Er, so like the subject says,
Are Cage’s Protect tiles (or any Protect tiles, I suppose) supposed to lessen the damage from Court Death? It doesn’t seem like it is doing so. Or do Protect tiles only work on direct attacks, not AOE attacks? You’d think I would have noticed this by now.
Thanks.
Protect tiles only work against damage from enemies. Own-team damage from Thanos, Ragnarok, Sentry, etc. is unaffected by them. It caught me off guard the first time I noticed it, too.
Your Protect tiles should be reducing the damage from an opponent’s Court Death, but not from your own, as TPFAlexis says.
Self-damage is also not reduced by damage reduction effects (Colossus, Rogue, etc…) or damage prevention effects (Elektra, Spider-Woman). Being Airborne (Vulture, namely) is effective, I believe.
In general, self-damage is just a cost, and not something you can ‘game’ around with clever team composition. Feel free to bring characters who can heal back the damage, though.
Just another reason why characters like Sentry are absolutely worthless. Doing as much damage to your team as the enemy is not my idea of useful.
Well, imagine the complaints if your own or your opponent’s strike tiles increased self damage 
With that in mind, I think the current system makes sense.
Similarly, self-induced or ally-induced damage will not trigger reaction abilities like those on 3* Captain Marvel, 3* Hulk, Red Hulk, either Deadpool, and others.
However, I am told (haven’t personally verified it) that Phoenix can still put her resurrection tile out – it appears that’s a reaction to being killed, not the damage itself.
That’s interesting; my 2nd-hand anecdotes imply the opposite. Unless my memory has betrayed me…
https://forums.505go.com/discussion/56766/court-death-and-from-the-ashes
This thread seems to agree, although I admit it could be out of date by now.
The behavior changed, and so did the explanation for what behavior was intended. I’d guess the devs actually changed their minds on this one.
Works for me.
Then … why world rupture tile damage are reduced by protect tiles ?
Damage your World Rupture tiles deal to your opponent will be reduced by their Protect tiles, but the damage your World Rupture tiles deals to your allies is NOT reduced by your Protect tiles.
@EaglesLB can you confirm whether your question was specific to damage from an ally?