RulingHall of Heroes (rules 1.0–1.4)

Galaxy’s Most Wanted: It’s my understanding that you can’t play Acrobatic Move (Gamora) against Nebula (villain) with two copies…

Question

It’s my understanding that you can’t play Acrobatic Move (Gamora) against Nebula (villain) with two copies of Wide Stance (reducing all damage by 2), because the constant ability of those Wide Stances don’t allow Acrobatic Move to affect the game state (2-2 = 0 damage). If my understanding is correct, my question is two-fold: 1) Suppose I’m Ms. Marvel (hero) playing First Hit (protection), to try to deal 2 damage to Nebula. Per the ruling above, this wouldn’t be allowed, because I can’t affect the game state.
Would I be permitted to play First Hit if I intend to use the Embiggen! upgrade to increase its damage by 2 (which would allow it to get past the Wide Stance — 2 + 2 – 2 = 2 damage)? 2) If the answer to the above is “I can do that,” does the answer change at all if Ms. Marvel is stunned? It’s my understanding that I wouldn’t be able to Embiggen! the First Hit (because the status card takes priority and replaces the whole attack). However, if would pop the stunned. If that all “works,” could I scoop back First Hit with Ms. Marvel’s Morphogenetics ability, and then attack Nebula again, using the same combo in question #1 (since Embiggen! wouldn’t be exhausted)?

Answer

The designers and I had a discussion and helped me realize that I made an error on an answer I gave previously—or at least, they wanted a clarification made on determining if certain abilities could be initiated.
For starters, we have made a new determination that Gamora COULD play Acrobatic Move against the Nebula villain with 2 Wide Stances attached. Caleb explained it this way: instead of asking ourselves if the “game state” would change, think that Acrobatic Move will always have a “legal target”, the villain, even if the villain might have a way of blocking that damage—he argues Gamora should be able to attempt the attack, even if it doesn’t do damage.
By this ruling, you would be able to play First Hit whether or not you had Embiggen!, and you could also play First Hit alone to get rid of Stunned and retrieve it with Morphogenetics. We hope you find this new ruling empowering!

-Alex