Protection
Support

Condition.

Cost: 1.
Resource:

Max 2 per deck. Uses (2 training counters).

Alter-Ego Action: Exhaust this card and remove 1 training counter from this → choose a Protection (green) event in your discard pile and shuffle it into your deck.

Nebula #34.
Defensive Training
Reviews

Defensive Training is kind of an odd card. For a cost of 2 (one card, one resource) you...tweak the contents of your deck and discard pile. You aren't making progress towards winning, you aren't preventing yourself from losing, you aren't even changing your options in hand this turn. You're essentially giving yourself the opportunity to draw a different card later, for an upfront cost of resources. You better make sure you really want that card! Also, note that it only gets Protection events back into your deck, so no Crosscounter recovery...at least not directly...

Use cases (ideally you'll fit multiple of these):

  • if your deck has fewer cards remaining than your hand size, you can guarantee you'll draw the card in your next hand.
  • if your deck is empty of a particular type of card, you can give yourself a chance to draw it that you otherwise wouldn't have until you reshuffled your deck. Say you know you're out of attacks - you can shuffle attacks back in, so you a chance to draw them.
  • if there's a specific card you like so much you wish you could have it more often. Tackle might be good enough, particularly solo. Spider-Woman's Contaminant Immunity is also pretty sweet. I really like Preemptive Strike and am happy to pay an extra 1 for it.
  • shuffling cards from the bottom of your deck back up where you can get them sooner: Aamir Khan
  • shuffling cards you don't want away from the top of your deck: Peter Quill or Gamora
  • adjusting the contents of your discard pile. Remember I said you couldn't get your Crosscounters back? Well, maybe if you get your other Protection attacks and thwarts out of the way, you can get Crosscounter back with Conditioning Room a little sooner

Overall, I'd say this doesn't go in every deck, but there are good homes for it.

Fry · 254
One huge problem with Defensive Training is that many Green events are intended to be played during the villain phase, while you're in Hero mode. This means that on the turn you flip down to alter-ego, you actually don't want to shuffle in a Preemptive Strike, because it will be a dead draw if you hit it immediately. If you trigger this only on your alter-ego -> hero turns, you need 2 full cycles to get full value, and many green decks will avoid flipping more than once or twice per game anyway, — OrionJA · 8
On top of some of Spider-Woman's trait specific character cards being very strong, the card also acts as a Morale Boost and fills your deck up with even more aspect cards per shuffle. The training cards, while niche otherwise, can somewhat easily find a spot in many Spider-Woman decks. — DummyQt · 1