RulingHall of Heroes (rules 1.6)2025-07-11

I was trying to understand the recent rulings on the retaliate keyword in regards to villain stages being…

Question

I was trying to understand the recent rulings on the retaliate keyword in regards to villain stages being defeated. – I understand that If you attack and defeat a stage of the villain that has the retaliate keyword, retaliate will not trigger because the stage was defeated. – I understand that If the new stage of that villain has retaliate, it will not trigger because that stage was not attacked. -The part I’m confused on is the ruling states that If you attack and defeat a stage of the villain with the first instance of damage with an attack that deals multiple instances of damage and then you deal damage to the new stage that has retaliate, retaliate will trigger. Are villain stages considered different enemies? If not, why does the new stage retaliate? If so, can you target different stages of the same villain with the melee aggression event?

Answer

We discussed in length how we want Retaliate and villain stages to function, and have concluded the following: The Retaliate keyword states that after a character is attacked, it deals damage to the attacker if the attacked character “survived” the damage. The use of “survived” here is not well defined in the current rules and we are likely updating the phrasing to the attacked character needing to be “in play” when Retaliate triggers in order to deal damage to the attacker. (For instance, if a minion or ally with Retaliate were defeated by an attack, they would be in their respective discard piles before Retaliate would trigger.)

As for villain stages, it’s established that defeating a villain stage is “defeating an enemy,” but each stage of the villain is the same “character”—this aligns with how Melee cannot be used on two different stages of a villain. After a villain stage is defeated the next one is immediately revealed, which means that if the new stage has Retaliate, it triggers because the “attacked character” is “in play” at that point in time. (This is assuming both stages have the same title.) We hope this addresses your questions.

— Alex