This is the article the "pros" wanted banned. Over the next few paragraphs, I will expose and analyze all the secrets of DC Modern Age—just in time for Pro Circuit Indianapolis.

Okay, maybe the above statement is not entirely true. What I am going to do over the next few weeks is to take a look at the teams that will be available for selection at Indy. As with most endeavors I undertake, this miniseries will probably not break the format—but I hope it will give some of you rogue deckbuilders a little bit of food for thought.

This week, I'm going to kick things off with the Secret Society. (You see what I did there? I said I was going to expose “secrets” . . . and the team is called . . . Okay, I'll shut up.)

As I have repeatedly stated, I'm not a comic buff, so I have no "fanboy" bias toward any particular team. However, I have to say that the Secret Society has really captured my imagination; it is most definitely my favorite team of the format. The team has some great individual cards that have already been imported into a number of decks. Straight to the Grave is an excellent search card for non-team-stamped characters, but its usefulness is enhanced in a Society deck. Slaughter Swamp is one of the most-played cards from the team stable. It has been featured very heavily in recent Silver Age decks, and its strength was enhanced when Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster arrived on the scene. And of course, we must not forget Gorilla Grodd. (Heh, monkeys.) The Society has a strong leader theme running through the ranks, and Grodd is one of the strongest leaders around.

Team Strategy

The Secret Society has three distinct, playable strategies: counter abuse, KO’d pile manipulation, and character theft.

Counter Abuse is the theme of Deckbuilder Challenge #2 (the results of which can be found at the bottom of this article), and it's no suprise that the vast majority of submitted decks featured Secret Society. Scarecrow, Fearmonger is one of my favorite characters in the game. When Rian Fike introduced this version of Scarecrow to the world, everyone gasped. This guy was touted as being the death knell for the (at the time) dominant Curve Sentinel deck. Little did we realize that Michael Jacob and a few Avengers had already begun to read Nimrod his last rites. Fearmonger is still a beast of a card, though. His stats are not quite as impressive as once they were, but his ability is certainly nifty and is a real focus for the counter abuse strategy.

Another star of the counter abuse theme is Captain Cold. He comes into play as a good-sized 5 ATK / 5 DEF, and his ability is pretty sharp. While other members of the team have counter-related abilities, perhaps the most useful additions to the strategy come in the form of a couple of generic plot twists. Counterstrike can be a Nasty Surprise for an unsuspecting attacker, and it will add another counter to the stash. Membership Drive doesn't wait that long, giving your character a counter as soon as he's recruited. The counter abuse decks are a lot of fun and can create some rather large characters. Scarecrow can prove to be an insurmountable obstacle for your opponent if you've been lucky with your support cards, and Sorcerer's Treasure is incredibly valuable. Make sure you play all copies of Membership Drive and Counterstrike from your hand so that you can get another use out of them thanks to Sorcerer’s Treasure.

Overall, the strategy is really good fun. Its strength lies in the fact that you are able to produce good, strong characters with Scarecrow often equalling your 6-drop’s stats. I Still Hate Magic! is also very useful and should be considered. Flight is a very common attribute in DC Modern Age, so the card has uses both on and off initiative. With Fearmonger protecting your 4-drop and I Still Hate Magic! keeping the opposition grounded, your opponent now has to decide whether to punch through Scarecrow—making him all the more troublesome next turn.

Counter abuse is fun, but it doesn’t have much depth. I think if our chums at R&D hadn’t made Sinister Citadel's first ability exclusive to leader characters, this style of play would have been a lot stronger—but as it stands, it's still a decent deck to take down the Hobby League.

KO Pile Manipulation is not a totally new concept to Vs. System. Underworld had a pretty good stab at it a while back, and I’ve heard rumors of a decent Underworld/Society deck doing the rounds. The Society really seem to have this KO’d pile thing down to a fine art, and what would normally be a dead zone for most teams is just a secondary resource row to these guys.

Straight to the Grave is well known as a versatile search card, but Slaughter Swamp and Sorcerer's Treasure just enhance its effectiveness. How many cards in circulation let you search for a character and non-character card at the same time? Straight to the Grave combines the flexibility of Enemy of My Enemy with the resourcefulness of Kooey Kooey Kooey—with no major drawback. Infinite Crisis brought us the new version of Mr. Mxyzptlk, which makes some of the Society’s discard costs absolutely painless. There are many potent effects within the team that key off interaction with the KO’d pile. In particular, Deadshot, Floyd Lawton could end a game very quickly for an opponent who plays Ahmed Samsarra. The strengths of the KO’d pile strategy are its consistency and versatility. There are many ways of filling your KO’d pile and just as many methods of using those “dead” cards. From a character perspective, Manhunter Clone and James Jesse ◊ Trickster get things off to a flying start. Gorilla City provides a supply for your KO’d pile while doubling as a rather handy combat pump. Quadromobile and Attend or Die! are additional options for making sure nothing gets wasted. This is one of the toolbox decks of the format, and if you're looking for something for the PC, there are a lot of useful ideas to be taken from this type of deck. Overall, I think it has some potential, but for my money, it lacks any real punch.

Character Theft is perhaps the strategy I most enjoy using with this team. It’s often said that the strongest decks “cheat” their way to victory, and while this theme may not yet have cracked any tournament Top 8s, I think it may represent the strongest chance the Society has for earning money. The two key cards are Divided We Fall and Gorilla Grodd. The Simian Mastermind’s power is well known. He made a big impact in Sealed play and had one or two encouraging performances in Constructed, quickly establishing him as strong character in any G’Lock deck. What can he do in a deck entirely focused on abusing him, though?

Society’s Leaders

Characters

3 Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster

4 James Jesse ◊ Trickster

2 The Wizard

1 Deadshot, Floyd Lawton

4 Dr. Sivana

1 Quakemaster

1 Captain Cold

4 Henry King ◊ Brainwave, Sinister Psionic

2 Poison Ivy, Kiss of Death

4 Darkseid, Heart of Darkness

3 Gorilla Grodd

1 Ultra-Humanite, Evolutionary Antecedent

Plot Twists

4 Straight to the Grave

4 Divided We Fall

4 Sorcerer’s Treasure

3 I Still Hate Magic!

3 Blinding Rage

2 Mysterious Benefactor

1 Removed from Continuity

1 Transmutation

1 Watch the Birdie!

Locations

4 Slaughter Swamp

3 Sinister Citadel

I’ve been running this deck in one form or another for some time now, and it works out quite nicely. The basic premise is to steal characters with Divided We Fall and KO them before you have to return them to their owner. Darkseid may surprise some as the 5-drop of choice. Yes, I really like Fearmonger, but Darkseid fits the strategy far more completely. He is able to turn an opposition character into a combat pump for your attacker, which is pretty good. Divided We Fall is ideally played from hand to enable Sorcerer’s Treasure to double its usefulness. The tech slots are subjective and really come down to personal preference. Multiverse Power Battery is something you might want to consider. Nth Metal, Knight Armor, and the Fate Artifacts are all equipment cards you would do well to nuke if you can. This is by far my favorite way of playing the Secret Society. The worst matchup is probably against the Good Guys deck, as BWA HA HA HA HA! really laughs at Divided We Fall.

The Secret Society is a decent team that is just waiting to make an impact in its own right. So far there have been cameos and bit performances here and there, but DC Modern Age might be the format in which the team can shine. There is no question of its usefulness, but does it have enough to take the solo spotlight? I think PC Indy may see these guys win the “Most Teamed-Up With” award, with Villains United being a likely bedfellow. I would love to see the Society shine at PC Indy, but if not, they will still cast a 60-watt glow around my Hobby League.

Deckbuilder Challenge Cup

Once again, it’s time for the Deckbuilder Challenge Cup. This week is results week, and I have to say, it was something of a landslide. For the last two weeks, you have been voting on your favorite deck from the top five of Deckbuilder Challenge #2 (“Counter Crazy”), and without further ado, here are the results.

Alapai Michels: “Pump It Up”: 13%

Nick Seaman: “The Deck”: 45%

Zach “Bigdaddy” Luster: “Crimson Counters”: 14.5%

Youngace: “Step to the Counter”: 9.5%

George Shaefer: Jank Virus: 18%

That means the points for this challenge are awarded as follows:

Nick Seaman: 5 points

George Shaefer: 3 points

Zach Luster: 1 point

So, here is the current leaderboard:

1^st place: Brian Herman (5 points)

2^nd place: Nick Seaman (5 points)

3^rd place: Jin Yi Huang (3 points)

4^th place: George Shaefer (3 points)

5^th place: Zach Luster: (1 point)

6^th place: Sam Roads (1 point)

Good work, guys! Next week, I will announce the top five decks for DBC #3: “Poor Man’s VS.”

Cheers,

Steve Garrett

Kamiza989@gmail.com