One of the best 'Hero Ability on an Upgrade' type cards in the game.

You need to appreciate just how absurdly powerful Secret Agent is. It is a better hero ability on a card. Remember, a point of threat removal > a point of damage, generally speaking. Not even taking into consideration that the removed threat is added to the suit form upgrade which can then generate even moar value.

Put it another way. If you can trigger 2 PREPARATION cards in a round - very much achievable especially with Practiced Plan - it is basically the same as generating a 'free' thwart activation with Maria Hill. Except even better because you can split the 2 points of threat removal on 2 schemes.

What makes Secret Agent even better is that you don't need to hard mulligan for it - Fury has other higher priority cards to get into play like Fury's Flying Car and Fury's Watch. In fact, drawing Secret Agent in your opening hand might not be the best. The ideal playstyle is to set-up a bunch of PREPARATION cards and have them sit there until you play Secret Agent, and then you start firing off each of your PREPARATION cards for immense value.

I have heard people saying Secret Agent isn't that good, but people need to wake up and start leaning into this card more, because it is insanely good. By mid to late game, I don't even need to thwart anymore and I typically play Aggression.

The best encounter card negation in the entire game.

1) It is a 0 cost card. 2) You can set it in advance and trigger it when you need to. 3) Preparation Synergies particularly with Practiced Plan.

Sure, Spider-Ham can negate any encounter card rather than only Treacheries, but most of the time, you want to be stopping Treacheries, they are the game enders really. Spider-ham and most other Encounter Card negatations are events and therefore have to be drawn at the right time, or held onto, reducing the overall efficiency of each turn the card is held onto for.

Intelligence Analysis only really fails when you have no threat on your suit form upgrade - particularly if you get combo'd with Discovered when having multiple encounter cards to resolve.

I am absolutely in love with this card. Fantastic for Ghost Spider. Attack for a base of 2, us this to increase to 8, ready up and attack again. At least 10 damage done. Yes please. You can easily build a deck around this card too. Other heros would like it as well, such as Quicksilver or Wasp to name a couple.

Others have pointed out this card's inherent clunkiness and I'm certainly not going to argue against that. It's definitely a weird card, but it has some some surprising flexibility, too. It's an interrupt, and not specifically a hero or AE interrupt, so it has some extra value with heroes that like to flip a lot and get allies on the table. X-Men and Guardians both have cards that encourage ally swarms/mini-voltrons even in aggression and Gatekeeper can be nice for letting your beefed up allies contribute to thwarting while keeping the table clear of minions. I know some earlier reviews compared this to Chase Them Down but I think there's a better comparison to be made with War Room. War Room has more flexible scheme targets, but Gatekeeper can be triggered by any hero or ally and it removes a much higher threat value (albeit only from the main scheme).

Others mentioned that it potentially has more value in multiplayer and I think this is where the card really shines. It's a great "side board" card. A dedicated thwarter will make this card obsolete, but 5+ years into the game, not every justice player wants to be a dedicated thwarter. A copy of this card in your deck can contribute to keeping threat low with a wider variety of other decks in multiplayer. Hard to recommend building a deck around this card, but it can be a decent flex option.

One of the best cards in the game. 1 ER for a completely blocked attack is bonkers. Ronan attacking for 7+? No problem, just throw this card down and get out of the way. Spider-Man also gets to draw a card when being attacked so his hand size will remain at 5 when playing this card.

Rating: S (S-D)