A Storm Defied

A multiplayer deck, meant to defend for the table (or as much as you can cover) with a swarm of allies, tough cards, and generally controlling the board with weather. I designed this deck with 'Pool in mind. 'Pool players can really shine and do great work on the board if they can have flexibility to grow into that roll. 'Pool tends to unleash a storm of icons onto the table, and this protection deck is designed to deny that storm! I've been playing this two-handed solo alongside Quick-pool: Friends With Benefits (https://marvelcdb.com/decklist/view/48798/quick-pool-friends-with-benefits-1.0), but any 'Pool player (or not) will be happy to have you take the heat off them with this deck

Setup

In order for this to work well, you will need a couple good cards on the table

• first Children of the Atom will turn on Serve and Protect
• next, Storm's cards are expensive, especially her kit. Prioratizing resource-generators like Storm's Crown and The X-Jet early will make later turns a breeze (it's a weather pun)
• though her events can get pricey, once you have Deft Focus and X-Gene down, you can play one of her events for (almost) free each turn.
• none of the allies in this deck are meant to stick around very long, but you might find they stay on the table longer than you planned anyway because of Serve and Protect giving the tough cards.

A Storm Denied

When the Villain attacks, Storm, or preferably her allies, will defend.

• Mutant Protectors can "cheat" an ally into play for free as a defender to an attack. Best targets are allies with innate tough Colossus, Polaris, and Armor.
• Nightcrawler can prevent damage and bounce back to your hand, and the Lightning resource can be generated by The X-Jet
• You can prevent a Villain's scheme from actually adding any threat using Serve and Protect, which can also get Storm and one of her allies tough status cards. This is an undervalued card, in my opinion. As the game progresses (and/or the 'Pool player plays acceleration icon allies), you might find that preventing the initial placement of threat (stage 1 of Villain phase) to be the more valuable denial.
• Flash Freeze can de-power the villain on his activation against you. I don't find Blizzard to be a very enticing, either for the decreased attack or the "blank a non-elite minion's text box" bonus, but it can be useful to Deny the Amplify icon from the 'Pool player
• Defending into Tough cards is great in Hurricane, because you'll be dealing ping damage back to the Villain. It's also great in Thunderstorm, because unless the Villain's got piercing, the +1 attack (or the Amplify icon from the 'Pool player) is irrelevant. I usually found myself switching back and forth between these weathers.
• Clear Skies can be attractive to draw a card and clear friendly ailments, but beware that you don't interfere with your teammate's plans to Stun/Confuse. You want to deny the storm, not unleash it.

'Pool Synergy

The 'Pool player will not have much to offer you directly, other than perhaps use of their Plot Convenience card to trade around some aspect cards

• Besides defending and denying the badness that the 'Pool player (carefully) invites onto the board, you can give the 'Pool player additional card draw in the form of Change of Fortune and Unflappable. Because Dreadpool keeps getting dealt back (hopefully to the 'Pool player themselves), they can defend against his attack each turn to draw a card. With Electrostatic Armor and Dauntless. they can potentially defeat Dreadpool each turn to draw 2 more cards.
• So look, if you've not seen what a 'Pool player can do with 9 cards in their hand, I'll just tell you: once you've given them space to grow they will take care of the board for you.

'Wrap Up

• Honorable mention would be Hangar Bay, which can ready an ally that defended with a tough so you can get more mileage out of them (either an activation in the player phase or another block in the Villain phase). If you're playing in a group of 3-4 I might include it.
• If you're not playing with a 'Pool player, Change of Fortune and Electrostatic Armor and Dauntless and Unflappable can probably be cut to make the deck a little quicker to set up, adding to consistency.
• it would not be wrong to add another copy of Children of the Atom to ad to consistency of getting Serve and Protect online as soon as possible
• Angel and Northstar are here because they're X-men allies (and you want to have an Ally in had when you have Mutant Protectors), but they don't have any interesting "Entering play" abilities, and would be my choices for cuts if you need to cut allies.
• Blast of Wind is pretty tame. I rarely play it because I almost always have something better in my hand
• Once you're built out, the deck is almost all allies and events (which is nice)
• If you can convince a leadership player to include and pass you a copy of Uncanny X-Men, it can make playing your allies out even easier.
• take this deck to the Con so that when someone asks if they can play their 'Pool deck, you can let them know that Footballcoach prepared you.