RulingHall of Heroes (rules 1.0–1.4)

Cyclops: If an ally (such as Professor X) has 0 ATK, and Cyclops puts Exploit Weakness on an enemy, and the 0 ATK…

Question

If an ally (such as Professor X) has 0 ATK, and Cyclops puts Exploit Weakness on an enemy, and the 0 ATK ally attacks, does the enemy take 1 or 0 damage? And, for comprehensiveness, is it the same or different for the ringing side of the Bell Tower in the Venom scenario (it increases all the damage Venom takes by 1).

Answer

The enemy would take 0 damage.
The reason for this ruling comes both from effects that state the character needs to “take any amount of damage” for something to happen, in addition to distinctions we’ve made in “taking” vs. “dealing” damage. For card effects, “any amount of damage” always means “1 or more damage”, and damage “taken” is the damage actually placed on the character from an attack/effect after any modifiers.
All this to say, if a character “takes zero damage” from an attack/effect, they have “taken no damage”, and that amount cannot be increased.
(But, card effects CAN increase the amount of damage an attack/effect DEALS, even if it deals 0. Exploit Weakness and Bell Tower do not fall in this category, though.)

-Alex