I remember when the Man Without Fear comic was printed. It had an embossed shiny cover. I’d already missed picking up a copy of Silver Surfer #50 and I wasn’t going to miss this release. 33 years later the set of 5 ‘tomes’ still sit behind me in their safe lil plastic bags. I grew up on the published works of the Lanky One – if you know you know. I saw Matt Murdock get taunted and bullied by his peers, I cringed at the character defining slap from his father, and the informative beat downs from Stick. I followed as Elektra wooed then crushed him. I witnessed him snap, break the rules, break the laws, and remain a Hero, albeit a tortured broken one. I watched him wallow and flourish, and I loved it all.
So here we go:

The Definitive Daredevil

While this is published as a Protection deck, it serves as a general overview of the Daredevil hero kit and discusses many interactions from other aspects.

Initial Glance

A number of things stuck out to me while analyzing Daredevil’s kit during spoiler season… We’ll leave the most obvious till last.

1. He rocks a solid 2/2/2 stat line with 10 Hit Points and 3 REC. An all-rounder, set up for tackling any issues that an encounter could toss at us. With some stat increasers (one included in his kit) he could be a decent Readying hero.
2. Strong Alter-Ego (we’re talking Black Widow/Gambit strong) with scads of Thwart options, recycle and draw support, huge recover potential, and even the ability to Confuse enemies from Alter-Ego.
3. A self pinging sub-theme. Two notes to keep in mind here – Tough statuses don’t jive well with Mr. Murdock and that extra REC from his mom might need to be leaned into more often than naught.
4. Overall, a cheap efficient kit. Daredevil looks like a setup-and-burst style hero. While there's a heavy lean towards Thwarting, (even the inclusion of a identity specific player side scheme) he seems more like puzzler that requires constant pre-planning, in the end producing a solid all rounder Hero.
5. Senses. Yes all 5 of 'em.

The 5 Senses

I mean where does one even start with this...
Reminiscent of Doctor Strange's spell deck, we've got 5 superpowers (Looking at you Deft Focus) in a separate randomized pile where in Hero form we can play the top card as if it were in our hand. Unlike Stephen's pile we are not limited to the amount of times we can take this action. The Senses are all 1 cost Upgrades that get attached to an Enemy or Scheme and net some bonus when the attached Enemy or Scheme is interacted with or defeated.

Sense overview

Radar – Attack for extra damage
Taste – Thwart for extra Threat removal
Tactility – Thwart or Attack for a Ready
Olfaction – Thwart or Attack for a cost reduction
Hearing – Redirects and weakens an Enemy Attack

Notes on Senses

• The triggers are NON form specific, meaning the Thwart related Senses can be triggered in Alter-Ego, which may present interesting interactions. Doing a double REC or going on a turbo Shopping Spree are some examples.
• Their Superpower trait allows us to leverage Deft Focus.
• The most enticing thing is they are NOT Forced Interrupts or Responses. Meaning 4 of them can be 'stored' in play, allowing us to reuse the 5th over and over again.
• There are some nuances to the senses that should also be considered:
  • Taste, Radar and to a lesser degree Hearing are triggered on "Actions". This makes them easily repeatable via Events, Upgrades and Readies.
  • Tactility and Olfaction are both triggered on “Completion” i.e. defeating an enemy or taking the last threat off a scheme. These are slightly more situational, and less repeatable during a single phase. Pulling Minions, or using the Main Scheme may make them more repeatable specifically when leveraging an effect like White Wolf.
  • Tactility can be used to mimic Nova/Quicksilver: I call this “A cute tactility interaction” (yes I went there) -> Pump your ATK with a phase lasting effect like Billy and or Aggressive Conditioning, put Tactility on a low health Minion, Basic Attack and defeat said minion, Trigger Tactility Readying, then rinse and repeat will all the low health minions in play. In theory the same could be accomplished with Heroic Conditioning and Side Scheme's.

Full Kit Review

• Elektra - Promising Ally. She only takes consequential when you're in Alter-Ego, and tears off your Toughs and makes you run to your mom to REC if you're in Hero. Makes an interesting Tron style Ally.

• Cross-Examination – A cheap efficient Attack Action in its own right. Cares about upgrades. Will see Radar for a +1, and can afterwards trigger Radar for 3 more, bursting for 7! With all identity specific upgrades attached to an enemy you're looking at up to 10 damage, a ready, and a cost reduction.

• Deposition – Alter-Ego Thwart Action. Lets choose a specific sense and play it from Alter-Ego! Most interestingly: you can pull a Tactility or Olfaction and possibly trigger it immediately, or get some additional threat removal from Taste if required.

• Living Lie Detector – Can be played in either Form! Cheap decent Thwart Action. Cares about upgrades. A neat sequence in Alter-Ego: Deposition for 2 and put Taste onto target scheme -> Living Lie Detector for 3, then trigger the Taste for an additional 2, Netting 7 burst Thwart from Alter-Ego with very little prep. Alternatively you can double Deposition for 8!

• Raising Hell – Our single Bomb / Large damage Attack event. Can be used to clear several minions or as somewhat of a finisher. With all identity specific upgrades attached to an enemy, you can Billy Club yourself Aerial, then Raise Hell for 12, then trigger Radar for 15 total.

• Focus the Senses – Is Nuts. For a measly 4 Thwart you could net 5+ effective resources. You receive the benefits of any attached senses (Olfaction or Tactility) then immediately replay them. It’s a great target to ‘store’ your senses and can move them around if they're stuck behind a Guard or Patrol type effect. With Karen recycling it, we open some great Justice Silk/Jube/Cablesque capabilities.

• Foggy Nelson – Matt Murdock's Thwart capability is top shelf. To note, Foggy can’t remove the last threat to trigger Sense abilities. He CAN however trigger Nelson and Murdock.

• Karen Page - Can be used in either form! Solid for recycling Hero Events or the PSS. Amazing while in Alter-Ego.

• Nelson and Murdock – Mostly triggerable from Alter-Ego form. Beat Cops or similar supports allow you to trigger it in Hero. Either way, Matt is seemingly the strongest Alter-Ego to date.

• Sister Maggie – BIG REC bonus. Helps with signature Title, and the beats you take from Elektra. With added Hit Points from Endurance and Aspect Conditioning cards, this could open interesting play patterns.

• Daredevil's Billy Club – +1 ATK on a non exhausting Weapon (Looking at you Firepower). Incredible Tough remover. Makes every card in your hand 1 NON-Attack damage. Raises Hell.

• The Man Without Fear – Our tortured hero's signature title. The flavor design of this card hits me in the right place. With the play style of 'storing' senses I feel like the ready is often the right choice, but in some cases the 1ER and sense selection is a solid option.

Play Patterns and Deck Types

WORK IN PROGRESS

Turn one you can lay down four senses.

Turbo Ready

My initial analyses lead me toward a readying build, allowing you to do things like Radar an Enemy multiple times or repetitively Taste a Scheme.

I consider our worse case “Readier” as a 3ER (2 cost) card like What Doesn't Kill Me or Side-by-Side. This give us a baseline where we can do an Thwart for 8 or Attack for 10 at a rate of 5ER:

With our worse case "Readier" 3 ER in hand.
Play Radarfor 1ER
Basic Attack for 2 damage
Trigger Radar for 3 damage
Play a Ready for 3ER
Play Radar for 1ER
Attack for 2 damage
Trigger Radar for 3 damage
10 Damage for 5ER

Taunted attacks becomes trivial while Hearing.

Justice Drawing

Thwart heavy “Focus the Senses” recycler. Playing a Cablesque style PSS game. Utilizing Karen Page and seizing advantage of Skilled Investigator. I like the idea of flexing Entrapment from the upcoming Jessica Jones set to keep the Alter-Ego flipping smooth. Chance Encounter, Stealth Training.

Alter-Ego Thwart Machine

Black Widow Style

Cheap Event Sense Focus

Use events rather than Readies to focus on Thwart or Attacks specifically

This is a work in progress as of 2026-07-23. I will be actively updating this published list over the next few days, and well into the future as interactions arise and time permits.