RulingHall of Heroes (rules 1.0–1.4)

Expansion card questions: I’ve seen a ruling that preventing damage with a card like side step which has the same timing as a tough…

Question

I’ve seen a ruling that preventing damage with a card like side step which has the same timing as a tough status card would have priority and the tough would remain. Trying to understand. So is there a difference between damage “reducing” effects and damage “preventing” effects. Groot’s hero ability would now function that he would lose his growth counters while tough when taking damage and would hurt him alot 😦 Trying to understand if the goal is to have damage “reducing” effects like the vision hero in intangible form where he reduces all damage from attacks by 2 as a constant ability or the victor mancha ally that reduces damage from attacks by 1 also as a constant ability in that your reducing the damage that would have been dealt and the tough never receives it so the tough remains. VS “Preventing” effects like “side step” and “shield block” that would directly compete with Tough.

Answer

I will do my best to address your questions. Note, some of the rulings we made recently are no longer accurate, and we plan to address many of them in our next rules reference update. The following notes are our current rulings on this subject.
First, status cards like “Tough” should have priority over constant effects and interrupts.
This means that if Groot was Tough and was dealt damage, “Tough” would get discarded before any growth counters were removed.
This also means that Tough would have priority over the text on Side Step and Shield Block—Tough would get discarded first, before interrupts could resolve.
Let me know if you have other questions in light of this information.

-Alex