Highly character- and scenario-dependent card, it can trivialise some enemies. Notable characters who can use it well would include Rogue and Cyclops, as they can consistently put upgrades on minions, though you can always help yourself with Air Cover.

It provides a very easy way to defeat minions like (the list is not exhaustive, just some examples to keep in mind):

Those who hinder your ability to attack or damage them:

-Blob 3.14 (who otherwise can only take 2 damage from each attack)

-Edison's Giant Robot (can't take damage until a resource is spent)

-Thomas Edison (can't take damage if you're engaged with other minions)

-Sebastian Shaw (can be attacked only once per phase, gets tough cards easily)

Those who simply have a lot of HP:

-Brothers Grimm (8HP)

-Badoon Headhunter and Headhunter's Henchman (7 and 8 HP respectively)

-Sentinel Mark VIII (8 HP)

-Tombstone (9HP)

Those who have nasty effects on being defeated or taking damage:

-Sandman (Iron Spider's Sinister Six, has you discard cards after getting damaged by an attack)

-Shifting Apparition (shuffles encounter cards into your deck if you defeat it with excess damage)

-Delgado (gives the villain a boost card and clears their stuns and confuses)

-Embassy Guard/Patrol (puts 1 threat on Batroc's Alert Level)

-Hydra Soldier (gives the engaged player an encounter card)

-Madame Masque (triggers The Hood's Foul Play ability)

-Zero (conditionally shuffles itself back into the deck)

-Orion (gets a tough status card after being damaged)

Coup de Grâce is one of those cards that can do wonders when you build around it with a specific hero in mind, or is completely unplayable if you don't. It's obviously not a card that you'd include in any Aggression deck, or even a card you would consider 95% of the time.

When do you want to work with it? For starters, you absolutely need a reliable way to attach upgrades to minions. Valkyrie, Cyclops, Rogue and Tigra are probably your best bet, as in these heroes have a built-in mechanic that attaches upgrades to minions. There are others as well, but with some of them you need to go out of your way to do so, and it doesn't seem worth it. For example, I don't consider Iceman's Frostbite particularly good against minions and wouldn't focus on it.

Even if you are with the right hero, you may have to include a specific package of cards that works with Coup de Grâce - in particular, any combination of Air Cover, Suppressing Fire and Marked. The goal is to make attaching upgrades to minions easy and 100% independent on card draws. You can also consider some of the cards that bring minions out of hiding - Angela, Face the Past, Looking for Trouble and Spoiling for a Fight. Air Cover in particular works very well for Coup de Grâce, along with Marked/Suppressing Fire.

If you are with the right hero and/or cards that go along, the attack event has 2 notable benefits. First, cancelling bad 'When defeated' abilities can be very good and can save you a lot of trouble. For example, I think cancelling each of the minions that come with the same box Spectrum, Black Panther, Goliath, Hercules and Falcon to be very beneficial. Of course, that's the upper end of the benefit, with the lowest one sitting at not cancelling any ability and just using the card to dispatch the minion in one go. But that is the second benefit of the card, and it too can be a good one. You have to remember that sometimes minions have very nasty abilities (refer to the list in the other review) or a high enough HP value that makes it difficult to damage them. Sometimes minions cannot even take damage, but they can be dispatched with Coup de Grâce. Why go through trouble to damage and kill a minion, when Coup de Grâce can just one-shot it for you?

The limitations of the card lie with the fact you have to spend an extra card in the form of an upgrade to attach to the minion. This can sometimes net you other benefits, such as 2 heal from Suppressing Fire, but it does mean that you are ultimately paying one extra card for the event, effectively bumping the 2 cost to 3. Another negative is that you may not always have an upgrade in hand, in which case Coup de Grâce cannot be used. Couple that with the fact that some minions need to be removed asap, and you are left in a situation where you cannot rely on an otherwise easy removal. Also, obviously, it only deals with non-elite minions, which is something to keep in mind, as it can be overlooked.

To summarize Coup de Grâce

• Good: Deals with very nasty abilities
• Good: Is an attack, with all of the benefits that come from it (pay for it with Martial Prowess, heal from Suppressing Fire, etc.
• Mix: Works with certain heroes only
• Mix: Works well only when you lean on synergies with it
• Bad: Can be extremely situational
• Bad: Depends 100% on other cards to work at all
• Bad: Only works on non-elite minions

To be combined with Air Cover (a tech), fishing Suppressing Fire from even the discard.

You will have a damage-free defeat of any non-ELITE minion in board (not necessarily the one who triggered the Air Cover).

• Unleash Nova Force, as any other things interacting with defeating enemies, can get certain extra benefit from it.

Its still kinda much conditional; it will have hard times finding valid targets in non-specific scenarios or with non-upgrade specific heroes (like Cyclops (Hero)), or even if your Air Cover is offline by the time you draw this card.