The Mesocyclone

Origin

The coolest and most awe inspiring type of storm is something called a mesocyclone. These are large, rotating cloud formations that produce thunderstorms and sometimes tornados. Check out a fantastic timelapse compilation of them here!

I wanted to make a Storm deck that represented this aspect of nature. I tried a few different concepts, but none of theme felt quite right until I landed in this deck. I'm going to try to briefly describe these storms in order to show where I got my inspiration. If you are not interested, skip the science mumbo jumbo and go straight to the deck breakdown.

Science mumbo jumbo

Okay, so I'm not an expert, and this ain't Earth Science, so I will keep it brief.

You know how hot air rises, and cold air falls? Cold, moist air from the clouds falls as rain or hail, and this is the downdraft. On the other side of the supercell, hot air from the ground rises up into the clouds. This is called inflow, and it is the potential energy that fuels the storm. If this inflow is moving at different speeds or directions further up in the cloud, this causes rotation. This rotating updraft forms the mesocyclone- and can also bring tornadoes within it.

Deck Breakdown

Most Storm decks focus on taking advantage of her Weather supports, often combining Thunderstorm with a swarm of allies to do massive damage. But playing a support role while allies do all the damage doesn't fit the theme here. That's right, this is leadership Storm, but not ally swarm! Instead, to truly feel like a Mesocyclone, we want to get the most out of Storm's powerful weather based events.

Inflow

First, we need to fuel this storm, and we do this with resource generators. Simple enough.

For this, we have: Clarity of Purpose, Deft Focus, Storm's Crown, and X-Gene. The more of these in play, the more potential energy (resources) there are to fuel Lightning Bolt, Torrential Rain, and Blast of Wind.

Rotating Updraft

Updraft is how we are able to rotate through various weather cards. This is done here a few ways.

First, with our allies:

• Ironheart, Maria Hill, Nick Fury - Draw cards, helps cycle for more events. Simple.
• Gamora, Ghost-Spider, Hope Summers, and Kaluu - Their abilities can directly draw or tutor your weather events.

Allies are not precious. You ideally want to get 2 attacks out of Gamora to take advantage of her ability, but otherwise, just play your allies, attack or thwart with them, and chump block if needed.

Gamora and Ghost-Spider can't be played directly. You need to get them in play with either Call for Backup or Make the Call. Keep in mind that Ironheart and Hope Summers have abilities that only trigger when played from your hand, so it wont work with Rapid Response, Call for Backup or Make the Call.

Mutant Education is used to rotate Storm's weather events back into your deck, so that you will get them more often. With X-Mansion out, it repays itself by drawing you another card.

The last piece of the Rotating Updraft is Weapon X. Taking the 1 damage ping isn't always easy, but while you are in alter ego you have basic recovery and Ororo's Garden to stay topped up. This will almost always draw you an event with a hero action, so use it right before flipping up to hero form.

Downdraft

Did you know that 12 out of 15 of Storm's identity cards are events? Some of these weather events are quite powerful too! So focusing on powering them up can be truly devastating. Especially Lightning Bolt, which is a 3 cost attack event that deals 10 damage, as long as Thunderstorm is active. Spam a few of these and the game will be over real quick.

Playing Weather Goddess on repeat is also very useful. It's even worth doing this just to trigger the special on the weather supports. Think of this as a 0 cost/ 2 damage or 0 cost/ 2 thwart event. There is a lot of freedom to swap back and forth between weather types in this deck, you only really care about having the right ones out for whichever weather event you want to play.

Lightning Bolt and Weather Goddess are the two main events to focus on, but all of the others are worth playing at the right time too.

Outro

When I build a deck, its usually driven by card interactions first, and then the theme comes later. This deck is an outlier in that it's the other way around. This is the first time that I've played Storm and truly felt like the unstoppable force of nature that she is.

This might seem like a very simple and straightforward deck. It is...but its actually a very fun and unique way to play Storm. Instead of focusing on allies, (especially X-Men with Utopia) this deck allows her powerful events to truly shine.

For card swaps, you could cut Practiced Plan and Rapid Response, though they are quite strong here. You can fill any final deck spaces with Assess the Situation, which helps to cycle through Storm's events faster. In solo, you can always throw in Professor X here if you need him, but I wanted to avoid that this time.

This is a high tempo, unorthodox Storm deck, and a real powerhouse too. Give it a shot, and let me know what you think!