 4 or 5, it just sits in your hand or resource row, staring at you until you get a chance to use it. I’d much rather be playing cards that are useful throughout the entire course of the game, not ones that are only useful on specific turns and don’t win you the game by themselves.

Another card that didn’t make the deck was Sorcerer’s Treasure. Normally, Sorcerer’s Treasure simply acts as your fifth through eighth copy of every plot twist you play, but in this deck, your plot twists aren’t necessary in multiples. You only need one copy of Removed from Continuity on turn 5, and Magical Lobotomy should always be played from your resource row, which prevents Sorcerer’s Treasure from “replaying” it. You could make a case for using Sorcerer’s Treasure on Straight to the Grave, but I think this deck curves out well enough and doesn’t need four extra character searches. Also, there’s a limited amount of space in this deck, so four extra character searchers aren’t important enough to warrant inclusion over the locations or other plot twists.

Matchups

Good Guys:

This matchup really depends on how both players draw. If the Good Guys player misses Shayera Thal ◊ Hawkwoman, you can generally stay alive until turn 6 when you can use Grodd to steal Katar Hol ◊ Hawkman, Thanagarian Enforcer. However, if you miss any drops and the opponent curves out, there’s a very slim chance that you’ll be able to stabilize and take control of the game. The longer you stall the game out, the better your chances of winning are, so try to utilize Sinister Citadel and Captain Cold to exhaust your opponent’s characters on your initiative. As always, Magical Lobotomy makes Good Guys’ power-up shenanigans a little less intimidating, so make sure you’re setting it in your resource row and reusing it as much as your endurance total will allow. Things to watch out for are Fire’s effect killing you on turn 5 and Monitor Womb Station cutting off your access to Magical Lobotomy.

Checkmate / Villains United:

If you are given a draw with which it’s possible to get Fatality, Flawless Victory on turn 4 and Satellite HQ, you should try going after Ahmed Samsarra. Don’t go too far out of your way, though, because if your opponent has something to stop Ahmed from hitting the KO’d pile, then your efforts will be wasted. As usual, you have to watch out for being brickwalled in this matchup, so make sure you slightly over-commit on your attacks. There isn’t very much pressure for you to stabilize because you’re playing against another curve deck, so you can play at a pretty relaxed pace and trade blows with your opponent. Stick with the default game plan of using Removed from Continuity on the opposing 5-drop and using Grodd to steal the opposing 4-drop. Generally, games against Checkmate / Villains United don’t go past turn 7, but if you think that you’ll need an 8-drop, you can switch out a copy of Mark Desmond ◊ Blockbuster, Mindless Brute for a Psycho Pirate.

Fate Artifacts:

If you can stun whoever is equipped with the Fate Artifacts and remove that character from the field with Removed from Continuity, then you’ll win the game. It’s really hard for the Fate Artifacts player to rebuild if he or she loses all the hardware, and most of the time, it won’t be too hard to stun his or her character if you team attack it. The game plan changes a bit against this deck, because instead of waiting until turn 5 to bust out Removed from Continuity, you want to do it as soon as possible, which is generally on turn 4. After that, this matchup is extremely simple, because all of your opponent’s characters are average size with no special effects. Just attack across the curve when possible; use Sinister Citadel to turn your useless characters into +1 ATK / +1 DEF counters; and if your opponent is running Ahmed, try to KO him with Fatality, Flawless Victory on turn 4.

Conclusions

Although Secret Society never saw much success in Golden Age or Silver Age, it has a much better chance of doing well in DC Modern Age. As one of the few control decks in the format, Society has a decent chance of handling popular short-curve decks like Good Guys. Straight to the Grave is the strongest character searcher in this format, and even though it isn’t team stamped to Secret Society, they can utilize it best by combining it with Slaughter Swamp. Basically, Society has complete and easy access to every tech character card in DC Modern Age through Straight the Grave and a decent sized location toolbox thanks to Poison Ivy, Deadly Rose. Even though most of you are focusing on beating Good Guys and Fate Artifacts for Pro Circuit Indianapolis, don’t forget about control decks! In a sea of rush and short curve, a properly tuned control deck could take the tournament by storm; we’ll just have to wait and see whether Society is capable of this.

Questions, comments, suggestions, complaints, and any secret tech for Indy can be sent to gvl@nc.rr.com.