RulingHall of Heroes (rules 1.5)2023-07-21

57 – We are trying to understand pay,overpay and spend. 1. Q.Can I play a zero-cost card, such as Assess the…

Question

57 – We are trying to understand pay,overpay and spend. 1. Q.Can I play a zero-cost card, such as Assess the Situation (Ant-Man #33), and ‘overpay’ for it using, say, Innovation (The Mad Titan’s Shadow #58), in order to benefit from Innovation’s Hero Response? A.Because Innovation specifies “after you spend this card”, not “after you pay for” another card with it, you could “spend” it while playing a 0 cost card. 2. Q.When I play 0 cost DEFENSE events and choose to overpay it using Defensive Energy, do I get to draw a card off it? If yes, can I also overpay by 2 using 2x Defensive Energy and draw 2 cards? Thanks! A.No. To draw a card with Defensive Energy, the resource from DE must help pay for the cost of the Defense event. You cannot draw a card with DE if the event costs 0.

Answer

Yes, the two rulings are in conflict. We discussed both and ultimately believe that the ruling on Innovation should also be applied to Defensive Energy.
Our reasoning is this: you are always permitted to generate resources beyond a card’s cost (“overpaying”) and in doing so you are “spending” resources. Innovation and Defensive Energy are being “spent” when you overpay, so you can use them on 0-cost cards.
(Note; although you can overpay for any card, an ability that cares about resources “paid for” something only takes into account resources spent toward the card’s cost, and not resources overpaid.)

— Alex