RulingHall of Heroes (rules 1.6)2024-10

25 – So, defense-labeled abilities seem to be settling into a good place, I just want to confirm: “cannot…

Question

25 – So, defense-labeled abilities seem to be settling into a good place, I just want to confirm: “cannot defend” means you cannot play a defense-labeled ability during an attack, is that correct? So that means that Vision in Intangible form cannot play Side Step during a villain attack, including against Crossbones’ Machine Gun (which triggers after the attack initiates). I will note that the ally defend section says that another character “cannot defend”, but we are allowed to play defense-labeled abilities because it’s explicitly allowed. It seems like that “cannot defend” is somehow different from Intangible’s “cannot defend” so perhaps it needs reworded.

Answer

While Vision is in Intangible mass form, he cannot become the defender of an attack and he cannot play defense-labeled events, even if doing so would not cause him to become the defender of an attack.