Protect Tiles

A Protect Tile reduces the damage of every incoming attack against its team.

The formula for total damage change caused by Strike and Protect tiles is:

(Base damage) + (total strike tile strength) - (total protection tile strength)

with a minimum of 1.

A Protect tile is represented by a shield icon inside the tile.

- Example of Enemy Protect Tile
- Example of Player Protect Tile

Rules

Abilities that destroy multiple tiles instantly only have the damage reduced once (not counting cascades).

If multiple Attack Tiles deal damage in a turn, damage reduction is applied once to their combined damage.

Protect damage reduction is calculated before the tiles on the board are changed or destroyed. So if an attack destroys the tile, it still counts during that attack.

Protect tiles damage reduction affects all characters if the attack hits all of them, not just the front character.

Like Attack and Strike tiles, they are owned by teams, not individual characters. They are not removed when characters are downed, and are still effective when any or all characters are stunned. They cannot be placed on Team-Up tiles.

Commentary

Protect tile strengths tend to be weaker than Strike and Attack tile strengths. For example, Iron Fist has a stronger Strike tile passive than Luke Cage's Protect tile passive. Another example is that Iron Man (Hulkbuster)'s Strike tile power has 32 strength per AP, while his Protect tile power only has 16 strength per AP.

Protect tiles are innately weaker than Strike tiles because Protect tiles never let you take less than 1 damage, while Strike tiles always add the full amount (until the foe is downed).

Protect tiles are usually worse than Strike and Attack tiles in this game. The game is offense-oriented, and high damage is preferable to sustainability.

Playable Characters that place Protect tiles

1*

• Iron Man (Model 35)

2*

• Bullseye (Dark Avengers)
• Steve Rogers (Captain America)

3*

• Beast (Classic)
• Black Panther (T'Challa)
• Luke Cage (Hero for Hire)
• Magneto (Classic)
• Sam Wilson (Falcon)
• Spider-Man (Classic)
• Squirrel Girl (Unbeatable)
• Steve Rogers (Super Soldier)

4*

• Invisible Woman (Classic)
• Iron Man (Hulkbuster)
• Jean Grey (All New X-Men) -- random Attack/Strike/Protect tiles
• Luke Cage (Power Man)
• Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards)
• Nick Fury (Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.)
• Professor X (Charles Xavier)
• Sam Wilson (Captain America)
• The Thing (Classic)
• Venom (Eddie Brock) -- creates enemy Protect tiles

5*

• Beta Ray Bill (Korbinite Cyborg)
• Green Goblin (Norman Osborn)
• Steve Rogers (Captain America)

Playable Characters that interact with Protect tiles specifically

• Captain Marvel (Ms. Marvel) -- destroys enemy tiles
• Captain Marvel (Modern) -- destroys enemy tiles
• Loki (Dark Reign) -- converts enemy Strike/Protect tiles into friendly Protect/Strike tiles
• Venom (Eddie Brock) -- reduces strength of enemy tiles passively
• War Machine (James Rhodes) -- removes enemy tiles
• Wasp (Janet Van Dyne) -- converts and improves friendly Protect/Strike tiles
• Peggy Carter (Captain America) -- power that ignores Protect tiles
• Spider-Man (Back In Black) -- power that ignores Protect tiles
• Thor (Gladiator) -- power that ignores Protect tiles

This list does not include character powers that interact with a variety of special tiles.