All Right Everyone… CHILL! Building a Modern Mr. Freeze Team

Joker’s Wild releases tomorrow (thanks to a delay), and although I’m not in love with this set, I’m sure some of you are really excited for it. One of my personal favorite pieces is the Fast Forces Mr. Freeze. Let’s see what we can do with him.

Joker’s Wild is kind of a hodgepodge of ideas all thrown together and it seems like a pretty sloppy set. JSA members that are the pinnacle of specialized dials, Batman enemies with completely different keywords, and a wonky set of chases has left somewhat of a sour taste in people’s mouths, including mine. However, there are some gems in this set as in any other. Although the Super Rare Mr. Freeze in the main set is very good (I can see myself building around him as well), the Fast Forces piece is where it’s at.

Mr. Freeze comes in at 100 points, 6 range double targets, the Batman Enemy team ability, and standard symbols. He’s got 6 clicks of life, and a decent power suite; 8 Running Shot, 10 Special, 18 Willpower, and 3 damage. He later dips into Sidestep, picks up Ranged Combat Expert on clicks 2-4, and has Barrier on his final three clicks. That special attack power, which stays on his entire dial, is what really makes Freeze worth that 100 point investment.

FREEZE RAY: When Mr. Freeze makes a range attack, hit characters are given a Frozen token unless they already have one. Characters with a Frozen token must remove the Frozen token instead of clearing action tokens.

This is kind of like the Super Rare Iceman from Uncanny X-Men, but unlike Bobby and just giving tokens, Victor flat-out stops you from clearing tokens. With his double targets and natural Willpower, that means that every 2 out of 3 turns, Mr. Freeze can effectively stop two targets from clearing. That’s insanely powerful. Now, those characters can still take actions, but if they don’t have Willpower they will push and unless they have Colossal Stamina, they’re going to be limited in what they can do. You’re essentially forcing your targets to halve their up-time.

So looking at Mr. Freeze, what does he need? He does have a glass jaw and once someone gets through that 18 defense which isn’t too difficult, he’s going to die pretty quick. On top of that, his attack values are pretty bad; he keeps the 10 attack for two clicks, then goes to 9 for two more clicks, and has a horrible 8 attack on his final two clicks. That’s his biggest weakness. I think Possession is the way to go with him since they offer a lot of options rather than just a flat defense boost that maybe a Sin would grant. Because he has the Armor keyword and he’s 100 points or less, all four of our modern possessors are viable meaning we can use Eclipso, Brainiac, Jocasta, or Proteus.

Aside from lacking defense powers, we have to deal with his low attack values as a +1 later in the game isn’t going to help when he has a measly 8 attack. Luckily he’s got the Batman Enemy team ability, so we can play off that strength. Unfortunately the Keyword conundrum in this set really makes it borderline impossible to make a theme team utilizing these aspects and getting our full value, so we’ll have to pass this time around.

Let’s take a look at the build.

300 Point Modern Fast Forces Mr. Freeze Build – No Resources

• FFJW 005 Mr. Freeze Possessed by Brainiac | 100 Points + 25 Points
• JW 058 Clayface | 75 Points
• JW 043 Lady Shiva | 50 Points
• SFSM 029 Overdrive | 35 Points
• NFAOS 099 H.E.N.R.Y. | 15 Points
• Build Total: 300 Points

Of the four possessors, I like Brainic and Proteus the best, but Proteus is 10 more points (which you could drop Henry for) and he doesn’t grant any powers which Freeze desperately needs. Looking at Brainiac, he can give us +1 to attack or damage, Pen/Psy, Impervious, Sidestep, or Outwit. I also really like that once he hits click three, he can pick up Brainiac’s special, World Is Running Like Clockwork and remove tokens if you opponent decides to take power actions while being frozen. It’s a nice way to mentally mess with them and basically putting them in the position of “well, I can do something but that means he’ll just freeze me again further locking me down”. Jocasta could work, but she’s just not as powerful as Brainiac in this situation.

Lady Shiva is here for the Batman Enemy team ability. Granting Freeze a 12 attack is simply awesome, and if you use this when Freeze is lower in health and he picks a +1 to his attack value from Brainiac, he’ll end up with a 13 attack since the +1 from possession is based on his printed value. That’s pretty awesome. Lady Shiva isn’t bad by any means; she’s actually quite deadly. With her Flurry and Precision Strike, she can dish quite a lot of damage for 50 points, and her 12 attack makes sure she’s pretty much guaranteed to hit. Plus, she gets to keep 1 die roll from the first attack of Flurry which means she has a slightly better chance of a critical hit on the second attack. I also really like that she effectively Outsiders adjacent opposing characters when they make a close attack as well. She’s a great Batman Enemy character for only 50 points. Too bad her keywords don’t play nice.

Clayface is here to serve two rolls. First, he’s your tank and he can absorb damage better than a lot of pieces today. He’s a tad overcosted for my liking with his mid dial weak attack values and low movement combined with no Shape Change (are you serious?! How does Clayface NOT get Shape Change?! Ugh.) but with a full dial of Plasticity, he also serves as a way to keep people from getting to Mr. Freeze. Combined with Possession, this makes it incredibly hard to get to our main attacker and stop the everlasting freeze markers. Also, he synergizes really well with Freeze in that if he hands his attack value to Lady Shiva, or hits by himself, he puts his Mud marker in the square the opponent is in and if they’re still there at the end of their turn, they take 1 damage. Because Freeze will continually lock them down and Clayface has Plasticity, you’re pretty much getting a free 1 damage every single turn. Since Freeze can get Outwit from Brainiac, you can ensure that their damage reducer won’t make a difference as well.

Overdrive and Henry are the only non-DC characters here. Overdrive is just a monster transporter. If we had 5 more points, I would have opted for TMNT2 Renet Tilley as we’re lacking prob, but this guy works, especially with his Empower for both Clayface and Lady Shiva. Henry can either hitch a ride and chill with Lady Shiva and Clayface to grant even more damage (4 damage Flurry, that works for 50 points!), or Freeze can carry him around during Running Shot to stack his damage to a 4 (or 5 if he takes a +1 from Brainiac).

Alright, how about a larger build with Resources? I can do that!
(This won’t be ultra competitive. More along the lines of fun anti-Batman)

400 Point Modern Fast Forces Mr. Freeze Build

• JWFF 005 Mr. Freeze Possessed by Brainiac | 100 Points + 25 Points
• JW 063 Bizarro Joker | | 45 Points
• TMNT2 029 Renet Tilley | 55 Points
• JW 043 Lady Shiva | 50 Points
  
• JW 050 The Penguin | 40 Points
• JW 060E The Joker + Supreme Intelligence Resource | 50 Points + 12 Points
• SMWW G001P The Atom | 15 Points
• Build Total: 392 Points

So most of this team is the same as the 300 point build: I really like Lady Shiva to help Mr. Freeze, so I’ll stick with them. Let’s talk about the new additions.

Bizarro Joker is a really nice tie-up piece and although he doesn’t do quite the job with the mud marker that Clayface can accomplish, he’s really tough to kill with his reverse poison and two stop clicks.

Renet Tilley is just the best taxi you can get these days. Adding in board-wide Prob is insane and easily accounts for the loss in damage from Overdrive + Henry. Pretty self-explanatory as to why she’s included as we don’t have any flight or TK.

The Penguin is a really great piece, and although he’s not quite Devil Dinosaur, his ability to pop out beefy penguins is quite good. I also like that he has 18 Defend which can help injured teammates stay alive. The real reason why he’s so great on this team is that much like Devil, his Penguins will clog the map and make it really tough to maneuver around. With Clayface hanging out with the group as well, you’re making it even more difficult to get to Freeze. Plus, the Penguins are tiny size, so they don’t block line of fire for Freeze. It’s not like the Penguins are slouches either; their power suites are actually quite god, and Penguin can always make one of them ‘super’, getting +1 to all combat values. Time for some Pulse Wave!

The big addition here is The Joker. In my review of the set (coming soon!), I’ll talk about this Joker and why I think he’s probably the best piece in the set, so hang tight. If you aren’t familiar with him, you’ll want to see what he does for yourself which you can do here. Essentially, you have 30 clicks of health for only 50 points and no KO clicks. When he’s equipped with the Supreme Intelligence, this gives your opponent a clock. If they can’t kill The Joker faster than he can spin the Supreme Intelligence dial, you are going to get a 900 point death machine and win the game. This gives us an alternate win if they manage to get through our barricades and actually KO Freeze. Plus, he’s a godlike tie-up piece since he just has so. many. clicks of health. Again, I’ll dive into this guy a bit more in my review of the set and you can guarantee I’ll be making a competitive build around this guy.

Lastly, I’ve talked about The Atom at great lengths before, so he’s a solid investment for 15 points. You could opt for Henry, but I like hitting back if they mess with either Joker.

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That wraps up the first Joker’s Wild article here on Clix Fix! I hope you liked it. Let me know what your thoughts are on the Fast Forces Mr. Freeze. What have you thought about pairing with him? Are you gonna play dirty and play him with Super Rare Iceman for extreme harassment, or did you think of something else to make him pop?

I should have a new article coming up on Majestix soon, and Clix Fix is also now on Twitter! You can find me @ClixFix, and make sure you hashtag #ClixFix! See you guys later this week.

EDIT: Comments have been disabled on this article. I’ve said my peace. This has gone from a friendly discussion to something I don’t wish to share any longer. Please, if you’re going to comment, do it nicely. Thank you.