I know exactly how this card started.

Wolverine drew a card whenever he took damage. But then they realized in playtesting that Wolverine's Claws became broken when combined with this card, so they nerfed it to only respond to enemy attacks. They were right, but I really want to play a few games with that prototype Wolverine. Or Weapon-X, I suppose.

They went an extra step in nerfing this card by making you discard when you go to alter-ego.

Of course, the challenge with Wolverine is doing everything to stay in Hero mode so you can slice and dice. This card assists, but in a way that makes it a secondary concern. When a resource can be lost at a moment's notice, you tend to lean on the more permanent upgrades.

That they put two of them in the deck shows that they meant for this upgrade to be available, but not common. While that's an interesting design problem with a specialized solution, it presents small but meaningful obstacles in deck building.

Essentially, you can build around this card and it will reap rewards. But not blatantly, and only so long as you also build around Wolverine's other strengths.

I guess I am up against a personal preference here. I don't like the idea of an upgrade that disappears when you have to take a defensive position. I'm not saying it's not a good card. It's a great card. But I can't get enthusiastic about a card that disappears whenever you engage in a normal gametime behavior.

Sure, there are defense cards that trigger when you take an action, but that is their point. If there was an additional benefit to this card that triggered when it was discarded, I would probably be more enamored.

As it is, I always feel like playing this card puts me on a timer, and I hate that feeling.

But that's just me.