This is a very small thing, but I wish the action was an attack so it would trigger Bucky's ability for killing minions. Instead, you get an unfortunate anti-synergy where using this to kill minions misses Bucky's ability completely.

That's not to say you shouldn't use it as Bucky though. After all, it can bring down a minion with 5-8 HP so a basic attack from Bucky can finish it off. But it's not quite as consistent as it could be.

Besides that, this is a pretty good card. The initial play to get Captain America's Shield is going to be 3 ER in total. That's between playing this, paying a physical resources, and paying another resources to play the Shield.

For that 3 ER, what you get is:

• +1 DEF
• 1 Retaliate
• The ability to pay 2-ER to deal 4 damage once per turn for the rest of the game.

The last thing does requite a physical resource, but you're playing Leadership which means you better be playing Clarity of Purpose. This should be no problem to fulfill consistently.

3-ER would justify the first two abilities alone, being only 1-ER more than Ronin while letting you have allies. It would also justify the third ability alone because 4 damage every turn trivializes minions for the rest of the game. The fact that you get all these abilities is just a nice bonus.

The weird thing about it is that it's not a very leadership card, and therefore doesn't play well with most Leadership things. If you think about it, this is a Protection card tacked on to an Aggression card, only in Leadership for thematic reasons.

2 thwart with no consequential damage? I don't think we've seen anything like that before. That more than makes up for the acceleration token because you can alternate thwarting the main scheme and thwarting (or attacking) something else every other turn. And him being able to find Dagger (and her turning off Cloak's downside) is just a bonus. I guess whether or not this sees play is a good test of "will people use allies just for their stats."

I don't think this card is playable by any stretch. Sure it costs 0 and can be used on any player even if you're in hero form, but it's still 1 card, and 1 card can do so much more than prevent 1 damage.

And with this, Victor Mancha is officially obsolete!

As long as your hero has at least 2 DEF, she can block most minions. But she obviously shines with even higher DEF. Build up your DEF enough, and she can start safely blocking the villain attacks. Obvious cards to include with her are Armored Vest, Defensive Conditioning and Innate Reflexes. Once she has 5-6 DEF, it will be extremely hard for the villain to damage her.

Use her with Hangar Bay to block multiple attacks each turn. Once you have your DEF maxed out, she can help you block for the table in multiplayer.

The only problem I see is that she has a weird anti-synergy with a lot of Protection decks in solo. If you're playing Protection and building your DEF, you usually want to take advantage of Unflappable for its card draw, but that's going to be harder if you're using Echo to block for you.

• Restricted. May mess with some heroes' space for weapons, and with Sonic Rifle.
• • Can be stored for when its needed, yet restricted has to be taken into account
• ITEM instead of WEAPON, can be grabbed with jubilee's Shopping Spree
• 3ER for a +1 THW, but most importantly, an emergency thwart that ignores Patrol/Crisis
• Sinergy with cards that requires you to do a basic thwart (like Making an Entrance and Justice Served)

All that considered, its still 3ER. Assuming a base 2THW, this is a save-for-later 3THW (which is in be lower middle part of the cost efficiency for thwarts). However, with having a base 3 or 4 Thwart (Innate Perception, Heroic Conditioning), this cards becomes an expensive but worthy asset, if the above conditions dont mess with your deck and with your hero.