I would like to hear your opinion about this card.

So far I find it quite bad. Four resources is very expensive for a hero who has a hand size of only 4. Additionally, in order to be comparable to other damage-dealing hero signature abilities (Photonic blast, Swinging web kick or Supersonic Punch) you need to have suffered 10 - 11 damage, which makes it a very situational card.

May be in the future there will be cards that increase the health pool of the here, may be then....?

It’s a pretty key card for her. Don’t use it until you’re ready to do a big hit. In solo, it’s generally ending the game. In multiplayer, get someone to cover for you.

The hand size thing doesn’t hugely matter - She-Hulk flips more than any other character in the core set, so you’ll often be coming in from Jennifer Walters hand size anyway. You’ll also be using it later in the game where you’ll have access to things like Helicarrier, Avengers Mansion and (Most Importantly) Focused Rage. Focused Rage doesn’t just draw you a card, it also fine tunes your hit.

10 minutes ago, Yepesnopes said:

I would like to hear your opinion about this card.

So far I find it quite bad. Four resources is very expensive for a hero who has a hand size of only 4. Additionally, in order to be comparable to other damage-dealing hero signature abilities (Photonic blast, Swinging web kick or Supersonic Punch) you need to have suffered 10 - 11 damage, which makes it a very situational card.

May be in the future there will be cards that increase the health pool of the here, may be then....?

I routinely get 12-13 points on it; it’s a great finishing move once your board is established. (Helicarrier + Avenger’s Mansion + 2x Focused Rage pays for it automatically; and the Focused Rages let you drop down to spike the damage).

FearLord nailed it

It’s a great card, however, being only 1 of, is it’s biggest problem, especially bad if you draw it in your opening hand. But yes, it can work out as the coup de grace, to finish off a villain.

I prefer energy channel.

I nuked Standard Ultron with a 14 point Gamma Slam tonight, I only had a threat till he won on his stage 3 scheme too, pretty intense. However, I find I have to really be patient about playing this card. It is expensive, and if used too early, and not to finish off the big bad, I would have been better off taking a more conservative turn. I do really push the limits with Focused Rage too though.

I think Focused Rage is an awesome card for She-Hulk, but I am not sold to the arguments for Gamma Slam, 1 copy, cost 4 you need to be below 4 health...

How it compares

Gamma Slam: Damage equal to damage on She-Hulk. Costs 4 resources. She-Hulk needs to be damaged. 1 Copy

Photonic blast: 5 damage. Cost 2 effective resources. No condition required. 3 copies. (2.5 damage x resource)

Swinging web kick: 8 damage. Cost 3 resources. No condition required. 3 copies. (2.67 damage x resource)

Supersonic Punch: 8 damage. Cost 3 resources. Requires Rocket Boots. 2 copies. (2.67 damage x resource)

Energy Channel: 10 damage. Cost 5 resources. Requires potentially more than 1 turn of play. 2 copies. (2 damage x resource)

Repulsor Blast: 1 - 11 Damage. Cost 1 resource. No condition required. 3 copies. (1 - 11 damage x resource)

To me the worst of the Gamma Slam card is the condition. You need to be very damaged to make it worth it. With 8 wounds it becomes 2 damage per resource, matching Energy Channel (but this one does not required your hero to be damaged). In order to match swinging web kick or Supersonic Punch resource efficiency you need 11 wounds, but again, those cards do not require your hero to be damaged. Gamma Slam mathces the She-Hulk game style (Focused Rage), yet I find it very situational. How many times is it going to happen per game? Once? maximum 2 in a long game?

In any case, I for sure need to play more with her, I have only played 4 games with She-Hulk.

32 minutes ago, Yepesnopes said:

I think Focused Rage is an awesome card for She-Hulk, but I am not sold to the arguments for Gamma Slam, 1 copy, cost 4 you need to be below 4 health...

How it compares

Gamma Slam: Damage equal to damage on She-Hulk. Costs 4 resources. She-Hulk needs to be damaged. 1 Copy

Photonic blast: 5 damage. Cost 2 effective resources. No condition required. 3 copies. (2.5 damage x resource)

Swinging web kick: 8 damage. Cost 3 resources. No condition required. 3 copies. (2.67 damage x resource)

Supersonic Punch: 8 damage. Cost 3 resources. Requires Rocket Boots. 2 copies. (2.67 damage x resource)

Energy Channel: 10 damage. Cost 5 resources. Requires potentially more than 1 turn of play. 2 copies. (2 damage x resource)

Repulsor Blast: 1 - 11 Damage. Cost 1 resource. No condition required. 3 copies. (1 - 11 damage x resource)

To me the worst of the Gamma Slam card is the condition. You need to be very damaged to make it worth it. With 8 wounds it becomes 2 damage per resource, matching Energy Channel (but this one does not required your hero to be damaged). In order to match swinging web kick or Supersonic Punch resource efficiency you need 11 wounds, but again, those cards do not require your hero to be damaged. Gamma Slam mathces the She-Hulk game style (Focused Rage), yet I find it very situational. How many times is it going to happen per game? Once? maximum 2 in a long game?

In any case, I for sure need to play more with her, I have only played 4 games with She-Hulk.

Sure - but there's not much mileage in comparing hero cards to hero cards - since:

1) they exist in a vacuum, 2) we have no choice but to include them, 3) we make no deckbuilding choices of including/cutting X over Y, 4) the game is co-op, so it doesn't particularly matter if a hero is better or worse than another (other than playstyle considerations).

As you say, Gamma Slam is a situational card and it's simply different to the other damage cards of other heroes. But the heroes just play very differently. Spider-Man has low damage output, other than a Spinning Web Kick turn. Whereas She-Hulk can do 5 damage minimum when flipping to Hero, and it doesn't even require any cards.

Sure, I am not saying She-Hulk is a bad hero, I enjoy playing with her.

I am just stating the reasons why I don't like Gamma Slam and comparing it with other damage-dealing abilities.

5 minutes ago, Yepesnopes said:

Sure, I am not saying She-Hulk is a bad hero, I enjoy playing with her.

I am just stating the reasons why I don't like Gamma Slam and comparing it with other damage-dealing abilities.

Oh for sure - it's certainly a situational card. A lot of the time it's not going to be worth it and you'll just discard it for resources. But when you do use it - KAPOW! 😃

1 hour ago, Yepesnopes said:

Sure, I am not saying She-Hulk is a bad hero, I enjoy playing with her.

I am just stating the reasons why I don't like Gamma Slam and comparing it with other damage-dealing abilities.

You need to view it in the context of her other abilities though - swinging Web Kick is certainly a better all round card, but Spider-Man relies on it for almost all of his damage. Otherwise, he’s doing a max of 2 per turn with his base attack. She-Hulk has lots more ‘regular damage’ (2 for switching to hero, 3 attack, 1 2 punch, etc) and Gamma Slam as a big finisher. You just don’t play it unless it’s going to score big for you. The good news is, like all cards, you can just use it as a resource if it’s not going to work for you this turn.

2 hours ago, Yepesnopes said:

To me the worst of the Gamma Slam card is the condition. You need to be very damaged to make it worth it.

The big thing here is that... she’ll usually end up pretty damaged anyways? Focused Rage is great as noted, but in a solo game last night I also found myself just letting attacks go undefended more often than not, and letting her get pretty dang low before switching to recover. This gave me more attacks in the long run, and by the time I drew Gamma Slam in the late-game, my health was already down around 5. Easy choice at that point.

Honestly after soloing her for the first time last night (with Justice) I want to try her with Protection next. It’ll make threat management more difficult, sure, but I could see getting off a couple Gamma Slams.

Another plus for Gamma Slam is that it's a great card for digging you out of a hole. It's a win by losing card - usually not valuable if looked at through the lens of competitive card games, but absolutely clutch sometimes in a co-op/solo game.

I've played a fair bit of She-Hulk Protection and have only used Gamma Slam once. It just doesn't fit my play style. I'm usually not at enough damage to make it worthwhile, especially with Protection where I'd like to defend to make use of Counter punch and Indomitable. Also like to flip to Jessica fairly often to both make use of her bigger hand size and make use of the flip to hero damage, but that means I won't get damaged for another turn.

So, yeah, overall it's been pretty useless to me.

Gamma Slam is the reason She-Hulk is my favorite character to play in the core box. I do what I can to rack up damage slowly in the early game, then for the coup de grace I'll make sure I've got enough to play Gamma Slam. The only issue I have is when it happens to be the last card in the deck. That can make things really dicey. I'm willing to bet that as the overall card pool increases that will become less of a problem.

Well if you get it at the right time (mid-late game), it can finish the game fast. Hopefully at some point they will allow us to customize the starting 15.

I beat expert Klaw today with a 14 point Gamma Slam, when I was pretty much ready to scoop, so I'm pretty sold on it being an awesome card.

19 hours ago, Yepesnopes said:

I think Focused Rage is an awesome card for She-Hulk, but I am not sold to the arguments for Gamma Slam, 1 copy, cost 4 you need to be below 4 health...

How it compares

Gamma Slam: Damage equal to damage on She-Hulk. Costs 4 resources. She-Hulk needs to be damaged. 1 Copy

Photonic blast: 5 damage. Cost 2 effective resources. No condition required. 3 copies. (2.5 damage x resource)

Swinging web kick: 8 damage. Cost 3 resources. No condition required. 3 copies. (2.67 damage x resource)

Supersonic Punch: 8 damage. Cost 3 resources. Requires Rocket Boots. 2 copies. (2.67 damage x resource)

Energy Channel: 10 damage. Cost 5 resources. Requires potentially more than 1 turn of play. 2 copies. (2 damage x resource)

Repulsor Blast: 1 - 11 Damage. Cost 1 resource. No condition required. 3 copies. (1 - 11 damage x resource)

To me the worst of the Gamma Slam card is the condition. You need to be very damaged to make it worth it. With 8 wounds it becomes 2 damage per resource, matching Energy Channel (but this one does not required your hero to be damaged). In order to match swinging web kick or Supersonic Punch resource efficiency you need 11 wounds, but again, those cards do not require your hero to be damaged. Gamma Slam mathces the She-Hulk game style (Focused Rage), yet I find it very situational. How many times is it going to happen per game? Once? maximum 2 in a long game?

In any case, I for sure need to play more with her, I have only played 4 games with She-Hulk.

With these figures, don't forget to factor in the cost of the card as well. Giving you 2 damage per resource is a lot worse at 1 cost (meaning a 1-cost 2 damage card) than 2 damage per resource at 5 cost. To deal 10 damage, you'd need 10 cards with the former, and only 6 cards with the latter. More expensive cards like Gamma Slam and Energy Channel should properly be at a lower conversion ratio, but we can add a little give and take on balance due to flexibility of cheaper cards. But once you factor in the card as a resource you're paying for each, your list is closer to this:

Gamma Slam: 2 damage per resource (assuming 10 damage, 2.6 if you get up to 13 damage)

Photonic Blast: 1.666 damage per resource (assuming you can draw and use the card)

Swinging Web Kick: 2 damage per resource

Supersonic Punch: 2 damage per resource (assuming you spend a card for the resource for aerial)

Energy Channel: 1.666 damage per resource (split over multiple turns, very nice)

Repulsor Blast: 3.5 damage per resource (assuming 3 energy hits. 2.5 assuming 2)

Haymaker: 1 damage per resource (for comparison)

Uppercut: 1.25 damage per resource (for comparison)

So, Gamma Slam is inflexible in cost and timing, and in my experience, you rarely have it in hand when you need it, but is at the top of the resource efficiency even at 10 damage. Except for repulsor blast, I guess. Card's good

Thanks everyone for sharing your ideas on this topic.

Yesterday me and my wife played She-Hulk/Justice and Panther/Leadership against Klaw (normal difficulty). After this thread, call it destiny, call it karma, in the last round we beat Klaw with one single Gamma Slam of 13 damage when Klaw had precisely 13 health left. The only time I have used this card in my 5 games with She-Hulk.

It was not needed, true, we would have defeated him anyways, but it was fun, and I had to think about all said in this thread...

By the way, I find She-Hulk combines much better with Justice than with Protection.

3 hours ago, Yepesnopes said:

By the way, I find She-Hulk combines much better with Justice than with Protection.

I love Justice She-Hulk. It's such a good combination for both massive hits and tight threat control.

Interestingly, on the Team Covenant livestream - Boggs was asked if there were any design decisions he regretted- “yes, including only one gamma slam!“ I wonder, if you were to house rule it, which card you could nominate to be a gamma slam ?

5 hours ago, Daft Blazer said:

Interestingly, on the Team Covenant livestream - Boggs was asked if there were any design decisions he regretted- “yes, including only one gamma slam!“ I wonder, if you were to house rule it, which card you could nominate to be a gamma slam ?

Man I wish I could replace legal practice with a second gamma slam, lol.

Maybe a house rule is in order.

Yeah, as far as emergency thwarting goes, Legal Practice is usually underwhelming. Sometimes a nice way to toss out a few cards you weren't going to use anyways, but hardly worth the effort. Would take a first aid over it most turns.

Nothing to stop you houseruling it! 😎

6 hours ago, AradonTemplar said:

Yeah, as far as emergency thwarting goes, Legal Practice is usually underwhelming. Sometimes a nice way to toss out a few cards you weren't going to use anyways, but hardly worth the effort. Would take a first aid over it most turns.

Legal Practice is one of the better cards in the game.

It lets you auto-remove a confuse effect (0), it has a massive cap (5) compare that with:

spider tracer (3, requires a minion to play it on)
Crisis Intervention (2 + 2 on a different scheme)

Tactical Genius (1-2)

Mark V Helmet (1 or 1 per scheme if aerial)

even For Justice! can only remove 3-4.

If you're thwarting 4-5, you're throwing your whole turn at it. Compare it to Nick Fury, who costs 4, removes 4 threat, and still eats an attack (and has tons of flexibility to match Legal Defense's cost scaling). For Justice costs half of what Legal Defense does, to thwart 4. It lets you play something else in a turn, rather than tread water with the scheme. Other cards like Interrogation Room and Superhuman Law Division are going to give you a much better return for your resources over time, so the only way Legal Division shines is if you need a huge hit to threat immediately. That's a pretty narrow band for it to be good in.

The thwart for 0 is neat, though. That's a good trick.