One of the most interesting multiplayer cards released throughout the history of this game. This card is always playable so long as you have an X-Men and X-Force hero with at least 2 THW each. You can then exhaust both of those heroes to remove 4 thwart and deal 4 damage. From a value perspective the thwarting from this card is almost negligible because you are losing 2 basic activations that would have accomplished similar results. The only advantage here being that you can apply that thwart however you want across the board. This ensures side-schemes are cleanly cleared without any value lost. But the main value from this method of use is the damage. For 1 printed cost you are dealing 4 damage. This blows Aggression events out of the water from a value perspective, and it only gets better if your hero(s) can get 3-4 THW (Pheonix, Cable).

To play this in Solo you will want to build an ally heavy deck using the opposite trait (if you are playing an X-Force hero take X-men allies and vice-versa). In this scenario the card is still generally accessible, but it isn't a guarantee like it is in multiplayer. For all player counts it's important to note that this card gains additional value if you can manage to play it exhausting allies, since it effectively gives them 2 more activations without applying consequential damage: 1 Application of their THW and 1 Application of their THW converted to damage.

A great option for Iron Man. She'll get you a Repulsor Blast, which can be your most powerful card if your deck is set up well for it, and her ability to inherit your traits lets her benefit from Avenger-specific strategies like Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Avengers Tower, Avengers Assemble!, or equipping her with the Power Gloves, which willl not only boost her damage but increase your hand size while she remains in play.

Expert Campaign Multiplayer Perspective: This card's best usage is in a 3-4 player game where the group is bringing a considerable amount of player side-schemes. Generally, most player side-schemes don't make it to the table at my sessions due to the amount of investment it takes to clear them. At best, 1 or 2 hit the board early-game and then players have to start spending resources building their own boards and managing the regular problems that the scenario throws at you. Containment Strategy allows your team to load the board with player side-schemes and all but guarantees they are defeated at minimal cost. It changes the outlook from "I'll play this side-scheme and hope the team has enough wiggle room to get the pay-off" to "I'll play this side-scheme and I will 100 percent be getting 20 thwart, 20 damage, a specialization, or 4 free supports for 1-cost".

Now just because this card's best usage is player side schemes doesn't mean that's the only situation its worth playing in. In multiplayer, side-schemes are far more common due to the amount of encounter cards drawn each turn and their threat values are fairly high. There will be many situations where your team doesn't have an efficient way to deal with them. Enter Containment Strategy. Some people will fall into the trap of thinking that because this card can single-handedly deal with a scheme over several turns, that's what has to happen. In reality this card only needs to remove 2 threat to put it on par with For Justice and Crisis Averted from a thw/resource standpoint. Containment Strategy is especially useful when needing an extra chip to get rid of a Hazard Icon on a scheme. When paired with cards like Indomitable and Desperate Defense, Containment Strategy all but guarantees the table won't be seeing an extra encounter card. An encounter cancel for 1 cost is on par with Dr. Strange's Protective Ward.

This card is quite strong and should see play in many perfect defense style decks at at least 1 copy, but Cable deserves a special shout out. Askani'Son already incentives Cable to play defensively and the defense archetype has some inherent synergy with Cable due to cards like Desperate Defense having energy resource or cards like Back-Flip/Side-Step requiring energy resources for their full effects. Cable can run all of the player side schemes for this card to attach to and this card is an Upgrade. Upgrades and Events are extensions of a player's identity and thus the removal from Containment Strategy is treated as Cable's removal regardless of who defends. Cable's ready ability is once per phase so Containment Strategy is another method of triggering Cable's ready and can help with consistently clearing Technovirus Purge turn 1.

Wasp's ability to ignore guard and patrol and crisis icons is really niche, but being able to thwart past a crisis icon actually saved me in a game once. But the only reason I put her in the deck in the first place was because I was building a Champions theme deck - outside of that, I would never consider her ability to be worth it when I could play a more impactful card, unless I know I'm going to have trouble with guard/patrol/crisis against the villain I choose to play against, which hasn't happened yet.

I think one thing that would increase this card in value is if it had a resource instead of a resource, to synergize with the all-important Champion ally Moon Girl (and as a nod to the alter ego side of Wasp's hero version). That would definitely make me consider playing Wasp more, but it wouldn't push her into being an ally I'm enthusiastic about playing.

Update: This might be a hot take, but I actually think this ally would still be fair if it didn't have its trait restriction. If you look at what they did with Sunfire a few years after they printed Wasp, it looks like they're not afraid to put niche but potentially villain-breaking effects on allies and not restrict them by trait. Not only that, but as of this writing there are only four Champion heroes, and none of them seem like they're hurting for an ally that can ignore guard/patrol/crisis, as they all encourage you to use events and/or the cards in their hero kit to solve your problems. But I'll be happy to be proven wrong on this point.

Multiplayer Perspective: I’ve been stuck debating how good this card is since its release. The most common arguments for it are Hero synergies (Spiderman, Spiderham, Drax) and enabling the usage of defense cards on your own turn. These are good reasons to use the card but I think this card’s true strength lies in accelerating build-out.

The perfect defense strategy revolves around flooding your board with lots of key upgrades that trigger effects on the villain’s turn (Electrostatic armor, Dauntless, Hard to Ignore). These upgrades are incredibly cheap and efficient but it can take a full deck cycle to get them all out on board. Taunt helps you hit them faster via drawing 3 cards and giving you a reason to flip down. Flipping down will give you access to even more resources accelerating build-out further. Using this play style I’d argue Taunt’s synergy extends beyond the select few hero abilities, to any hero with impactful Upgrades, Supports, and Alter-Ego abilities.