Defensive Stance

Skill

Practiced. Expert.

XP: 1.

Guardian

While Defensive Stance is in your hand or committed to a skill test, it gains icons equal to your , and icons equal to your .

You slide your feet into position, take a deep breath, and center yourself. They are many, but you are one.
Lin Hsiang
Edge of the Earth Investigator Expansion #24.
Defensive Stance

FAQs

(from the official FAQ or responses to the official rules question form)
  • Q: Can Defensive Stance, Survey the Area, Occult Theory, or Dauntless Spirit be committed to tests from beneath Amanda Sharpe? A: No. A card can only be committed to a skill test if it possesses 1 or more skill icons matching the skill being tested. As these cards only possess skill icons while they are in your hand or already committed to a test, they cannot be committed to a test from anywhere else (such as beneath Amanda Sharpe, or directly from your deck using another card effect). - FAQ, v.2.0, August 2022
Last updated

Reviews

Defensive stance is practiced, making it an unexpected pick for a Roland or Joe who prizes all-around success*. It’s also a great option for Lily Chen, obviously, because it supports whatever stat you didn’t build out first. And you can give it to others, like the un-agile seeker or a Succeed by X rogue.

*Man, it’s tricky to describe cards without using the adjectives adaptable or versatile!

MrGoldbee · 1453
The thing with this card is that it doesn't have any icons while it is in your deck. So Practice Makes Perfect *cannot* be used to fetch and commit this card, because there's not "matching" icons while it is being searched. Searched cards are not considered in your hand, or committed to a test, yet. — 1337duck · 1
In response to practice makes perfect, your getting into lawyering. Practice makes perfect says search for a practiced card. Defensive stance checks that, and commit it, defensive stance activates once commited, I see that as working. I get how you could interpret it the other way, but I'd say unless you don't want it to work with practice makes perfect, I think the intent is for them to work together.. — . · 35
Defense stance activates once committed, not before then except in hand. So it has no icons in the deck. If they intended it to be used from these zones it would just say it has Agility icons equal to Combat and vice versa without any conditionality. — Death by Chocolate · 1447
If you want to play that you can commit it with Practice Makes Perfect, you can, but it’s a homerule. Which like, it’s your game, do what you want, even the devs explicitly support that. — Death by Chocolate · 1447
Just to add onto the PMP example, this along with the other new skills also don't have any synergy with Amanda, as this has no icons while placed underneath her. Until we get an errata (assuming the lack of synergy wasn't intended in the first place, which is possible), the new Practiced cards actually have little to no synergy with existing Practiced tech. — Lasiace · 23

This card combos very nicely with Butterfly Swords. On the second attack of Butterfly Swords, you could add +6/+7 to the attack. Lily Chen with one of her Disciplines out could get +8 on that attack, which is overkill on Standard, but would be very well appreciated on Expert.

RexMars · 2
Just to clarify, you only add the symbols of the test you're currently performing. In Butterfly Swords case, that would always be Combat, not Agility. — Nenananas · 257
@Nenananas. I dont think that is true. Rules say that you can't commit a card if the icons dont match, but I could not find a rule that says that non matching icons doesn't get added.ed — nikee40 · 4
nvm. Rules reference page 26 ST.2 description states "An appropriate skill icon is either one that matches the skill being tested, or a wild icon. The investigator performing this test gets +1 to his or her skill value during this test for each appropriate skill icon that is committed to this test." — nikee40 · 4