---------------------------------Overview ---------------------------------

Storm is an iconic X-Men character whose gameplay reflects her power set in a very satisfying way via the Weather deck. The Weather deck is a Swiss Army knife of 4 supports each featuring a global effect impacting friendly and enemy characters alike and a "Special" ability triggered by Storm's hero ability or certain event cards.

Her weather deck contains Clear Skies, Thunderstorm, Blizzard, and Hurricane

These present Storm a well-rounded set of abilities to trigger every turn, allowing her to adapt perfectly to the needs of every situation, whether it's extra damage, extra thwart, clearing a status, or blanking a minion. This free value generation combined with incredible burst damage potential earns Storm a spot among the best heroes in the game in my opinion.

---------------------------------Identity-Specific Cards ---------------------------------

Storm's Crown - a 2-cost all-purpose resource generator that also buffs THW? High-priority play

Storm's Cape - I rarely defend with Storm, but the Cape is worth it for the readying alone

Ororo's Garden - a very efficient healing support. Always happy when I get a window to play it out

Weather Goddess - I find this most useful for retriggering the Weather card you started the turn on. Flip to a new one with Storm's one time change, then flip back with Weather Goddess. Adds to the versatility that makes Storm such a great hero.

Torrential Rain - solidly efficient thwart card when Hurricane is active. Even lets you split the threat into 3 (from the event) on one scheme and 2 (from Hurricane) on another.

Lightning Bolt - 8 damage for a cost of 3 would already be a great attack, but with Thunderstorm out this becomes 10 damage! With a flip to Thunderstorm, basic attack, and Lightning Bolt, Storm can do 15 damage with no additional setup. Makes her crazy strong at closing out villains.

Flash Freeze - probably Storm's weakest card (or at least narrowest). You should typically kill your minions rather than hope you get the chance to shrink them in the villain phase, but you can use this in a pinch. Ideally you play it on a turn where the villain would attack twice since the debuff lasts the whole phase, but that's hard to predict.

Blast of Wind - this provides acceptable value with one minion in play but goes crazy if you hit two. The versatility of your Weather deck carries over into making this a versatile card as well, which usually gives you a strong use for it.

---------------------------------Strategies---------------------------------

General

Storm's Weather gameplan is pretty self-contained to her identity-specific set, which limits the combos available with aspect and basic cards. Some individual cards I would highlight for Storm are Deft Focus and X-Gene, cheap resource generators with plenty of targets in Storm's deck. I like Weapon X to help find her powerful cards, and Ororo's Garden is nice to mitigate the damage from it. I also typically include Superpower Training as a way to search out her powerful Cape or Crown.

I usually go between Thunderstorm and Hurricane the most, as damage and thwart are the most commonly useful Special abilities. Thunderstorm is the best overall for giving Storm a massive ATK of 3, combo-ing with Storm's most powerful card - Lightning Bolt, and helping Blast of Wind take out a bigger minion. Moreover, the symmetrical boost given to the villain is more easily mitigated by ally blocking and stun effects. Clear Skies lets you clear a status card, which is incredibly strong, but sometimes messes with your own efforts to stun or confuse the villain. Still a powerful tool to have. Blizzard is my least used Weather. If no other Weathers are relevant, I'll flip to it to lower damage coming in from the next villain attack.

Ally Swarm

The best way to synergize with Storm's weather deck is to play many allies who benefit from Thunderstorm's +1 ATK buff to all characters. Aggression lets you double down on this strategy with Boot Camp and has lots of high-ATK allies. Leadership is also a natural place to turn for an ally strategy, where additional cards like Band Together and Strength In Numbers synergize with a swarm strategy.

X-Men

This is low-hanging fruit, but X-Men archetypal cards like Utopia, "To Me, My X-Men!", or Training+Game Time make for strong decks. Storm unfortunately lacks an X-Men signature ally, but as mentioned previously, Thunderstorm makes her a strong wielder of any ally-based strategy.

---------------------------------Popular Decks---------------------------------

Aggression: marvelcdb.com

• This is a Boot Camp deck by VillainTheory featuring mostly X-Men allies to use Attack Training and Game Time.

Justice: marvelcdb.com

• VillainTheory again! Here we are in the S.H.I.E.L.D. archetype to use Global Logistics, giving you extra information to pick the right Weather going into the villain phase.

Protection: marvelcdb.com

• It's a hat trick for VillainTheory, posting the most-favorited Storm deck in 3 different aspects! Multiple Man embodies the Ally Swarm archetype in a single card, giving tons of value if you manage to pull all three at once.

Leadership: marvelcdb.com

• I can't resist a shameless plug for a deck of my own, which I used to defeat the Mansion Attack scenario on Heroic difficulty (link to YouTube video in decklist). It's a bit of a generic good-stuff Leadership deck, but if you want to try a powerful deck against some hard scenarios, give it a whirl.

---------------------------------Conclusion---------------------------------

If you like powerful yet flexible hero whose turns play out like a small puzzle, then Storm is the hero for you. Storm's Marvel Champions adaptation perfectly embodies her superhero persona by allowing you to change the weather at will, offering an immersive experience for any fan of the character. If you're newer to the game, be aware her starter deck is a little awkward out of the box since she comes with payoffs for an X-Men heavy deck but only 5 allies (some of which are fairly lackluster). Mutant Genesis, Cyclops, and Magneto are good complementary purchases to add to your Leadership and Basic allies (Magneto comes out Nov '24). Anyways, hope this gave you some insight into how the character plays and what kinds of decks you can build with her, now take to the skies, and summon the full power of the storm!