The obvious use for this is helping to block teammates in multiplayer, but it's incredible even in single-player, letting you ignore minions and extra attacks. Including those triggered by Taunts.
And funny enough, you don't even need to block the attacker. You can use this on a Pinned Down minion to ready, and then take the no damage from the attack.
IMO, this is a better card for ally-less Protection builds than Ronin.
The first Starting Card.
While not relevant yet, it should be noted that you can only have one starting card in your deck. We'll soon get more starting cards in other aspects, which will make this rule relevant to Spider-Woman and Adam Warlock who can naturally use multiple aspects.
Now, this card is an Armored Vest that starts in your hand. If we're comparing this card to anything, it's to that.
Most of the time, if a deck was going to have Armored Vest, you'll want this instead of or in addition to the Vest. But it's also not strictly better.
The added consistency is a curse as much as a blessing. Yes, you get to draw it on the first turn. But then you practically have to play it on the first turn, as it provides no resources to pay for other cards. If this is in your deck, 2-ER from the first turn is probably going to go to playing this. Did you draw other cards you'd rather play instead? Tough.
Okay, that's actually not completely true. If you draw better cards you'd rather play instead on the first draw, you can discard this with your mulligan without losing resources. But that decision has to be made before your mulligan. No resources immediately lost. If you mulligan and THEN draw the cards you'd rather play instead, you're locked into this.
The question with this card ends up being... is it better than any other cards I might draw on turn 1? Is the guaranteed consistency worth the added pressure to play it immediately?
In decks built around having the defense stat high, I would easily say it is. But if the defense stat isn't the biggest priority in the deck, it might be an inferior option to Armored Vest.
Another thing that's less relevant is that you can't equip other heroes in multiplayer with it like you can the Vest, but that's a very niche case.
This comparison is a bit of a moot point though because I think most decks that want Armored Vest will want this too. And probably Defensive Conditioning on top of that. Together, that's +3 DEF, making you practically impervious to damage. If you're using the new allyless archetype with Ronin, it's +4.
And that's actually the real value of this card. Not getting to start with Armored Vest in your hand, but getting a SECOND Armored Vest to attach to yourself in decks that were already using Armored Vest.
Daredevil likes this (Cyclops too of course). With honed Technique 10 for 4 ER is crazy. Potentially a really good card now. Especially with daredevil being able to attach his upgrades on the villain
not a review but a note. I was playing red skull and this was the only side scheme in play (via the main scheme causing it to be displayed after part 1 of the villain phase). Then my encounter card was masterplan, placing 4 threat on all side schemes in play or else surge. I got to put 4 threat on this side scheme and it was meaningless, because this side scheme doesn't go away at 0 threat anyway.
If masterplan had wording like "place 4 threat on all side schemes that can receive threat, or else surge" then surge would have occurred. But it didn't, so I got a nice little break :)
