Training Flash Thompson for Storm's Missions

Storm and Venom together at last.

The Venom Justice ally is one of my favourites in the game for solo play. If you're able to use all of his activations with only one consequential damage each, he does 12 damage or 8 thwart for 5 effective resources, both of which are very good rates. SHIELD builds are really good at keeping the main scheme at 0 to minimize his consequential damage, but I wanted to go the other direction here and lean into Clear the Area.

So let's build a deck that can give Venom even more longevity and board impact by playing him with an X-Men hero so that we can use the Honorary Avenger + Mission Training combo. This combo also works really well on Wiccan, giving him 5 activations at 2 thwart each + his boost icon damage. To me, Storm is the best-suited hero for this since her weather control provides additional on-demand thwart to help keep that main scheme at 0. She also a well-rounded character that can pump out a ton of damage so she can afford to invest in an ally or two this way.

We round out the deck with One Way or Another and some card draw allies to help us find our most important cards quickly, and then add Angel and Colossus for a little protection and damage. First Aid adds to the longevity of our upgraded allies or provides Storm with some valuable healing.

Of note, Turn the Tide seems conspicuously absent, but you will be clearing schemes a lot of other ways than hero actions (e.g., Wiccan, Hurricane, Nick Fury, etc) so forcing the triggering condition can be somewhat awkward.

Strategy:

• Because keeping the main scheme threat free is only realistic at very low player counts, I would only recommend this deck for solo games or the odd 2p game. However, I have found that in games where the threat has gotten away from me, leaning preferentially into the Wiccan ally instead has worked fairly well.
• Because of her weather effects, she can often deal with pesky early threats on the board while having time to build. You will have to be opportunistic in getting your resource generators or build allies down in any scenario that applies a lot of early pressure.
• You want to mulligan for One Way or Another, your resource generators and your build allies.

Flex cards (the first ones to look at removing for tech cards):

• The One Way or Another and Skilled Investigator combo is not one that you will want for every matchup. I include them in the main build because I think the deck is at its most effective when you are choosing matchups where they make sense to keep in.
• Colossus is there to provide a couple of blocks plus three damage for 4 effective resources. Storm doesn't have access to very high Def nor are there a lot of disposable allies in this build so that extra protection is nice, but you might want to do something different with this slot.

Tech cards:

• Chance Encounter is a fun way to get to your high-priority allies quickly, but I find that the requirement of needing to attach it to a side scheme makes it inconsistent.
• Making an Entrance can be a valuable addition, especially as a source of healing in match-ups where you are trying to minimize your flips to alter-ego. I find that the constraint of requiring one of your activations can make this card awkward, especially if you don't have Storm's Cape out. It also often provides more thwart than needed and can feel a bit wasteful. However, if you're up against a matchup with a lot of 3-thwart side schemes (or 4-thwart ones once you have Storm's Crown down), it can line up really well.

This deck has taken on and won Expert versions of a couple of recent Solo Champions League challenges: Sabretooth + Acolytes + Brotherhood, and Mojo + Horror + Western. It also won very handily against the recent Critical Encounters organized play challenge of Expert Drang + Armies of Titan with no Milano, twice. It took me two tries to defeat the regular setup of Nebula + Space Pirates, but that scenario has very high variance so I think it fared quite well overall.