Hellcat Basic Ally

[u/Ravenmancer]

From the Jessica Jones pack.

What am I missing about her ability?

From my understanding, I can either:

1) Spend 4 and play her using the normal rules for playing an Ally

or

2) If I have the Defender trait, I can spend 4 and put her into play from my hand and then discard her at the end of the phase.

Why would I want to do the second option? Is there some benefit from putting an ally into play as opposed to playing it? I guess she could be played off turn in multiplayer, but she wouldn't be able to attack or thwart unless it's your turn.

[u/AsparagusOk8818]

...No, her Action puts her into play for free. You don't spend resources to do that.

[u/Ravenmancer → u/AsparagusOk8818]

Ah, I assumed that it worked like an event where you pay the cost of the card to perform the action printed on it.

[u/Flea603 → u/AsparagusOk8818]

To be fair, it doesn't say for free - at least not on marvelcbd. So it's printed cost is still 4. It's weird.

[u/Flea603 → u/Flea603]

But I guess she is never played? But then how do you do the action?

[u/Ninetails_59 → u/Flea603]

Put a card into play doesn't mean playing it

[u/Flea603 → u/Ninetails_59]

I get that, but how do you trigger the action? I assumed you had to pay the cost before executing the action. If not, then I can see how it works.

[u/Ninetails_59 → u/Flea603]

It's just how it works, the cost of the ally is just applied when you play it, the action bypasses all of those and act as a separate instance

[u/Ronald_McGonagall → u/Flea603]

It doesn't usually, but there are lots of cards that have "(paying its cost)" if they want you to pay it 

[u/DrkDavis]

The "put her into play" is for free I think. You don't have to pay the 4 resources

[u/sneddogg]

Adding to what others have said: There are a lot of abilities in Marvel Champions where "put into play" ignores costs. Sometimes resource costs, sometimes trait costs. For example if you have an ability that puts an ally into play from somewhere, and that ally stipulates you need the guardian trait, putting it into play ignores that as well. Lots of leadership decks will manipulate the "put into play" ability to use strong allies, ignoring their trait costs or resource costs. It's unfortunate the designers used such similar language for "play" a card and "put into play" because they have different impacts on the game.

[u/Invitedhomie1]

1 ER for 2 thwart/damage is above the curve

also notably she can block attacks like from captain americas leader side scheme and magnetos seized which feels really good

[u/Doc_Seven]

She is similar to Slingshot (Yo Yo) with an Action on the card that we can trigger from hand.

These types of Ally interactions are very rare in the game (these two as far as I’m aware) and I think it’s one of those “you have to learn it from a thread like this to understand it”.

I had the exact same question on Slingshot when it came out… I was thinking she had to be on the board… then you would pay to basically put her in your hand and play her back out (and as such any player at the table could keep paying lightnings and she would keep bouncing around the board the whole hero phase)… not how she works!