The Devil Holds Court

The Devil Holds Court

Guilty as hell.

Rain's been coming down on the Tenth Avenue fire escapes for hours. Neon bleeds into the puddles, glass breaks somewhere down the block, a heartbeat runs a little too fast. Matt Murdock stands in the dark and hears all of it — the pulse of the punk three rooftops over, the click of a hammer, the lie sitting under a man's voice. He can't see a thing. Doesn't need to. The city's blind, and the blind man is the only eyes it's got. By day the lawyer wins his cases. By night the Devil comes to collect.

This deck fights — aggressive, controlled, without fear. It runs on two engines and a control layer, all of it fed by Matt's superhuman senses. A low curve (cost peaks at 1) and a steady stream of card draw keep it honest: you'll find your pieces just about every night.

Engine 1 — The Investigation: find & defeat side scheme → damage, cards, control

Matt works a case like a lawyer: find the thread, pull it, let the verdict drop.

• Find the thread. Manifold puts one of your own player side schemes into your hand; Sentry and One Way or Another drag an encounter scheme out of the dark. You lay down Lay the Trap, Build Support, Superpower Training and Focus the Senses yourself.
• The verdict. Stick Followed on a scheme — when it's defeated, 4 damage to an enemy. Lay the Trap puts 5 damage in the villain's face when you close it out, and Turn the Tide chips in another 3 for about 1 resource the moment you strip the last threat off a scheme.
• Log the evidence. Skilled Investigator draws you a card every time a side scheme goes down, and Build Support tutors a support straight out of your deck. Superpower Training is just one more side scheme you can reliably close to feed the payoffs above.

The Control Layer — Surgical Thwarts & Stealth Training

The Devil doesn't swing wild. He measures the hit. Four cards let you pull off exactly as much threat as you need — to bring a side scheme down to precisely zero:

• Know Your Enemy (free off Matt's Martial Artist trait via the discount keyword), Move in Shadow, Infiltration (you pick a number, 1 to 5) and Beat Cop (shaves exactly 1 threat a round — even from alter-ego — banking it, then cashes out later to hit a minion for damage equal to the threat stored on it).
• Land the kill clean and it trips Stealth Training: defeat a side scheme with no threat to spare and you kill the villain's momentum — pure board control.
• Double duty: every one of those precise kills also fires the Engine-1 payoffs above (Followed, Turn the Tide, Skilled Investigator). One cut, three wounds.

Engine 2 — The Devil Strikes: confuse → deal damage

When Daredevil steps out of the rain, it gets loud. Blind 'em first, then break 'em.

• Blind 'em. Sonic Rifle is the heart of it: it banks two confuse charges you spend whenever you want — villain control on tap. Got a spare Sonic Rifle charge and don't need the confuse? Tip it in for 3 quick points. Upside the Head confuses on a basic attack (or stuns if the enemy's already confused), and Blindspot confuses every time he thwarts, so long as an upgrade's hanging off the enemy — your Senses handle that in their sleep.
• Break 'em. Float Like a Butterfly turns every confuse into +1 damage on all your attacks. Then Cross-Examination (scales with the Senses on the target), Radar Sense, Daredevil's Billy Club, Sentry and Elektra land the hits.

• Closer. Raising Hell is the burst — the last punch, when they're already on the mat.

The Fuel: Superhuman Senses

It all hangs on the senses. Deft Focus makes the first Sense each round free (they're all Superpower, cost 1), Superhuman Senses has no cap, and The Man Without Fear, Deposition and Focus the Senses pull or replay the exact sense you need from the separate Sense deck. Radar Sense and Heightened Hearing ride on enemies (feeding Blindspot & Cross-Examination); Superior Taste, Enhanced Olfaction and Acute Tactility buy you tempo, a discount, and a ready.

The Firm

Foggy Nelson and Nelson and Murdock prop up the thwarting, Karen Page and Sister Maggie keep Matt on his feet when the night runs long. Manifold and Sentry pull double shifts: tutors first, fists second.

The Law Never Sleeps

Here's the quiet trick that holds the whole thing together: this deck runs on zero resource generators — no Sense of Justice, no Quincarrier, nothing. It doesn't need them. Damn near every card costs 0 or 1, Know Your Enemy plays free off discount, and the first Sense each round is on Deft Focus. Whatever empties your hand, the draw refills right away: Skilled Investigator, One Way or Another (+3 cards), Clear the Area and the tutors turn every spare card into fuel for the next play. The machine never idles. Like justice itself, it doesn't rest — round after round, no breath, till the sentence is served.

Game Plan

You live up top, in the rain. Set the confuse (bank that Sonic Rifle!), find your cases and close them clean, swing with Float Like a Butterfly up, and drop Raising Hell for the finish. The precision thwarts keep the schemes flat and the villain hobbled while your damage climbs, punch after punch.

Flipping down is gravy, not gospel: need a breather, and Living Lie Detector, Deposition and Beat Cop let you thwart from cover and still close cases — a nice bonus when a confused villain hands you the quiet moment. But this deck doesn't want to live down there. It wants to stand up top, in the neon, and swing.

Where it bleeds: it needs a little setup and wants to see its tutor and Followed pieces early — that's what the heavy draw is for, and it keeps the deck consistent. Against Steady/Stalwart villains the confuse engine loses its teeth; when that happens, the Investigation and its defeat payoffs carry the night.

"There is no line. There's only what's right, and what's wrong. And tonight, I decide which is which."