Who is second highest?

Given five heroes, A, B, C, D, and E, if A & B both have 26 HP and C, D, and E each have 25 HP, which heroes can possibly be considered to have the second highest amount of HP?

My take is that A&B are first and second, at the players discretion, so they would be possibilities, but another player argued that A&B are tied for the highest amount of HP and C,D, and E are tied for the second highest amount of HP, so C/D/E would be possibilities.

A second, somewhat related question: If there are only two active heroes, F and G, and Smoke Bombs "Whenever a villain card would damage the hero target with the lowest HP redirect that damage to the hero target with the highest HP. Reduce damage redirected this way by 1’ is in play, AND the villain does damage to ‘the hero with the highest HP’, can we do the following:

1. For purposes of determining a target, select A as the character with the highest HP
2. For purposes of determining whether or not Smoke Bombs is in effect, select A as the character with the lowest HP.

It depends on the exact wording of the card. If it says “strike the hero with the highest HP x damage then the second highest with y damage” then the highest would be chosen to taken between the two, lets say A takes the damage. So then the second attack would follow after the first damage and who ever is the second at that point would take the damage. Now if the wording was “The highest and second highest HP target takes x damage” then I would take it as the two tied for the highest.

Edit: Not an official ruling, just the way I always saw it as.

1. A&B are the highest and the second highest, as they are tied. Recall though, if you aren’t already, that the Villan character card counts as a Target for the purposes of most things, including the T-Rex. The situation where this question would need to be resolved seems like it would be extremely unlikely to occur, although it is possible.

2. That makes no sense whatesoever. You mean… if 2 heroes are tied for HP and are the only possible targets, can you assign the attack to one of them and redirect it to the other? I’d say not. If you choose a hero as having the highest HP for purposes of an attack, then he has the highest HP for purposes of that attack.

I think the ruling I heard from Christopher once is that A&B are tied for highest and C&D&E are tied for second highest. It seems odd to me, which is why I’m not 100% sure it wasn’t a weird fever dream, but I think this is what he’s told me in the past.

If I said that, I was on some sort of awful drugs. Or just lying to you.

A & B are highest and second highest.

(Note: I was probably lying to Ryan. I would never take awful drugs. That’s Spite’s job.)

If only two “targetable” targets are tied, I see no reason that choosing one as the “highest” at one point in any way requires you to continue designating it as the highest during a later targeting. In other words, a single target in this situation can be the highest according to one card while being the lowest according to another, even if the latter is acting in response to actions in the former.

I can see that interpretation, JayMann, and I wouldn’t really be too upset if thats how it was, but my thought is that one hero target cant both have the highest hp and the lowest hp at the same time unless it is the only hero target in play.

What if there are two heroes, each one hit point apart (A 26, B 25). Say a villain’s power does 2 damage to highest hp hero and 3 to second highest…once the first damage happens to A, wouldn’t he then become the second higest hps, so he takes the second damage as well? :o

…No. That’s just silly. Still, it came to mind. ;D

Yes, A would take both hits. Attacks are resolved sequentially.

I think in most cases though, it does list second highest gets hit then the highest gets hit to avoid someone getting hit by both.