Welcome to Sentinels Spotlight! This series’ goal is to explore each of the unique decks available for play in Greater Than Games’ cooperative superhero card game, Sentinels of the Multiverse. This series will strive to introduce you to the hero, and then give you an overview on their deck – what it is made up of and some basic strategies so that you may sit down at the table and choose the deck that is the best fit for your play style.
Ryan Frost was a simple janitor at a cryogenics lab until a lab explosion caused his body temperature to plummet to zero degrees Kelvin. His body was frozen cryogenically to save his life. Years later, his body was claimed and operated on by Dr. Meredith Stinson, better known as Tachyon, and for the first time in over a decade he regained consciousness. Given the choice between living the rest of his life in a cryo chamber or join the Freedom Five as Absolute Zero…well, there wasn’t really a choice. So now he fights the good fight to pay off the suit that allows him to function “normally.”
Absolute Zero is a curious deck, and is very high risk. He is the only hero in the base set to carry a Complexity Rating of 3, and is based around the duality of fire and cold. His basic power Thermodynamics allows him to deal himself either 1 cold damage or 1 fire damage, which seems a decidedly odd power. Why deal yourself damage when there are plenty of villain cards that are willing to do that for you? Well, that’s where the rest of his deck comes in.
The two biggest stars in Absolute Zero’s deck are his two Module Equipment cards, the Isothermic Transducer and the Null-Point Calibration Unit. The former allows him to deal an equal amount of cold damage to a target whenever he takes fire damage. The latter allows him to heal HP instead of losing it when he takes cold damage. He has several methods for getting these cards into play. Onboard Module Installation allows him to pull one module into his hand from his deck as well as getting a free draw before searching through the deck. Modular Realignment instead allows him to pull any piece of equipment from his trash in exchange for taking a single point of fire and cold damage. This card also gives you the decision as to whether or not you want to put the card into play, or into your hand. With four copies of each of those cards in the deck, you should never be wanting for having your modules in play with backups ready to be played should they be needed.
Absolute Zero carries several other pieces of equipment in his deck. Focused Apertures increase the cold damage he deals by 1. This includes damage he deals himself, which pairs very well with the Null-Point Calibration Unit when he uses his Thermodynamics power to deal himself cold damage as well as a number of his other cards in his deck that give him the ability to deal cold damage. His other equipment, Cryo Chamber is quite interesting in that it increases cold damage he takes by 1, decreases fire damage he takes by 1, and gives him a power that allows him to deal himself 5 fire damage and destroys the card. Again, this pairs very nicely with both of his modules. He can quickly heal himself back up from any damage he’s taken, and then pop the Cryo Chamber and drop the power to deal some fairly decent damage to another target.
As far as one-shot effects, Absolute Zero doesn’t have many, but the ones he does have are doozies. Hoarfire allows him to deal two separate targets 2 points of fire and cold damage respectively in turn for taking 1 cold and 1 fire damage himself, which is pretty negligible if he has the proper equipment out. Frost Bound Drain is pretty straightforward, allowing him to deal a target 3 cold damage in turn for taking 3 fire damage, which can quickly turn into double that cold damage to a target with the Isothermic Transducer module on the table. Finally, Fueled Freeze allows him to destroy up to three ongoing cards, and deal each non-hero target cold damage equal to the number of ongoing cards destroyed this way. This can be a huge advantage against villains or environments that rely on a lot of ongoing effects.
Finally, for ongoing cards, he has several that give him additional powers to play with. Glacial Structure gives him a free draw of three cards for his power, which destroys the card. Thermal Shockwave allows him to deal up to three targets 1 cold damage in exchange for Absolute Zero taking an equal amount of fire damage, which can then translate into more cold damage being dealt out when properly equipped. Coolant Blast allows him deal one target cold damage equal to the amount of fire damage he has taken since the end of his last turn. Cold Snap is very simple, allowing him to deal each non-hero target 1 point of cold damage at the start of the turn. Impale targets a non-hero target and continually deals them 2 points of cold damage at the start of Absolute Zero’s turn. Finally Sub-Zero Atmosphere causes any villain cards that would act at the beginning of the villain turn to act at the end of the turn instead. It’s very situational, but can really flip the dynamic of a villain’s turn.
If Absolute Zero is ever knocked out of the game, he becomes a very strong support player. On your turn you can either allow another hero to use a power, increase the next damage dealt by a hero of your choice by 2, or destroy a target with 1 HP. None of these are bad choices and each of them is very useful in any number of ways.
As you can see, Absolute Zero is very dependent on his equipment and can be very slow to get going. Villains that get their jollies by destroying equipment cards. like Omnitron. can really put the brakes on his deck, and put them on hard. There are a number of ways that you can mitigate the damage this can cause through pulling backups into your hand early or bringing them back into play after they have been destroyed, but it’s still several turns sunk into rebuilding your efficacy.
The duality of the damage types in his deck leads to some very interesting combinations. If he is able to get both of his equipment modules and a Cryo Chamber on the table, he can put out some very respectable damage with some of his one shots with minimal risk to himself. In fact, he will probably gain HP from many of the cards that cause him to take cold damage. The Thermodynamics power maintains functional use through the game, because Absolute Zero can use his equipment cards to stack the amount of cold damage he deals and thus, the amount of HP he can heal with the Null-Point Calibration Unit on the table. With that, Focused Apertures, and Cryo Chamber, on the table, he is capable of healing himself for 3 HP every turn, which can really mitigate a lot of damage, both from his own cards as well as from enemies. His deck is actually one of the few ones that I would say I haven’t played effectively, but I can see the beauty in the deck design. The risk is great, but so is the reward.
All in all, Absolute Zero is not a deck that you want to start with. However, if you’re up for a bit of a challenge and are comfortable with the high risk/high reward play style, he can be a lot of fun once he gets up and running. Just make sure you can keep your equipment out or you will find your effectiveness cut pretty dramatically for several turns as you race to get things set back up.
Absolute Zero appears in the base set of the game. However his nemesis, Proletariat doesn’t. He appears in the Vengeance expansion, which introduces special rules for fighting the villains contained inside as a team and thus, is not available to fight on his own.
Absolute Zero Deck List
Cold Snap x2
Coolant Blast x2
Cryo Chamber x2
Focused Apertures x3
Frost Bound Drain x3
Fueled Freeze x2
Glacial Structure x2
Hoarfire x2
Impale x2
Isothermic Transducer x4
Modular Realignment x4
Null-Point Calibration Unit x4
Onboard Module Installation x4
Sub-Zero Atmosphere x2
Thermal Shockwave x2
I hope you enjoyed your look at Absolute Zero! Join us next time as we take a look at another Complexity Rating 3 hero – The Argent Adept.
Ben Erickson
Absolute Zero is my absolute least favorite hero in that game. I’m typically not a fan of self-harming heroes, but I find Abs’s specific schtick particularly obnoxious — the other heroes that hurt themselves regularly (such as Setback and Nightmist) at least have a default benefit to doing so and a default power that does something useful; Abs has to have equipment out before he can do literally anything.
I’m a little less annoyed by his ‘dark future’ promo card version, which replaces Thermodynamics (the one that hits himself for either cold or fire) with a direct attack power that deals 2 damage. That removes his most reliable self-heal, but gives him a reliable attack (and one that doesn’t hurt himself to use, which is nice).
It’s worth mentioning that Zero pairs really well with Visionary, specifically her Twist The Aether card. You tag that card onto a target, and convert any damage that target deals into a damage type of your choosing. So long as Zero is wearing his Null Point Calibration Unit, you can have the villain card throwing cold damage at him, which only makes him stronger.
Team ups are something I didn’t think of when writing this first one. I’ll have to keep that in mind for future ones. Thanks for that idea.
And I do agree. He’s really janky. If you’re not getting a good draw, or you’re facing an opponent who is constantly capable of destroying equipment *cough*Omnitron*cough* he can be really frustrating really quickly having to set and reset. He’s one of those decks that I only play if the mood really strikes me and if I’m not controlling any other heroes. He demands my full attention, more so than some of the other Complexity 3 heroes. But I can see what they’re going for with the design.