Friday means article time!! And today we are going to cover a really powerful card that offers some amazing control elements: The Best Defense

1) This card is a 1 resource, red villain card. So per rules of the game, you can only include this in a deck with a red villain character. So what makes this card so great? Well 1 resource is a very affordable cost. In a game where resources are tight and every play matters, having a card be affordable and useful is a strong combinati on. The card effect is very straightforward, deal yourself damage and remove options from the opponent. But underneath the card text lies many options and ways to keep yourself alive and ruin an opponent's day.

I don't think there's much more to say: this card is exceptional. I think it's pretty similar to block and dodge in that you won't always want to play it (have we seen an event yet that you want to play "On curve" to steal a mtg turn?) and that it removes multiple dice and can thus wreck a turn. The key difference is that TBD is more versatile. The 1 cost will also mean that you can play it when you need to more often than block or dodge.

I actually dont particularly care for this card. Its 42% of a Stormtroopers life to remove 2 dice that are probably doing less damage or the same. You pay 1 resource, and take damage probably = to what the dice are showing. it's going to be a rare occasion when you mitigate 6 damage with this card, so rare is magical Christmas land thinking. Your odds of hitting 3x on 2 dice of say...Luke, is 2.78% before re-rolls. Same odds for rolling multiple specials.

This card should cost 0 Resources. The 1 cost can completely wreak any tempo gains for the turn, considering most upgrades, ablilities, and supports cost 2.

In my opinion, This card is borderline unplayable to niche playable. Too many things need to go right for you to gain an advantage out of it, and that's not where you want to be.

I cant imagine a single situation where i would be willing to spend 1 resource to take 3 damage to prevent 4, which would be an above average damage roll. basically its only good when your opponent hits big. I'd rather use Deflect, unpredictable, immobilize, or force throw...

If my opponent were to play this card on me, I would immediately be looking for a way to strip away their resources while still advancing my board position. Thus nullifying a majority of my opponents turn.

The only time it would make sense to play this card is when you need to remove a special that will prevent you from pushing damage through...but again, unpredictable, immobilize, and to a degree force throw are superior. If you are in a position where taking 3 damage for a marginal gain you are likely already winning by a large margin

I actually dont particularly care for this card. Its 42% of a Stormtroopers life to remove 2 dice that are probably doing less damage or the same. You pay 1 resource, and take damage probably = to what the dice are showing. it's going to be a rare occasion when you mitigate 6 damage with this card, so rare is magical Christmas land thinking. Your odds of hitting 3x on 2 dice of say...Luke, is 2.78% before re-rolls. Same odds for rolling multiple specials.

This card should cost 0 Resources. The 1 cost can completely wreak any tempo gains for the turn, considering most upgrades, ablilities, and supports cost 2.

In my opinion, This card is borderline unplayable to niche playable. Too many things need to go right for you to gain an advantage out of it, and that's not where you want to be.

I cant imagine a single situation where i would be willing to spend 1 resource to take 3 damage to prevent 4, which would be an above average damage roll. basically its only good when your opponent hits big. I'd rather use Deflect, unpredictable, immobilize, or force throw...

If my opponent were to play this card on me, I would immediately be looking for a way to strip away their resources while still advancing my board position. Thus nullifying a majority of my opponents turn.

I think the problem is that you're thinking about the card as primarily blocking damage, you're only going to do that in the magical Christmas moments. It's more likely that you'll get rid of one very relevant symbol (specials, multiple discards, exceptional damage rolls) and some damage as gravy. I also think that it's more realistic to think of the usefulness of events weighted above how much they'd do in an average situation since so far most of them are reactive.

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I actually dont particularly care for this card. Its 42% of a Stormtroopers life to remove 2 dice that are probably doing less damage or the same. You pay 1 resource, and take damage probably = to what the dice are showing. it's going to be a rare occasion when you mitigate 6 damage with this card, so rare is magical Christmas land thinking. Your odds of hitting 3x on 2 dice of say...Luke, is 2.78% before re-rolls. Same odds for rolling multiple specials.

This card should cost 0 Resources. The 1 cost can completely wreak any tempo gains for the turn, considering most upgrades, ablilities, and supports cost 2.

In my opinion, This card is borderline unplayable to niche playable. Too many things need to go right for you to gain an advantage out of it, and that's not where you want to be.

I cant imagine a single situation where i would be willing to spend 1 resource to take 3 damage to prevent 4, which would be an above average damage roll. basically its only good when your opponent hits big. I'd rather use Deflect, unpredictable, immobilize, or force throw...

If my opponent were to play this card on me, I would immediately be looking for a way to strip away their resources while still advancing my board position. Thus nullifying a majority of my opponents turn.

I think the problem is that you're thinking about the card as primarily blocking damage, you're only going to do that in the magical Christmas moments. It's more likely that you'll get rid of one very relevant symbol (specials, multiple discards, exceptional damage rolls) and some damage as gravy. I also think that it's more realistic to think of the usefulness of events weighted above how much they'd do in an average situation since so far most of them are reactive.

Again, Immobilize, Unpredictable, Force throw and deflect are all strictly better.

In order to net any gain you still need to hit significantly important dice on powerful cards. The odds are very low that you will get a positive return out of this card unless you are way ahead on board. Or, in magical christmas land moments.

Again, Immobilize, Unpredictable, Force throw and deflect are all strictly better.

In order to net any gain you still need to hit significantly important dice on powerful cards. The odds are very low that you will get a positive return out of this card unless you are way ahead on board. Or, in magical christmas land moments.

None of them are even close to strictly better: Unpredictable only re-rolls, deflect only effects ranged damage, force throw has a 1 in three chance per turn of procing the effect, immobilize allows your opponent to modify the dice again, both of the last two need to be rolled first and all of them only effect one die.

Also even if you're only removing a 1 damage and a 2 damage, dealing three damage to a character of your choice is way better than three to one of their choice, heck sometimes it'll be better than one of their choice.

Again, Immobilize, Unpredictable, Force throw and deflect are all strictly better.

In order to net any gain you still need to hit significantly important dice on powerful cards. The odds are very low that you will get a positive return out of this card unless you are way ahead on board. Or, in magical christmas land moments.

None of them are even close to strictly better: Unpredictable only re-rolls, deflect only effects ranged damage, force throw has a 1 in three chance per turn of procing the effect, immobilize allows your opponent to modify the dice again, both of the last two need to be rolled first and all of them only effect one die.

Also even if you're only removing a 1 damage and a 2 damage, dealing three damage to a character of your choice is way better than three to one of their choice, heck sometimes it'll be better than one of their choice.

paying 3 damage + 1 Resource to mitigate 3 damage puts you in negative board position. Unless you can advance your position via lucky rolls of the dice (resource rolls) Either previous to using this card or post play of this card (still need to roll the dice and get what you want!) you just gave your opponent a chance to play another card with dice, where you cannot likely make that play. more dice = more win. Then you have to continue to get lucky and hope your opponent does not decide to clip your remaining resources in order to prevent you from making a play that nets you tempo. Too many things need to go right for this card to be good. Endless ranks its expensive and really difficult to play if you are hitting your tempo drops every turn. which you should be doing.

If you really just want to redirect damage to your Stormtrooper, play Phasma. She does it better with the Guardian Keyword. it costs no resources and safely eliminates pesky damage dice.

In reference to your counter arguement to cards not being strictly better. I will concede that while causing a reroll over removing it is less powerful, the fact that you do not need to spend a valuable resource to do so makes it much easier to disrupt and less chance to get blown out by not having the resources available to advance your board. I would also like to point out that immobilize and force throw are dice, thus can be used every turn, even if you dont "hit" with them one turn, they will net more use over the course of the game than simply removing 2 dice for a turn.

Also this card is narrow. you need to do it to red chars. Cards like darth vader, luke, Han and Jango(jango can do uncontested blocks of damage that you cant stop) can volley stormtroopers off the field regularly. And with the fact that stormtroopers have inconsistent dice im more than happy to have a suboptimal turn where you spend resources to "fog" me. I will just add to my board position and rinse and repeat.

Actually if im totally wrong about this card, ill come back here and say it. I loved this card in the beginning and wanted to play it...along with let the wookie win, which is also bad. AND, ill play a jango deck because he can literally walk around this card all day.

I may be a bit harsh on this card, it might be better than i think, ill concede that...but currently its not that good

I don't see this card being used often, but when it does it will be a life saver.

This card is like an OH SHOOT BUTTON and will save massive swings from occurring. Sometimes it will be about damage, sometimes it will be other rolls that you can't afford to take. This card will see use with Phasma and two stormtroopers. Endless Ranks and The Best Defense will be staples in this sort of decks.

I am not saying I am a huge fan of it without seeing more cards and actually having them in my hands. However, this card when use at the right time will make people rage and save the day for you.