The Man Without Fear

“I cannot see the light. So I will be the light. I am Daredevil, and I am not afraid.” – Daredevil

Just last month, we revealed the scenarios for Fear No Evil, the latest campaign expansion for Marvel Champions: The Card Game. A couple weeks later, we showed off Echo, one of the expansion’s heroes. Today, it’s time to finally take a look at the other hero in this box: the long-awaited, one-and-only Daredevil!

After an accident took away his sight, Matt Murdock (Fear No Evil, 1B) discovered that his other senses had been enhanced to superhuman levels. In Marvel Champions, this is represented by his signature Sense deck, a side-deck of five cards that he can wield to his advantage as Daredevil (Fear No Evil, 1A). This deck starts off randomized, but you can look through it and see the order at any time. While in hero form, Daredevil’s Superhuman Senses ability lets you play the top card of the Sense deck as if it were in your hand (so long as you pay its cost). Each Sense card takes the form of an upgrade that you attach to an enemy or scheme, and depending on the exact Sense card in question, you’ll either get an extra kicker for defeating that enemy/scheme, or you can effectively “boost” your other actions. For example, Acute Tactility (Fear No Evil, 2) lets you ready your identity when the attached enemy/scheme is defeated, while Enhanced Olfaction (Fear No evil, 3) gives you a discount on the next card you play. On the flip side, Radar Sense (Fear No Evil, 5) lets you deal extra damage when you attack the attached enemy, Heightened Hearing (Fear No Evil, 4) lets you redirect and soften that enemy’s incoming attack, and Superior Taste (Fear No Evil, 6) lets you thwart some extra threat from a scheme.  

One handy thing about Daredevil’s Superhuman Senses ability is that there’s no limit to how many times you can use it in a round. So long as you’re able to pay the resource costs, you could get two, three, or even all five Sense upgrades in play at the same time. This especially helps when you want to get maximum value out of cards like Cross-Examination (Fear No Evil, 8) and Living Lie Detector (Fear No Evil, 10), both of which directly scale to the number of upgrades (Sense or otherwise) attached to the target enemy or scheme respectively. Living Lie Detector in particular is useful because it can also be used to thwart while in alter-ego form, a feature it shares with Deposition (Fear No Evil, 9), which also has the added benefit of letting you play the exact Sense upgrade that best fits the situation. You can actually perform pretty potent combos with this card; for example, if you have Superior Taste attached to a scheme with 4 or less threat, first flip to alter-ego and play Deposition, using its ability to find Enhanced Olfaction and attach it to that same scheme. Then, use the threat removal from Deposition on that scheme, which triggers Superior Taste’s ability to remove the remaining 2 threat. Since you removed the last threat from the scheme, you can then trigger Enhanced Olfaction to gain a discount on the next card you play and keep your momentum going.

Deposition isn’t the only way you can get a specific Sense upgrade into play. The Man Without Fear (Fear No Evil, 18) can also pull a Sense of your choice when you need it, while Daredevil’s player side scheme Focus the Senses (Fear No Evil, 12) can rearrange (and replay) all of them at once. Sometimes, even having Daredevil’s superhuman senses at full capacity isn’t enough to thwart the villains’ schemes; when that happens, Matt can call on his friend Foggy Nelson (Fear No Evil, 13) for some extra assistance. With the Nelson and Murdock (Fear No Evil, 15) legal practice hounding the villains from one side and Daredevil himself dishing out justice on the other, you’ll be able to take on any scenario with confidence born from the absence of fear.

If Daredevil’s super-senses and legal skills don’t provide enough thwarting for you, then his pre-built Justice deck is sure to get the job done. Starting us off, we have Blindspot (Fear No Evil, 19), a handy ally who can confuse an enemy each time he thwarts, so long as that enemy has an upgrade attached. Since Daredevil has near-constant access to his Sense upgrades, that’s a pretty easy condition to meet. The new “discount” keyword allows Daredevil to play Know Your Enemy (Fear No Evil, 23) for free thanks to his Martial Artist trait, while Matt Murdock can use his Attorney trait to do the same with Legal Trouble (Fear No Evil, 26). If things get dicey, De-escalation (Fear No Evil, 24) can slow down the villain’s pace and buy you some extra time, and if you happen to “exactly” defeat De-escalation (meaning remove the last threat without any excess thwarting), you can use Stealth Training (Fear No Evil, 28) to halt the villain’s momentum even further.

Daredevil has joined forces with many people over the course of his storied hero career, and someone he frequently crosses paths with is his sometimes-enemy, other-times-lover Elektra (Fear No Evil, 7). The two of them can often get in each other’s way as much as they help each other, but despite their rocky history, when they engage in a Dance with the Devil (Fear No Evil, 31), you’ll find that it opens up all sorts of strategies for the defender of Hell’s Kitchen.

With his superhuman senses enhancing his efficiency and his legal expertise thwarting the villains’ schemes, Daredevil joins the Marvel Champions roster ready to prove that he was well worth the wait. Take on the Kingpin and his criminal empire with both Echo and Daredevil when Fear No Evil arrives this July!

Written by Peter Schumacher