Better The Devil You Know

Jessica Jones is here! Which means I can now post the Daredevil deck that I have had in mind ever since her announcement article.

Introductions

First of all, hello everyone! This will be my first deck posting on MarvelCDB. I’ve been playing the game for a couple years and figured it was high time to start posting some of my favorite decks on here to share with the community. Hopefully they bring as much enjoyment to you as they’ve brought me.

The Defenders Are Here!

Anyways, Marvel: Champions is absolutely cooking with the releases lately. Fear No Evil is one of my favorite products to date, which is saying something for a game that is almost 7 years old, with 10 campaign boxes, and 70 heroes.

Everything top to bottom is just delightful, from the introduction of villains with swappable scenarios, to Kingpin being the first villain that excludes the standard encounter sets, to Echo introducing a new—very popular—Ronin archetype into the game.

But the crown jewel has got to be Daredevil. Easily the most anticipated hero in the game since I started playing two years ago, and from what I understand folks have not been this excited for a product release for much longer than that.

If that were all though then why would I wait to say hello until now?

Because every new announcement since Fear No Evil has looked just as good!

Jessica Jones- New win condition (!!!), first ever 3/2/1 stat line, Starting Cards for stat pumping builds, a couple amazing new side schemes

Luke Cage- Unlimited tough status cards (thank you very much), fascinating new righteous purpose archetype

Elektra- first ever hero with villainous, they actually got me to feel excited for a character who I can’t stand from the Daredevil TV Show (sorry to anyone who loves her. She drove me nuts lol)

Iron Fist- ???

So with that out of the way, I decided to wait to post this deck until I could try it with the new Strategy Session and Second Chance cards from Jessica Jones and it was well worth the wait.

DECK WRITE UP

Here’s a quick overview of the stats

Costs:

• 0 cost-15 (Know Your Enemy functions as a 0 cost)
• 1 cost-18 (Move in Shadow functions as a 1 cost)
• 2 cost-5
• 3 cost-2
• 4 cost-1

6 Attack events

13 Thwart cards (10 events and 3 Move in Shadow upgrades)

10 Setup cards (Foggy, Front Org, Karen, Nelson and Murdock, Sister Maggie, Billy Clubs, Deft Focus, Skilled Investigator, Stealth Training, and The Man Without Fear)

With that out of the way, let’s dive a little deeper into the specifics of the deck

Focus The Senses

Far and away I believe the most valuable card in Daredevils kit is Focus The Senses.

That may come as a bit of a surprise to some because so many of his other cards (Foggy Nelson, Karen Page, Sister Maggie, The Man Without Fear) are incredibly powerful in their own right. I just think that they are most valuable when supporting Matt’s quest to clear Focus The Senses as many times as possible in one game.

Having the ability to place all five of his senses wherever you dang well please, at the drop of a hat is such a rush, and tee’s up massive turns again and again. Heck, his signature events want you to play Focus the Senses first, giving you tons of extra thwart and damage as a reward!

Not to mention, Focus The Senses is a side scheme, so if you happen to be able to clear it as Matt Murdock, you can throw a stun and confuse onto an enemy along with whatever senses your heart desires.

That’s why I felt Strategy Session was a no brainer. Yes please, give me the opportunity to fish through my deck so I can play it up to 3 other times in the same deck pass!

This is obviously where Karen Page shines, and if Focus The Senses is in my discard pile, that’s the one I’m shuffling back into my deck with her 99 times out of 100.

Setup

From there, I did mention this deck has 10 cards to set up. And without including any of the double resources in this deck I know that might be a little frightening.

Here’s the cost breakdown for those 10 cards:

• 0 cost-2
• 1 cost-4
• 2 cost-4

As you can see, most of Daredevils setup is not very expensive. And for those 4 cards that are 2 cost, Enhanced Olfaction helps a ton. Play it as often as you can in the early going to ramp quicker. (Also, after you are fully set up, there are only 4 cards in the deck that are 2 cost or higher, so I really found the doubles aren’t necessary here)

Build Support is in there to grab any one of Matt’s 3 persona supports that aren’t in play yet (in order of importance I’d probably go 1. Karen 2. Foggy 3. Sister Maggie, although Foggy may get a slight edge just based on cost).

Superpower Training is mostly in there to get The Man Without Fear into play, although using it to grab the Billy Clubs is still worth it in my opinion.

And then you’ll also notice that I put in 3 copies of Front Organization. Maybe that’s a bit overkill seeing as you can only control one at a time, but I gotta tell ya that I absolutely hate discarding my setup. And with Bullseye’s when revealed ability, Front Organization has come in quite handy for me most games. Worst case scenario, you can spend the extra copies to play a sense card :).

The rest of the setup is a little bit more optional, it’s more of a side quest if you want to play it that way. That being said, Stealth Training and Nelson and Murdock are really nice, especially for the ever increasingly common vulnerable minions, not to mention stun locking the villain.

And Skilled Investigator is gonna pay for itself really quickly with how often you’ll be clearing side schemes.

Honorable Mentions

Last two cards I’ll call out here, Move in Shadow clears a ludicrous amount of threat with Daredevil. I threw it in as an afterthought at first, and was absolutely blown away by how effective it was.

And then Manifold is there as just another way to grab Focus The Senses. Particularly if it’s stuck in your discard pile. (It’s also a fun combo to put Enhanced Olfaction on Focus The Senses, clear it, play Manifold at a reduced cost of 1, and use him to grab Focus The Senses again)

Anyways, that’s about it. I hope you enjoy the build. Let me know if you have any questions!