Welcome back to Mystic 101. After our exploratory journey into how Enigma might work in Commoner, it’s nice to have a slight reprieve in the brewing lab and focus on a more streamlined and, dare I say, straight-forward hero. Nuu‘s release in Part the Mistveil was very much needed in that it provided the critical mass of stealth attacks needed for previous Assassins to finally allow them to eschew yellow attacks in favor of full red lineups. Before I dive right into how I’d build Nuu, here’s a quick reminder on how her blues looked:

" Nuu Blues"

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1 The Grain that Tips the Scale blue 1 Path Well Traveled blue 2 Intimate Inducement blue 2 Hiss blue 2 Isolate blue 2 Mind’s Desire blue 2 Impulsive Desire blue 2 Desires of Flesh blue 2 Bonds of Memory blue

As I mentioned in the first instalment of Mystic 101, Nuu benefits from the fact that she functions before transcending, and only really wants to start transcending once enough blues have been banished. Her ability to banish any attack on the combat chain block stealth attacks in tandem with the new swath of cards that banish on hit make her perfect as a grindy, attrition-based hero. I wouldn’t go so far as to say she’s a control deck due to the fact that she actively wants to be attacking, but rather she wants to be blocked early on and isn’t trying to force through a ton of damage like a traditional aggressive strategy.

The Rest of the Deck for Nuu

To that end, this is where I ended up with her:

" Nuu Year, Nuu Me"

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2 Intimate Inducement yellow 2 Bonds of Memory red 2 Desires of Flesh red 2 Hiss red 2 Razor Reflex red 2 Razor’s Edge red 2 Impulsive Desire red 2 Wither red 2 Infect red 2 Mind’s Desire red 2 Pick to Pieces red 2 Sedate red 1 Beckoning Mistblade 1 Spider’s Bite 1 Arousing Wave 1 Blossom of Spring 1 Snapdragon Scalers 1 Mask of Malicious Manifestations 2 Intimate Inducement red

Eight sets of red stealth attacks provides a solid base, and all of them having the same baseline stats of three strength and three block for zero means that while you don’t have any crazy spikes, you also don’t have a ton of bad hands where you’re forced into awkward pitching scenarios. I’ve opted to play the three affliction-causing attacks from Outsiders mainly because they’d incentivize blocking against certain heroes rather than actually whatever benefit comes from the aura being created.

Reactions

Eight sets of attack reactions might also seem like a lot, with another set of red Intimate Inducements in the inventory, but I believe in how powerful they all are on sheer rate. Razor's Edge costing zero and blocking for three immediately makes it a powerful tool to push through an on hit, which may seem antithetical to my previous statements about this being a deck that wants to slowly grind the opponent out of cards via blocking, but being able to secure a vital on hit to banish the top card of their deck or giving them an especially annoying aura is all within the realm of what Nuu wants to do.

Hiss and Razor Reflex both perform the same role in being able to extend combat chains briefly, and Hiss in particular being also ran in blue helps to transcend slightly easier during a regular turn. Lastly, Intimate Inducement, appearing in both yellow and blue is perhaps my favorite card in this deck. The fact that the scaling with pitch value on this card is purely by how many cards you look at off the top of the opponent’s deck makes it absolutely perfect for what I wanted when building out this list. Being able to forcibly banish any action from the top of their deck is the key part of this card, and at times I don’t even care about whether the chosen card is blue or not. In a fast-paced format like Commoner where churning through the deck is not uncommon at all, being able to snipe out problematic attacks and actions ahead of the opponent’s next turn is big game. The best part? Intimate Inducement doesn’t even require the attack to hit or anything, it’s all on the resolution of the reaction itself so it can be used on any attack action on the chain.

Fundamental FAB

Quite possibly one of the best parts of this deck is also the least interesting aspect of it, in that it falls into the category of FAB deckbuilding where a hero basically only ever wants to play its class specific cards and maybe a few good generic staples. Assassins may be the worst case of this, alongside Mechanologist, where the design space of the class means that you’re inherently priced into playing a lot of stealth attacks and the only real variance in deckbuilding come from the hero’s ability and how they interact with the keyword.

This can definitely be a point of boredom or monotony for the players who like to trick out their deck with silver bullets and really customize their deck to be truly original, but is also the source of Nuu’s extreme consistency. Basically everything in the deck costs zero and blocks for three, meaning she can play with two-card hands easily, and defend respectably as well. I do think Assassin itself as a class could do with a refreshed range of stealth attacks that don’t fall into the classic Welcome to Rathe philosophy of single-classed cards having three block value as a way to form solid building blocks for decks, but from a deck performance standpoint, I can’t complain at all.

Equipment for Nuu

The equipment suite that Nuu can take is quite varied, being able to rely on some of the more unique cards from OUT and MST. Like my previous articles, I’m still quite unsold on the cloaked gear since they don’t ever function unless you’re at one health, and Nuu being a deck that actively wants to constantly attack doesn’t help. So I’ve chosen equipment that will help supplement this one-foot-forward approach. As I mentioned in the previous section, almost every card in the deck costs zero, so the resource producing chest pieces are at much lower premium here, and not being able to go wide naturally also means that the extremely powerful Stubby Hammerers doesn’t exactly fit in either. I’ve chosen for Blossom of Spring to be the main chest piece (though I can understand something more defensively oriented) since it doesn’t require a card as cost such as Deep Blue and one pitch is usually all that’s needed for an attack reaction. Is it extremely telegraphed? Definitely. Is it also good at forcing out multiple cards from their hand anyway? Most definitely.

Beckoning Mistblade is a great piece of technology provided by MST, allowing those blue-heavy hands to flow better and being an attack that the opponent would be less inclined to spend a card on blocking, and pairing it with a single Spider’s Bite is fantastic at covering both the more defensive equipment lineups you can come across in heroes like Oldhim. The arms were by far the most challenging to find a suitable card for since most of them weren’t that amazing, usually providing some sort of strength bonus but costing more resources than I’d want. I eventually conceded to using Arousing Wave since it at least has functionality both in blocking and being activated later, like Breaking Scales.

Legs and head-wise though, Snapdragon Scalers returns, and boy does it shine in this deck, with the ability to extend the chain and costing nothing to use while also providing slight upside to Pick to Pieces. I didn’t really like Undertow Stilettos since it requires a resource to be committed to its activation, and effectively forces the Slither to be used immediately anyway for the same desired effect. I’ve then chosen Mask of Malicious Manifestations as a fantastic way to cycle blues into a potential red and having some utility in blocking. Hope Merchant’s Hood is a stronger card overall, but being able to cycle out a card in arsenal with the Mask can be key in just trying to hit an attack action specifically.

Nuu’s Game Plan and Wrap-Up

As a deck, Nuu plays extremely bread-and-butter FAB – attack with maybe two cards on your turn, block with two cards on their turn – only this time, if the opponent elects to play along with you, their cards will inevitably be ground out. There’s also the typical action-cheating that go again provides within the attack reactions, and the final endgame of finishing them off with a huge Macho Grande is a great way to win.

As a deck archetype, Nuu will struggle against Iyslander due to the tax from Frostbites being a hard hurdle to clear even though the opponent’s deck will be ripe with blues to hit, and shines against Guardians due to their abundance of blues and primary game plan of blocking. Her potential, as well as that of other Assassins, is tied to what LSS does with stealth in the future, since they all exist as arguably one-note decks.

I’ll be back next time to tackle the current menace in the CC metagame, Zen, and answer the question of was I being too harsh on Stride of Reprisal? I look forward to you joining me in the next instalment of Mystic 101.

Further Reading:

Introduction to Mystic in Commoner

How to Build a Commoner Deck For Flesh and Blood

Unveiling Nuu’s Secrets

Daniel Yam

Daniel is a competitive psychopath who has relegated himself into playing the most casual format of Commoner. Starting Magic at the onset of Shards block, he jumped into Flesh and Blood when the Ira demo decks were being given out to Australian stores and is a proud holder of a 4-digit GEM ID. In his spare time, he enjoys trying to convince his friends to play increasingly worse cards, going to museums, and playing Guild Wars.