Hello all! It’s been a cold winter, and with the recent reveal of Iceman, it seemed like the perfect time to share a chill Storm deck I’ve been working on!

Deck Concept

If you couldn’t tell already, the deck is primarily built around Storm’s unique defense card, Flash Freeze. What makes this card unique? To put it simply, Flash Freeze is one of the only cards in the game that debuffs the villain for an entire phase. As long as you can continue to force the villain to attack Storm, Flash Freeze will apply its -3 ATK debuff to every attack the villain makes against her. In multiplayer games, this can allow your fellow heroes to act with near-impunity, and in solo games it means that you never have to fear a Gang-Up, Assault, or any other encounter card villain attacks again!

Building your Snow Shelter

With only 10 HP and a starting DEF of 1, Storm needs to bundle up a bit before she can face the attacks headed her way. Early game, prioritize getting your upgrades and supports into play, to boost your economy and basic powers.

Highest Priority:

• Storm's Cape
• Storm's Crown
• Armored Vest
• Unflappable

These four upgrades are incredibly important to making sure you can maximize your turns in both the hero phase and the villain phase, by giving you additional readies, resources to spend, and increasing your DEF to 3.

Second Priority:

• Nerves of Steel
• The X-Jet

These two turn your economy game up to 11, allowing you to play what you need every turn and still keep some defense events around for the villain phase. I definitely recommend putting them into play ASAP, just not instead of any of the 4 high-priority upgrades.

Situational:

• Electrostatic Armor
• Flow Like Water
• Deft Focus
• X-Gene
• Hard to Ignore
• Ororo's Garden

These cards are all excellent in this deck, but depending on the exact scenario you are playing and whether you are solo or multiplayer, you may not need them.

• Electrostatic Armor and Flow Like Water turn your defense into offense; importantly, they allow you to get damage in without relying on attacks, meaning you can more easily utilize Hurricane.
• If you find yourself needing a bit more threat removal, prioritize getting Hard to Ignore into play. You should easily be able to trigger the effect every villain phase, giving your team a bit more breathing room on the main scheme.
• If the villain is one that hits especially hard (cough Ronan cough), use Ororo's Garden to heal for 4 without ever having to exhaust your identity to recover.
• Once you’re ready to turn the corner, X-Gene and Deft Focus make sure you can always pay for Lightning Bolt, Blast of Wind, or even Torrential Rain should the need arise.

Let It Snow

Once you’re satisfied with your setup, it’s time to start punching back! Use your incredibly versatile hero ability to enhance whatever needs doing in any given round, and start unleashing your basic attacks and hero events right at the villain’s face, confident in the knowledge that even when they try to fight back, you can just ignore it all with your defense events and even ping them for more damage with Electrostatic Armor and Flow Like Water! Desperate Defense allows you to ready after defending, Preemptive Strike not only neuters the villain’s attack but redirects it to you, potentially applying the Flash Freeze effect, and Subdue, while not a defense itself, is still excellent by allowing you to block 3 damage for anyone even if you can’t exhaust to defend.

Snow Buddies

Snow days are way more fun when you have friends to spend them with, so Storm brought along some of her besties to make sure she can keep the good times rolling!

• Hope Summers tutors for Flash Freeze, or any of your other Superpower events. She’s a bit expensive, but when you really need a freak weather event, there’s simply no better choice.
• Jocasta works very similarly in this deck to Hope Summers, except she searches from the discard pile and has to stay in play until you use the card she finds. Use her to be able to activate Flash Freeze 3 times per deck cycle, or to get one back if you had to discard it early for any reason.
• Armor allows you to absorb 2 villain attacks for just 3 effective resources, and she’ll thwart or attack for 1 as well. Really a no-brainer while you’re getting set up. Just keep in mind that Flash Freeze won’t protect your allies.
• Professor X gives you a turn to go alter ego if necessary, thwarts for 3, and still blocks a hit from the villain. You couldn’t ask for more from just a 3 cost ally!

Potential Turbulence Ahead

There is an odd timing restriction for Flash Freeze that is important to be aware of before you play this deck. You can only play the event in response to the villain initiating an attack against you, meaning that if you are last in the turn order in a multiplayer game, you cannot get the benefit of Flash Freeze until the villain attacks you at the end of the villain activation step. Because of this, it may get stuck in hand while you wait to be higher in the turn order. Jocasta is invaluable here, allowing you to “store” one with her until you can maximize its use.

If you’re finding that some of the cards aren’t your speed, see below some cards I recommend swapping in if you are so inclined:

• Powerful Punch: Like Preemptive Strike, this card allows you to redirect an attack without exhausting to defend. Very fun with Flash Freeze active, but I felt that it was a bit too expensive for a card that doesn’t actually help you block damage. I’d recommend replacing the Subdues if you would like to add these.
• The Power of Protection, Energy, Genius, Strength: I didn’t include the double resource cards because they too often felt like they were paying for 1-cost cards early game, and late game my economy was so strong that I didn’t need them. If you’d like to have less upgrades to get into play, I’d recommend taking them out in this order to add the resource cards: Deft Focus -> X-Gene -> Electrostatic Armor -> Hard to Ignore
• Allies: Professor X and Armor are both very efficient allies, but feel free to adjust these to fit your needs, as they aren’t at all necessary to achieve the game plan of the deck.

Thank you for taking the time to read this! If you decide to try out the deck, please let me know how it goes or if you make any changes!