Beginning player here, not sure where else to go for clarification in general. My buddy and I played a killer game with Insecticons (me) v Special Ops Specialists (buddy). All three of his characters had
Safeguard. I swung into one of them (undamaged) with Raider Kickback (bot) and flipped one blue and several orange. My thinking was the one damage from Kickback's ability would eliminate the Safeguard, thus allowing all combat damage to be applied. Then came the confusion. I believe his thinking was that all the damage came at once, prevented to some degree by Safeguard. After scouring stupid Google for help to no avail, I decided to simply concede to his perspective and move the game along. He won, but it was close, and it would have been a drastically different story had all that combat damage been applied.
[Source: WotC] 
Kickback’s ability does 1 Damage before Attack damage is applied, thus disabling
Safeguard. Congratulations on your crushing theoretical victory!
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