Let's kick off the Next Evolution reviews with perhaps the most broken of the bunch. It is so hard to overstate the value of something like this that no matter how powerful it is in play, comes in for free. We're talking Weapon X, we're talking Call for Aid, we're talking Gamora, we're talking No Quarter. And with Star-Lord or Domino as your hero, you can put White Fox right on top of your deck from your hand before your discard effect. With this and Digging Deep, we have a basic aspect package of cards that can go in tons of different decks and provide free value. I'm absolutely floored by this card and excited to see all the creative ways people will build around it.

Anyone know if this works like shrink/embiggen so multitasking would do 3 from 2 schemes?

200 characters 200 characters 200 characters 200 characters 200 characters 200 characters 200 characters 200 characters

In order to properly assess the potency of a card like this one needs to really take a good look at the section of the rulebook that covers forms. What is a form? When does one change a form? And so on. Therefore, before I get into the nitty gritty of this particular card it is worth listing the various different types of forms that we have in the game right now:

◉ Alter-Ego - Every hero (currently) has one of these

◉ Hero - The opposite side of the Identity card

◉ Ant-Man (Giant)/(Tiny) - Hero forms reward swapping back and forth between them

◉ Spectrum (Gamma)/(Photon)/(Pulsar) - She also has several efficient cards that let her change forms

◉ Shadowcat (Phased)/(Solid) - A core gimmick for this hero, with many hero aspect cards that let her change form, including a once per turn action with no card cost

◉ Vision (Intangible)/(Dense) - Same situation as Shadowcat

◉ Wasp (Giant)/(Tiny) - Hero forms reward swapping back and forth, but Wasp also benefits a lot from Alter-Ego form.

With this listed we can see that the main two areas this card can be effectively utilised is specific heroes who have Forms as a part of their innate kit; which we will go into with a little detail later on; and Identities who switch from Alter-Ego ↭ Hero a lot (and even then you only do it when you are going from Alter-Ego ➔ Hero because this is a Hero Response. However, that second category of Identity switching heroes are overall less efficient than Heroes with Form switching because Protection is an Aspect that often wants you to get into hero form and stick there for as long as possible. There are some Hero cards that do let you switch up from Alter-Ego ➔ Hero and there is of course also Colossus who has Tough status cards as an integral part of his design (and loves defending instead of losing Tough) so it is not always clear cut, it depends how much the deck you are building values suiting up with an immediate Toughness in exchange for 2 cards.

With all of that written I think we can see that this card has a limited number of heroes where it can function in enough of a useful fashion; Wasp, Ant-Man, Vision, Spectrum, Shadowcat and Colossus being the front runners due to high synergies. One can also consider it in Groot because Tough has been updated to take priority over his Growth counters but it is also worth mentioning that She-Hulk has some innate form switching cards and likes to flip back and forth a lot.

This card is certainly not a generic staple; especially because using with heroes who only form switch on their natural "suit up" flip is a tall ask if you do not have some specific goal in mind for that Toughness. So outside of the heroes listed above (and any future Form switching/Toughness synergy heroes/strategies) I think you can leave this one in the box and choose other methods to tank/avoid damage in Protection.

This is a poor card that I don't anticipate ever putting in a deck. Between tough, allies, and stun, there are plenty of better ways to prevent damage, and those all come in at more efficient costs. I'd even probably play Defensive Stance before this because being an upgrade is so much better than being an event that you have to draw at the perfect time. This isn't even a defense event, which would enable some combos like Jocasta or Defensive Energy, so I have a hard time finding the protection deck that wants this. The most popular decks on this website that use Deflection are Adam Warlock decks that use it to help fill the discard. I can respect that. But I would say the average deck should not be playing this card.

When you add up all the value Martyr gives you - 4 damage and 3 blocks - it's a phenomenal card. The problem is she's a little slow and situational, especially in comparison to some of the great options in the same aspect like Iron Fist, Polaris, and Luke Cage. Each of these gives you about the same value but without any extra work. The Guardian trait is fine, and you can definitely build a Knowhere protection deck or go multiplayer with Blaze of Glory. Considering other options, especially if you are doing an Avengers or X-Men trait deck, Martyr rarely makes the cut for me, but if your collection is limited or you just want to try someone new, you could certainly do much worse.