RulingHall of Heroes (rules 1.6)2025-10-10

It has just been pointed out to me that the basic Deathlok ally from the NeXt Evolution expansion has…

Question

It has just been pointed out to me that the basic Deathlok ally from the NeXt Evolution expansion has wording reminiscent of Suit Up. His card reads: “Hero Response: After Deathlok enters play, choose an upgrade in any player’s discard pile with a cost of 1 or less that can be attached to Deathlok. Attach that upgrade to Deathlok.”
Deathlok is quite different to Suit Up since he is an ally already in play at this point, so there are less uncertain circumstances, but I felt it was worth bringing up all the same. So I suppose my question here is, assuming I am playing a Guardian-traited hero who has just played Deathlok, how do you want his response to interact with Honorary Avenger, Laser Blaster and Sidekick?

Answer

We don’t think that Deathlok needs an update at his time. Given he’s in play when his ability triggers, it’s possible to determine if a given upgrade “can” be attached to him at the point in time you’re resolving his ability, which is the main difference between his wording and Suit Up’s previous wording. Deathlok must be a valid target for any “attach to” text on the chosen upgrade, but since the upgrade is not being “played” you can ignore any “play only if” text on that upgrade. To address your specific examples:

With Honorary Avenger, since you are not “playing” the attachment, you can attach Honorary Avenger to Deathlok without your identity having the Avenger trait.
With Laser Blaster, Deathlok does not have the Guardian trait, so you cannot attach Laser Blaster to him (unless your identity is hero Star-Lord).
With Sidekick, since Deathlok is not an identity-specific ally, you cannot attach Sidekick to him.

— Alex