Keyword: Retaliate

After a character with the retaliate X keyword is attacked, deal X damage to the attacker. (X is the value next to the retailiate keyword.)

• The character with retaliate must survive the attack to deal this damage.
• Attack is considered any event or ability that has the attack keyword. For example, Energy Daggers will not trigger retaliate, as they are not considered an attack, unlike Panther Claws.
• Retaliate triggers once per attack. This means if you attack a character with Retaliate multiple times in a turn (or multiple times with a single card in the case of a few rare cards like Black Widow’s Dance of Death, which counts as three separate attacks), you will take Retaliate damage after every single attack. Ouch.

FAQs

Does Retaliate Stack?

• Yes! If you have a character with Retaliate 1, and you add another effect that gives that character Retaliate 1, treat the character as if it has Retaliate 2 – i.e. anyone who attacks that character will take 2 damage after the attack.
• Resolve the damage all at once, not 1 at a time. This means if the character receiving the Retaliate damage is Tough, all of the damage is prevented by tough, not just one damage.

When Does Retaliate Damage Resolve?

• In the event of a character having a Response or Interrupt that can be played or activated due to the attack dealing damage to a character with Retaliate, Retaliate damage will be resolved before any of those effects happen.
• This is because Retaliate is what’s called a “constant” effect, similarly to reshuffling the deck the moment it runs out of cards before doing anything else. The attack deals the damage, Retaliate hits the attacker back, and then other things can happen.
• Nothing can happen between the attack dealing damage to the defender and the defender’s Retaliate dealing damage back to the attacker.

If the attacker does 0 damage, do they still take damage from retaliate?

Yes. Retaliate’s trigger is “When this character is attacked”, so it does not matter how much damage that attack results in. Notably, this also applies if a minion’s ATK is reduced to 0, as an enemy with 0 ATK will still perform an attack.