Freeze 'Em and Flex

Exploiting Flash Freeze

One of the cards that I've been wanting to exploit more is Flash Freeze. This defense card is the only one I can think of that continues its effect throughout the phase, not just for that activation. It got me thinking that if I could get the villain to attack me more often, there would be greater value there. This is one that I've been tinkering with for a long time. This posted version is the 37th version I've made, so I hope you'll find this interesting and something you haven't quite seen before.

First Attempts

At first, this build centered around getting Warpath into play so that I could have him defend against a minion, opening up a window to play Taunt in the villain phase. Then we could have a second villain attack. Ideally the whole goal is to have the villain run into a Retaliate 2 between Dauntless and Hurricane.

However, after (sooooo) much testing I discovered that this was pretty limiting because this required me to prioritize getting Warpath down on the table which causes a pretty significant tempo drop at 4-cost. It also required me to pull a hand where I had both Flash Freeze and Taunt in my hand at the start of the villain phase, and this was just unreliable.

Using Assess the Situation and Jocasta to help get a larger hand size, and to store Flash Freeze was a start, but this was a lot of effort for smaller payoff. The timing was always tough to get Flash Freeze in the hand at the same time as Taunt.

And Then It Dawned On Me...

Then, one day during testing I came across a situation where I decided to Taunt the villain in the Hero Phase instead and play Flash Freeze then. I ended up pulling another Taunt, and then the third. My epiphany was that I didn't need Warpath to play Taunt during the Villain phase, but that I could just trigger this during MY turn and just keep drawing cards.

One fun advantage to this is that Deft Focus can then be used to pay for Flash Freeze as a Superpower. Normally this isn't possible as it's an action you can't take on the Villain's turn... but with Taunting to provoke an attack during the hero phase, Deft Focus becomes very useful. Storm already has a ton of Superpower cards as targets, but this opens up one more target.

How Else Can We Provoke?

Now those turns where you just Taunt and Taunt and then Taunt for the 3rd time are hilarious. You'll feel like you just hit an achievement on par with playing all the copies of Always Be Running or Wakanda Forever! However, if this is going to pay off, we need to include Bait and Switch to provoke some attacks and removing threat, but also Return the Favor.

Yup, you read that right. Return the Favor is my sneaky awesome card in this deck, but I warn you that you'll want to know what treacheries are in the encounter deck. I promise that this will push you to be a better player by needing to study the villain cards first and knowing what's left. With the Standard cards, you'll likely have 3x cards that provoke another attack (Assault, Sinister Strike), and many villains will have some in their kit too. You'll need to know what you're up against. You need to be smart about what ELSE could get pulled by Return the Favor, but it's a chance to deal 5 damage and have the villain run into another 2 from the double retaliate. (Just be aware that if you're on Hurricane that you'll pull a retaliate damage yourself.)

Getting The Villain to -3 or More

Of course, it depends on the difficulty you play at, but for many villains, keeping them at -3 should be great for not taking much damage. However, we have some options here for how to add to this. The first is to give up the Hurricane for the retaliate and settle for going into a Blizzard for another -1 attack for the villain.

However, another rarely played card that has a home in this deck is Height Advantage. This one has never really been useful because it's a -1 damage, but you discard it at the start of your turn. However, if you play it during your turn, you'll get this effect for all the attacks you provoke then, plus again on the villains turn when you get your typical attack.

Better yet, if you play this Multiplayer (which is where Storm becomes a lot of fun), you don't remove Height Advantage until the START of your turn. If you're not the first player, you could call for an action on another turn and Bait, Taunt or Return the Favor before the effect is lost. All of a sudden, your "Advantage" might last through a lot more activations!

I've found that having a villain frozen at -4 is going to cover most of the damage I'd take in a lot of scenarios, and well worth the investment of playing the Flash Freeze.

Defending Against the Villain

Personally, I like to have Storm defend against the villain activations during their turn whenever possible, especially because she can ready again on our turn using Storm's Cape. One big problem though is that she starts the game with DEF 1. So this deck has included all the main ways to improve defense, being Armored Vest, her Cape, Symbiote Suit and Defense Specialist. Theoretically, she can get up to a 5 DEF with all these upgrades, which will cover most villain attacks, especially if she still has a copy of Height Advantage in play.

I think that Specialized Training on Storm is amazing. Since you want to move into Hurricane anyways, she's going to remove a lot of threat every time you make that switch. A Torrential Rain will be able to remove 7 after a switch, which is just a huge play. I also include Superpower Training in order to get her Cape out ASAP. I think it's her most important card in this deck, putting Height Advantage online, giving us +1 DEF and giving us the ability to exhaust to defend in the villain phase and still ready up again later.

Adding more HP

One thing I've been toying with is whether or not to include Symbiote Suit. You'll want to keep your HP above her starting amount so that Dauntless is useful. Symbiote Suit will do that, and help with the hand size and DEF stats. But that encounter card though...

So this could be substituted for Endurance, but then I would recommend playing Specialized Training for Front Line Specialist instead. You can get up to +7 HP, and you'll likely take a damage at some point, still giving you that card draw.

One thing I love about this build with Storm is that if you find your HP are dropping low, if you ever get Ororo's Garden into play, if you can drop down to AE, you won't need to exhaust to heal up which is very convenient for maintaining tempo.

Final Thoughts

This isn't going to be the strongest deck you've ever played. There are times that it just doesn't work and the pieces don't fit. The good news is that Storm is an incredibly powerful hero so you can often just pivot and just do Storm things with her powerful Hero events and Weather Deck. I'll recommend you play this one in Multiplayer, just so you can help other players with your choice of weather card, but also so they can help carry you if you get some bad draws at in opportune times.

However, when this one comes together and you Freeze 'em and Flex, you'll have a blast... an Ice Blast! (Wait, wrong character)

As always, I very much appreciate interaction, so please like the deck and share a comment below to start up some conversation. Hope this is something a little different than you've seen before, and you'll find it interesting to try out sometime at the table!

Until next time Champions...