Part the Mistveil brought forth some of the most powerful heroes ever introduced into Flesh and Blood. From Enigma, Ledger of Ancestry wielding intense amounts of pressure by generating defensive tools while beating you down, to Zen, Tamer of Purpose wielding some of the most explosive turns ever introduced to the game. Today I would like to discuss Nuu, Alluring Desire, my latest obsession.

Nuu has charmed the community, leading to numerous players tinkering with her width of options seeking the right way to build her. Nuu, as she currently is played, aims to punch up with heavy disruption, preventing your opponent from executing their largest hands, all while chipping away at your opponent’s life total. She leverages unknown information into power, forking your opponent into unwinnable decisions.

This article aims to introduce players to playing Nuu, learning her most powerful play patterns, and getting the most out of her complex set of moves.

Nuu, the Newest Assassin

Nuu, Alluring Desire plays like an Assassin. While Uzuri, Switchblade‘s greatest strength is flexibility with her hand defensively and aggressively, Nuu boasts far more raw power. Unlike Uzuri, when Nuu is in the driver’s seat, not only do you shut down your opponent’s hand, but often you shut down their deck as well. Unlike Uzuri who forces efficiency, Nuu’s cards all pick apart your opponent’s hands delicately, restricting their retaliation as you press the advantage. However, that is also Nuu’s weakness, she needs to be in control of the game, sacrificing defensive tools for density of disruption, and non-blocks via Transcend cards.

No Right Answers

I often describe Nuu as a hero that is “unblockable.” This is because of the wealth of reactions Nuu could possibly have that need vastly different answers in order to not be blown out. As Nuu, you are threatening three different types of reactions: damage, disruption, and wildcards.

Attack Reactions

The most obvious possibility when being attacked by Nuu, Alluring Desire is having her attacks buffed over your block, solidifying their on hit. This punishes blocks with additional damage on your opponent’s life, as well as pushing through a critical on hit they were trying to deny. The nature of Nuu’s attack reaction suite also leaves no “safe” number to over-block with. Traditionally, over-blocking three on Assassin attacks are a safe bet, however, Hiss red lets you go around the attack, Venomous Bite threatens the rare breakpoint of a four-attack buff, and The Grain that Tips the Scale punishes even the safest of blocks by pushing their predictions one over. While powerful, it’s important to recognize that these cards also block well at a value of three, and playing too hard into Snag might lose you the game early. The primary job of these cards is to prevent exact blocks, and are a huge contributor to Nuu’s power.

Disruption

Mask of Recurring Nightmares, as I have mentioned ad nauseum, ensures that over-blocking Nuu is also not safe. Allowing you to present an unreadable attack reaction that banishes a card in an opponent’s hand leaves an opponent disrupted even after they’ve blocked your on hit attack. This duality with damage reactions presents the primary 50/50 that opponents have to consider when thinking of blocking Nuu. These cards also have minute effects that turn the tide of the game. One is the critical Pass Over on a powerful blue to be used for Nuu’s ability or denying a graveyard recursion effect such as Codex of Frailty or Bonds of Ancestry. Another favorite is Path Well Traveled, allowing for easy access to Nuu’s transcend ability, or a further attack.

Wildcards

Lastly, these effects prevent Nuu, Alluring Desire from being too predictable on non-Assassin, non-blue attacks. Siren’s Call allows Nuu to rob a blue out of any opponent’s hand, even when presenting a non-Assassin attack, occasionally crumpling an opponent’s turn into non-effectiveness. Her absurd equipment suite of Arousing Wave and Undertow Stilettos allows Nuu to either subvert an opponent’s exact blocks to prevent an on hit, or continue her assault at the cost of one pitch at any point. While these effects are overpriced at a pitch, Nuu wields several two-cost attacks, leaving their activations convenient while threatening Siren’s Call, and are threatened throughout the game. Holding the threat of their activations over your opponent’s head can generate value, even without activating these powerful cards as your opponent plays around them. Lastly, the great Sigil of Solace punishes opponents for playing around any of the above attacks by generating three life worth of value, all while an opponent racks their mind on how they are to mount a counterassault through all of the above reactions.

It’s critical to understand that the strength of these reactions is not any of their individual effects, but while presenting an attack, all of these reactions are threatened at once. An opponent has to either take chances on which reaction you’re holding, or concede to playing through Nuu’s disruption. When presenting attacks, whenever possible hold an extra card, even if it’s irrelevant, as to your opponent, it could be anything, in your hand, all at once.

The Attacks

Now that we’ve established why blocking Nuu is almost impossible, it’s time to highlight the attacks with brutal on hit effects that force an opponent to try to interact with Nuu’s mind games.

Oh No! My Hand!

The cards above are some of Nuu, Alluring Desire‘s most powerful tools as they always have an effect on disrupting an opponent’s hand. Surgical Extraction is far more powerful in Nuu compared to Uzuri, Switchblade and Arakni, Huntsman, as Nuu can undermine over-blocks far better with Mask of Recurring Nightmares activations. This punish causes any attempts to block Surgical Extraction to be able to be subverted, one way or another. Persuasive Prognosis is a deceptively powerful card once an opponent has run out of armor, as its one power on hit demands answers, which, when blocked, allows Nuu to scrape herself further away from death’s door. Lastly, Bonds of Agony is such a pushed card, threatening insane information advantage of knowing your opponent’s entire deck, alongside picking off one of your opponent’s best threats while pushing on-rate damage. While it may seem difficult to activate, Nuu’s equipment allows you to threaten it easily at any point alongside a single reaction in hand. The beauty of Bonds of Agony is the fear it invokes, as swinging with Beckoning Mistblade can cause an opponent to over-block drastically to avoid its devastating on hit, only for you to follow up with another devastating blow after your opponent has committed their resources.

Oh No! My Arsenal!

The classic Assassin package of disruption, these keep an opponent on their toes, making them hesitate saving their most powerful tools in arsenal. Nuu, unlike Uzuri, can threaten additional reactions over these attacks, such as Siren’s Call. Codex of Frailty continues to hold the crown for one of the best one-card hands in the game, swinging the tide back to your favor by replacing itself, and threatening disruption with Leave No Witnesses.

Lastly, these pieces of disruption round out Nuu, Alluring Desire‘s package. While less effective, The Weakest Link threatens a powerful disruptive on hit against metagame powerhouses Kayo, Armed and Dangerous and Zen, Tamer of Purpose, forcing blocks and keeping opponents’ turns in check. Censor might be the most skill-intensive card in the game, making hand reading critical as Nuu has a surprising amount of information gathering, with her hand-attacking disruption revealing their hand, giving you critical information to Censor arsenal targets. The way I “blind” utilize Censor is to call the opponent’s most powerful cards that might let them swing the game back to their favor. Even if their turn is unaffected, many decks rely on certain powerful cards, and dealing with their off-turn is far more manageable than their spike turns.

Nuu’s Two-Staged Game

I like to think of playing Nuu, Alluring Desire in two stages. The first one involves wearing away your opponent’s defensive tools and armor. The second stage is when your most powerful cards start forcing your opponent to block, and is when you gain your advantage. 

Nuu’s attacks often come at difficult breakpoints, such as Leave No Witnesses or Surgical Extraction, and especially Persuasive Prognosis. While initially they only take a single card from your opponent’s hand combined with armor, as the game wears long, your opponent’s defensive tools wear thin, eventually taking two cards to answer your one. One way to do so is to bluff threats. Swinging Beckoning Mistblade is an excellent way to draw out armor, even without a blue to follow the attack. Making things “too easy” to block with armor is a good way to goad opponents to using their armor early, such as launching efficient two-card hands like Command and Conquer or The Weakest Link, which beg your opponent to block with armor to present a powerful counter-attack. Understanding your opponent’s blocking patterns is critical to playing Nuu, and making them use their armor before the endgame is critical to winning. Being comfortable with falling behind early and scrapping together a comeback is critical to playing Nuu well, and being able to make plays aimed at dissecting your opponent’s defensive tools is crucial to success.

Holding the Advantage

Another critical concept as a Nuu, Alluring Desire player involves needing to maintain your hold and grip of the game, while surviving your opponent’s assault long enough for you to accrue your advantage. Learning the fine balance between utilizing or blocking with your attack reactions, alongside arsenalling your critical Transcend cards instead of activating it in a given turn, gauging that you’ve disrupted your opponent sufficiently, and are able to handle your opponent’s attack. Thus, by saving your card in the arsenal, you increase the likelihood of being able to present disruption the next turn.

Knowing exactly how much to commit to disruption involves plenty of practice and knowledge of your opponent’s attack patterns. How effective are their two-card hands? Will Censor-ing a critical piece entail enough disruption to null their turn? Or do I need to crack Undertow Stilettos to continue my attack? Is it worth cracking my Arousing Wave to push my Bonds of Agony over my opponent’s block, even after they’ve blocked with two cards? There is plenty of room to master Nuu. Understanding when enough disruption is enough, and when to withhold resources for future turns, is where Nuu’s ceiling of skill expression resides. It is easy to play cards, it is hard knowing when not to.

Matchup Tips for Nuu

At the cost of dating this article, I think it’s important to delve into some of the intricacies of Nuu’s matchups, to show that winning with Nuu isn’t about doing what you want to do, but to undermine your opponent’s plan.

Zen, Tamer of Purpose

The boogeyman! While Nuu, Alluring Desire has been presented as a favorite in this matchup, it’s critical to understand why. Zen, Tamer of Purpose leverages his game plan on one critical turn where he explodes onto the game where he tosses his Traverse the Universe and Stride of Reprisal to unleash a powerful six- to seven-card hand, threatening anywhere between 30 and 50 damage. Alongside this explosive turn, he leverages above-average turns trading with his opponent with difficult-to-block breakpoints to finish them off.

The key to this matchup is the great Scale Peeler. Zen’s impressive armor suite wards away disruption on his pop-off turn and Scale Peeler is the key to ensuring their pop-off turn remains tame. Without it, non-Assassin attacks such as Command and Conquer and The Weakest Link can easily be answered outside of the rare Siren’s Call. Thus, Nuu’s game plan is as follows.

After Zen transcends (which he will), every non-Assassin attack has to be presented alongside a Scale Peeler activation. This happens while you attempt to outtrade Zen’s two-card hands and keeping up disruption every turn. Your goal is to force Zen to find an opportunity to pop off on your terms. That means restricting his critical turn to go off with four cards or fewer. If you survive his pop-off turn with above ten life, things are smooth sailing. These are the two stages of the game, before and after his pop-off. The card you call with Censor most of the time is Descendent Gustwave, as it’s an efficient two-card hand trading piece, but also leads to most of his powerful turns. On occasion, the call is Art of War or Chase the Tail based on which threats have already been exhausted in your opponent’s deck. The matchup is tense, always a razor’s edge away from losing, but is very rewarding when mastered.

Kayo, Armed and Dangerous

Kayo, Armed and Dangerous‘s game plan against Nuu, Alluring Desire involves leveraging his impressive small hands such as Swing Big or Bare Fangs. He wields an impressive set of armor, and the powerful Scowling Flesh Bag, buying him space on demand. Whilst doing this, he always threatens to run away with the game with a triple attack Bloodrush Bellow or Savage Sash turn. Lastly, he has one of the most powerful effects of disruption resilience with No Fear, preventing Nuu from interacting with his hand.

So how do we deal with this? Firstly, we have to get rid of his armor. Playing efficient attacks and relying less on your disruption prevents Kayo from leveraging his armor and disruption protection against you. When his armor is gone, you can leverage your powerful one-card hands to overcome his two-card hands and edge out advantages. Lastly, via utilizing Flick Knives, Beckoning Mistblade, and Undertow Stilettos, you can threaten a 17 damage turn using your opponent’s blues obtained through incidental disruption throughout the game. This is done via using Undertow Stilettos on the first attack and flicking your Beckoning Mistblade granting the second blue attack go again, finishing with a third mimicking a Storm Striders‘s like execute.

Some tricks that give you an edge involve arsenalling your reactions to dodge Scowling Flesh Bag disruption, and using Flick Knives to get over No Fear for critical arsenal disruption. Lastly, a unique trick against No Fear involves using Nuu, Alluring Desire‘s hero ability to utilize the blues he has banished on No Fear, working as a pseudo-Siren’s Call, just as your opponent thinks he’s safe.

Enigma, Ledger of Ancestry

Enigma, Ledger of Ancestry has been known to be a bad matchup for Nuu, Alluring Desire as they produce efficient ward auras which, if unanswered, lead to snowballing her board and running away with the game. On top of this, Enigma hosts numerous defensive options such as Dense Blue Mist and That All You Got?, and efficient attacks such as Phantasmaclasm and Miraging Metamorph that are difficult to answer. Enigma also wields Traverse the Universe which allows her a massive swing in her favor at any point during the game after she transcends.

Nuu attempts to answer Enigma’s game plan by keeping offensive pressure. By pushing go again threats such as Looking for a Scrap and Enlightened Strike, by keeping the pressure against Enigma, you attempt to keep her answering your disruption rather than you chasing her threats. Using her daggers with Vambrace of Determination to try and pick apart her larger wards, forcing inefficient blocks, is a good way to devalue her wards and force your opponent into a difficult position. Pick to Pieces, while initially a powerful threat, is easy to block on its own. However, after presenting a go again attack beforehand, you deplete your opponent’s defensive resources, allowing Pick to Pieces to cut through cleanly after. Lastly, if you survive to the endgame, Enigma’s awkward hands rear their ugly head as her blocks become increasingly inefficient and uncomfortable as she can no longer use her life as a resource.  You aim to end the game via finding a combination of attacking threats that they can’t answer, be it multiple attacks in one turn, attack reactions, or the great Command and Conquer.

Conclusion

While there’s an endless amount to be said about Nuu, Alluring Desire, the fun of Flesh and Blood is to find these advantages yourself. Hope you have fun exploring the fantastic hero that is Nuu, and see you soon.

Further Reading:

How to Upgrade the Nuu Blitz Precon

Nuu – Fun or Competitive?

Wishlist for Rosetta