Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Unusual X-Men Decks #6 - Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

"We interrupt this broadcast to bring you an urgent weather alert! We have a severe Storm sweeping in from the east. If you are a villain in the region, we advise you to evacuate immediately!"

I never used to think Storm had any synergy with Justice - then I looked at Global Logistics. And by knowing what's coming? It's almost like a weather forecast.

In addition to Global Logistics usual benefits (getting us weak boost + encounter cards), it lets us know what weather form to swap to in advance for the perfect villain phase/next turn. And that's pretty awesome.

Note: This deck is intended for solo play. More details in the next sections.

Watch as Night of the Living Card Game takes on Expert Venom with this build! YouTube link here.

Overview:

• Archetype: Global Logistics SHIELD
• Difficulty: Above Average
• Recommended Player Count: 1
• Scenarios to Avoid: Collector #1, Project Wideawake

Strategy:

Using Global Logistics we can manipulate the encounter deck to our liking, thus knowing what weather support to have out with perfect precision.

Stuns coming? Clear Skies for Stalwart. A minion? Make sure you end in anything but Thunderstorm, so you can then swap into Thunderstorm to damage them next turn.

This deck is also well-positioned to end many of its turns in alter-ego, even against steady or stalwart villains. Global Logistics can ensure the villain schemes for very little by giving them a weak boost card, and ascertain that your encounter card is not Advance or an equivalent.

While Storm herself doesn't have the greatest alter-ego, she loves swapping in Thunderstorm to benefit from it herself and then, while the villain still has +1 ATK from it, swap to alter-ego for the villain phase so she can't be attacked! Dodging the downside of Thunderstorm entirely. Neat.

And by going alter-ego more often than most Storm decks can, we can use Ororo's Garden more often than most Storm decks, which means we can take more villain attacks than most, which means we're free to spend more of our allies' hp on Thunderstorm-boosted ATKs rather than block with them. Whew. This is also neat.

In terms of early game strategy, Storm's own upgrades (her Cape and Crown) are so incredibly valuable they remain our top priorities. Aside from that we strongly want to get at least one SHIELD card in play so Global Logistics is online.

We have 6 potential SHIELD cards which stick on the board - three allies, three supports. Monica Chang leads the weather department and is the best target, with her Surveillance Teams in the field keeping eye on the temperature, rainfall, and threat.

Mockingbird and Quake are also great options, and playing a Surveillance Team raw isn't terrible (especially with The Power of Justice) to get things started!

Once we have a couple of Surveillance Teams out we no longer need to rely so much on Hurricane for turn-to-turn threat removal. Which typically translates to more use of Clear Skies for card draw - just make sure not to clear any confuses from the villain!

Beyond the SHIELD/Global Logistics side of the deck, Storm with allies is as powerful as ever. Use Thunderstorm to deal devastating damage with them while you keep absolute control over the game and drop the odd Lightning Bolt!

This deck is designed for solo play, since Global Logistics can potentially set you up for two entire encounter phases. You can use it in 2-player if you like, but try to avoid 3-4 player - we're not bringing that kind of threat removal and Global Logistics really falls off.

Mulligan Priorities:

• Storm's Cape
• Storm's Crown
• Any SHIELD ally/support (preferably Monica Chang)

Other Tips:

• Keep an eye on how many cards are left in your deck. If you are about to run out of cards, you're going to have to take an encounter card. Make sure to account for this when using Global Logistics!!

• Wiccan loves it when you set up a massive boost card for him with Global Logistics (though he's perfectly fine to use to ATK with Thunderstorm's bonus too!). Make sure to account for this when using Global Logistics!!

• Use Global Logistics early so you can plan what weather to swap to for the best results this turn and next.

• Where's Homeland Intervention? While an extremely high-value card, and you certainly could add it, Storm with her Hurricane weather, Surveillance Team and all these allies doesn't need it for solo play. And this is a solo deck. Saving 3 slots on Homeland Intervention lets us bring more allies and doesn't make us so dependent on setting up a SHIELD card, which we can't always do for a couple of turns sometimes!

• Under Surveillance also really helps with going alter-ego when you don't have things set from Global Logistics. And by increasing the amount of threat that can go onto the main scheme, we can get better use from Torrential Rain.

• Weapon X is potentially great here. The problem is you will see more hero cards and less aspect cards, and thus the deck becomes much less about Storm in combination with Global Logistics and more about Storm doing Storm things - in other words, more normal and less unusual. But, for power alone, you could certainly do this and bring in Utopia, Colossus, Forge and so on.

• Against steady/stalwart villains, I recommend you swap out Mockingbird + Dazzler for Agent Coulson + Counterintelligence.

• While the decision behind what weather to swap to should be informed by the board state, what's in your hand, and of course Global Logistics, typically it's my opinion that Thunderstorm is the most valuable (with allies out) and Blizzard is the least valuable. Keep this in mind!

• While you need to weigh up various things each turn (and upgrades take a lot of priority in the early game), if in doubt? A great Storm turn looks like playing one ally, one signature event (ideally discounted with Deft Focus and/or X-Gene), and then whatever else you can afford.

• Global Logistics is one of the highest skill-cap cards in the game (in my opinion). Fortunately, most of the nastiest and weakest encounter cards are obvious, and boost cards are easy to evaluate (low boost icons and no boost effects = good), but sometimes it's not so clear. The more you play it, the better your results will get.

  • If you're wondering why I think it's high skill-cap card? Not only do you have to assess and arrange four different encounter cards into numerous possible variations, or even discard one or two of them, but in the process - for the best decision-making - weigh them all against the strengths of your hero, deck build, the board state, and what cards remaining in your deck (by tracking your discard pile).

Good luck! Don't forget to bring your umbrella!