Niceman [Multiplayer Minion Slayer]

An Iceman deck that's nice at taking down minions. It's built for multiplayer and is featured in Episode 82 of the Winning Hand podcast!

Overview:

• Archetype: Attack Event / Basic ATK / Utopia Hybrid
• Difficulty: Average
• Recommended Player Count: 3-4
• Ideal Aspect Partner: Justice

Mulligan Targets:

• Cryokinetic Perception
• Power Belt
• Team-Building Exercise
• Deft Focus
• Utopia

When Iceman first released, I gave him a frosty reception. He just didn't click for me on multiple levels. So when the boomiest of guys asked me to join him on an episode of his podcast, I knew this was the perfect opportunity to hate on Bobby for an hour to really try and make a deck for Iceman that even I would have fun playing.

And, spoiler alert, I did.

So how did this deck thaw the icy heart of a certified hater? I had three main goals.

• Give Iceman plenty of the readying he likes to generate more Frostbites in the perfect places.
• Aim for cheaper costs to easily play around his own pricey cards.
• Have a high tempo deck to offset Iceman's innate slower style/defensiveness.

Surprise Move came in the precon with Iceman, and remains my absolute favorite aspect card for him. It's satisfying and it works perfectly with the timing of Frostbite and gives us some extra readying. The only problem is sometimes Frostbites on minions can be wasted, lost when they are defeated. Toe to Toe uses Frostbites, taking less damage from the minion before defeating it. And Precision Strike can help top us up when some damage has slipped through the cracks in the ice - which also means we can stay in hero form for longer and potentially profit a lot from Ice Slide, a card I have a love-hate relationship with but works well here.

And the best thing is, all of those cards - Surprise Move, Toe to Toe, and Precision Strike, are 1-cost. We also have Clobber which, if played first, effectively refunds part of its cost and can be considered as effectively a 1-cost attack. These cards are really easy to play around everything else Iceman has and wants to do and are great for general minion control, dealing between 2 and 5 damage.

There is a strong argument with this many attacks, including Iceman's own, to include Martial Prowess. I didn't, largely for tempo reasons (I didn't want more supports/upgrades especially), but it would be a fine inclusion and in hindsight it might be worth swapping out with Blood Rage.

Beyond this, it's an Iceman deck with Utopia. Readying is so good here. Make use of placing Frostbites on one players minions before using Ice Blast on another player and their minion's for huge combo damage (Ice Blast hits the minions of multiple players if the non-chosen player's minions already have Frostbite on them).

Where's Boot Camp? Too expensive. Keeping all the costs down, even those of supports and upgrades, really helped Iceman's game flow and he didn't feel clunky at all with this deck to me.

All in all, I think I achieved all three of my goals and if you try this multiplayer deck? I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!