Snowed In

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
None yet

natef16 · 55

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:

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:

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:

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!

8 comments

Jan 26, 2024 andyr · 8523

Awesome deck idea AND write up!! I can’t wait to try this deck out next group playthrough!

Jan 26, 2024 natef16 · 55

@andyr Thank you, that means a lot coming from you! I always like seeing the decks you post on here!

Jan 26, 2024 andyr · 8523

Thanks, @natef16! I appreciate that. I’m glad you posted this deck! Can’t wait to see others.

Jan 27, 2024 Pots · 7

Trying this tomorrow, looks great!

Jan 27, 2024 teamcanadahockey2002 · 8895

Sweet deck. I've actually been toying with one similar to this. Havent posted yet but thought Id throw you some other ideas.

Some iterations were build arouns Warpath allowing you to trigger Taunt in the villian phase to allow Flash Freeze to be useful more times. Flash Freeze will minus 3 a minion which is attacking you. My understanding of the defense rules is that when Warpath steps into block, the minion is still attacking you, so it would stay -3 and open the response to Taunt.

Another thing I've been testing is Height Advantage which also helps with all villian attacks in that phase. This also helps with playing a Taunt in the hero phase, especially in Multiplayer as Height Advantage doesnt leave until you start your turn. There's a cool loophole that allows you to exploit there.

Jan 27, 2024 natef16 · 55

@Pots Awesome! Hope you enjoy!

@teamcanadahockey2002 Height Advantage does seem nice, especially when paired with Taunt. My main “worry” was that Storm can’t be Aerial until Storm's Cape is in play, and I’m not running any way to tutor the cape. I think if you wanted to lean into that, you would definitely want Superpower Training so you can more quickly get to Storm's Cape.

Regarding Warpath, I actually love the idea and I’m glad you suggested. I think he could easily come in for Deft Focus even if you didn’t make any other adjustments for him. The Taunt synergy with Flash Freeze as you mentioned is awesome for some extra draw power, but all of Storm’s unique events are 1) Hero Actions, and 2) Activate the “Special:” ability of her Weather support (assuming you have the correct one in play). That would allow you to use Storm's Cape’s Hero Response to ready Storm during the Villain Phase, which is what she wants to do anyways.

For Taunt specifically, I’m not super sold on Taunt for heroes that don’t easily ignore damage (Colossus, etc.) or otherwise benefit directly from being attacked (i.e. Drax). Especially in a protection deck, you’re often drawing into events you’d rather hold for the Villain phase anyways, so you kind of just end up eating a villain attack for +1 resources and some deck cycling. In my experience, damage Storm takes tends to be difficult to find space to heal back since she hates going Alter Ego (part of the reason I’m running Professor X). If you’re using it early game before you’re set up to find your upgrades faster, you could use your defense events to keep yourself healthy, but then you’re just going negative in hand and hoping to draw stuff you can pay for. Late game, you’re probably mostly using Taunt to cycle your deck for Lightning Bolt in which case it’s nice, but kind of “win more” IMO.

Thank you so much for taking the time to comment and if you do test out the deck with any adjustments please let me know how it goes and what feels good/doesn’t!

Jan 27, 2024 teamcanadahockey2002 · 8895

@natef16 Lots to respond to here :)

Agreed on Superpower Training for helping achieve Aerial. Another interesting one is to include Build Support to cheat in IPAC. I've tested out running that and Symbiote Suit because the danger of multiple villian attacks from extra encounters is mitigated by Flash Freeze

Taunt is sort of a tricky card to me. Even if there was zero damage dealt, if essentially nets you an extra card and some deck cycling. Does work well with Storm being able to pick up retaliate though. Give her a Dauntless as well and every villian attack makes Taunt add +2 ATK.

Storm really doesnt do well for going to Alter, agreed. I've been playing around with using Second Wind actually. I'm on version 0.19 right now, so I've been playing with this one a lot :)

Assess the Situation can help to shorten your deck to find Flash Freeze. Also helps to increase your hand size because that can be when you need to draw into FF.

I've also experimented with both Energy Barriers and Forcefield Generator to help keep health high when some damage slips through.

My personal nemesis in this is Crossbones. His ability to keep adding +1 ATK with attachments just kills my ability to prevent all the damage.

Feb 01, 2024 NonProphetCharacter · 1

@natef16 this is a really cool deck idea! From a glance over, it seems like getting Storms’s DEF up will be a challenge, but I want to give this a go once I’m done with my current campaign.

@teamcanadahockey2002 just wanted to give my two-cents on the Warpath and Flash Freeze interaction. Flash Freeze says the penalty goes to minions engaged with you, not minions who are attacking you. I think that just means anyone on the table in front of Storm, regardless of whether Storm, Warpath, or even another player defends against an attack from them. The attack just has to take place sometime in the phase after Flash Freeze was played. That would also mean it wouldn’t apply to minions in other play areas if Storm defended for them.