Love at Frostbite

LOVE AT FROSTBITE

For those who may think this title sounds familiar, this name would be reminiscent of the 1979 horror-comedy (horedy?) Love at First Bite.

Initial Goal of the deck: Iceman loves Frostbite, and the goal of this deck is to pile them onto enemies and/or disable those enemies such that activations are prevented or relatively ineffective.

VILLAINS TESTED AGAINST: Klaw (1 game in standard; 1 in expert) Project Wide Awake (1 game in standard/1 game in expert), and Magneto (1 game in standard/3 games in expert).

Results: 6 victories in the 7 games (1 of the 3 expert battles against Magneto was a loss).

NOTABLE ELEMENTS OF PLAY:

Keep Things Frosty for the Villain: The cards that help accomplish this goal in relation to incapacitating the villain include Frozen Solid, Upside the Head, Ice Wall, and Professor X. In addition, all of Iceman's identity-specific events, along, with his own attack ability, contribute to diminishing the villain's attacking and scheming, sometimes to the point of being completely ineffectual.

Consistent Card Draw: Clear the Area, One Way or Another, Skilled Investigator, Cryokinetic Perception, and Nick Fury combine for 8 opportunities for card draw, which is increased further once Utopia is in play and the X-Men allies add 7 more potential opportunities. As the supports and upgrades enter play, these odds just increase. Once a number of these are in play, his resource and draw engine is up and running, and Iceman and his team can begin hammering away at the villain with consistent damage, while maintaining control of the minions and side schemes with cheaply available thwart events and allies. At times, minions are left in play temporarily with a Frostbite or two attached to be dealt with later.

Building the Engine: The Power in All of Us and the Player Side Schemes help ensure this engine gets up and running with relatively little slowing of tempo, with The Power in All of Us continuing to facilitate play of the allies throughout the game. Every once in a while, when the Player Side Schemes have to be dumped the first time through the deck, Build Support is still able to bring in any missing support, while Superpower Training can even graph Frozen Solid, still very strong plays at any point of the game.

For some villains, the control was absolute, with Iceman being able to flip to Alter-Ego almost at will to also take advantage of the added card draw from his Alter-Ego hand size of 6 cards. For a villain such as Magneto, this was true once when his starting side schemes were eliminated quickly, and he had Physical Strain attached to him by the end of the second round. Other times, Iceman had to remain in hero form almost the entire game, and one time, there was just no containing Magneto. Overall, though, this is a fun deck for incapacitating villains with Iceman's Love at Frostbite. Be prepared, though, for the reality against some villains perfectly stated by the vampire character in Love at First Bite: "Never a quickie; always a longie." :-)