This deck is The Fat Deck par excellence, by Jamie Wakefield. The deck every old Green player has as a benchmark. As many Wakefield's creations, it did better as an inspiration for later designs rather than being supercompetitive in the first place. But it had results, so much so that variants of this deck became quite popular in extended. Also, I feel the core of this deck served as a base for the first incarnations of 'The Rock' decks, though this is just a speculation.
This deck embodies Green's Endurance. And, man, it endures. It was specifically designed to stop Sligh. Between Wall of Roots, Spike Feeder and his cousin Spike Weaver, it managed to do that egregiously.
It had very poor matchups, also: Tradewind Rider used to be a nemesis for this deck.
As Oscar Tan wrote somewhere, this is a control deck. Wakefield understood it in the same way. Yes, it has Verdant Force ("Best Fatty Ever Printed"...ahh, good times...) and it's really cool when it hits the battlefield. But the deck aim is not to drop it as soon as turn three, even if it often can. It plays differently:
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if the opponent is running early hitters, it drops walls and plays fogs (provied by Spike Weaver);
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if he or she plays a powerful enchantment, it destroys it with Elvish Lyrist. Sex Monkey (Uktabi Orangutan) fulfills the same purpose against artifacts. In case the opponent had more, Jamie also ran Creeping Mold to increase the number of 'Disenchants' in the deck. Note that Creeping Mold can also be used to wipe out lands and, man, there were some vicious lands in extended. With 4 Creeping Mold, 3 Elvish Lyrist, 3 Uktabi Orangutan, and 3 Wasteland this deck has basically access to 7 cards to deal with enchantments, artifacts and lands. Not too shabby.
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Oh, and while the deck does that, it also attacks for 3 or 4. If your opponent blocks, chances are that his or her creature will be destroyed by an elf suddenly becoming big enough to deal the lethal blow (thanks to Spike counters). Or you may want to allocate Spike counters in such way as to deal damage to the opponent and drop more Spike creatures, and repeat. A staple element in Jamie's decks are reset buttons: this deck uses Overrun to perform that task.
The whole philosophy of this deck is: 'you don't have to deal with their threats if they have to deal with yours'. I think it might have been Jamie Wakefield to have said that. Because most of your answers are played preemptively and as early as possible, the opponent can't help but trying to find a way to get them out of the way, while you keep finding what you need thanks to the deck's soft toolbox component provided by Natural Order, the original Tinker card. Between actual copies of the cards you need and virtual ones provided by Natural Order, you can keep troubling your opponent while sneaking a few points of damage before that moment. Yes, the one you were waiting for: the one when Verdant Forces start coming out of nowhere and your opponent is depleted or is at a point of the game where he or she just can't do anything about it.
This deck runs 22 lands, 3 of them being Gaea's Cradle. They are enough, considering you have 8 Llanowar Elves, 4 Wall of Roots and means to cast creature spells for the inexpensive cost of . Even so, if there is one thing you've got to get used with these kind of Tinker decks is that bad hands happen. You may draw 4 Forests and 3 high CMC creatures. If in your opening there isn't a mana dork you may want to consider a mulligan.
Don't underestimate Overrun. It seems that kind of card a kid would play to impress his or her friends: it's not. Overrun can be a game changer: it can close a game at any moment.
As for how to play this deck, keep in mind this: while a 10 land stompy deck emphasize tactics over strategy, sacrifices Card Advantage for Tempo, and throws expendable creatures at the opponent, you gotta be more thrifty with a Secret Force. Your resources are valuable and you can't afford to waste them: you don't have a stream of 1CMC beaters waiting at your topdeck for you to pick up. You wanna plan ahead and choose very fast if you are the beatdown deck or the control deck (Bless you, Mike Flores!). Stall your opponent up to a point where his threats are no longer relevant, or assault early on with your utility creatures... and maybe, yes: a Verdant Force on 3rd turn.
A trademark of this deck is that it relies very much on creatures to do everything: if there is a creature card that can perform a utility task while costing more than the sorcery or instant variant, this deck wants the creature over the other options. Always. It wants interactive card advantage and wants to beat you in the process.
Have fun! And Verdant Force. Because Verdant Force.
Verdant Force.
