Assassin Cards in Part the Mistveil

The class of ambiguity and deception makes itself known in Part the Mistveil. It brings Nuu, Alluring Desire, a temptress Assassin with lethal ability, to the battlefields of Flesh and Blood, alongside her distant cousins of the Spider, Uzuri, Switchblade and Arakni, Huntsman. Join me as we discuss what Part the Mistveil has to offer for this deadly trio.

Nuu, Alluring Desire

Nuu, Alluring Desire is a very powerful hero, disincentivizing blocks whilst keeping opponents disrupted, eventually forcing opponents into positions where you can use their own cards against them.

There are primarily two ways to build her. The first is via blending her deck with several Contract cards and using her ability to farm Silver with stealth attacks. This Silver can then be used to bring back Assassin equipment such as Blacktek Whisperers or Shriek Razors for reuse and generating value.

The second is a blue-heavy deck focused on attack reactions, pushing her stealth attacks to threatening levels of damage, closing with Transcend. These stealth cards have powerful effects, from disruption to healing, extending the game so Nuu can reach her transcended endgame once her Chi returns in the pitch cycle, finishing your opponent off with their cards.

Finally, while the power of her hero ability varies, getting to play her opponent’s cards for free often turns the game around on the spot. It largely shores up the matchups whereby their opponents have high-costed, high-impact blues such as Guardians and Brute, whilst having lesser effect on others, such as Rangers, as their arrows require a bow to be used, or decks heavy on reds. 

The Cream of the Crop

Mask of Recurring Nightmares

Mask is insane. 

One way to view this card is turning all your triggered Transcend cards into a Coronet’s Peak activation, forcing your opponent to banish a card from their hand, breaking apart their five-card power turn without opportunities for counterplay. This card is important, as the decks against which Nuu’s hero ability is poor, such as aggressive decks, tend to be greatly affected by the Mask’s activation. The banishing effect continues to force your opponents into lines, avoiding banishing blues to fuel Nuu’s ability. Using your first few Transcend activations on the Mask is better, as it slows the game down, whilst saving blues for late game when they are more effective.

Notably the card, like other Assassin equipment such as Redback Shroud and Flick Knives, is an Attack Reaction, buffing cards such as Bonds of Agony and Double Trouble with its activation.

Lastly, it also serves as an outlet for hands whereby you Transcend twice, removing a blocking card from your opponent from defending the onslaught of their own cards. In my opinion, Mask of Recurring Nightmares is one of the most powerful cards ever printed in Flesh and Blood.

Siren’s Call

‘It draws a card?!?’ a bewildered Jose yells upon rereading the card. This card is extremely strong, as it serves as a powerful disruption piece, once again forcefully removing an opponent’s blue card, generating value for Nuu, Alluring Desire‘s hero ability, while replacing itself! Like Spreading Plague, it punishes over-blocking by denying a planned counterattack altogether, leading Nuu to have more avenues to fork your opponents into poor decisions.

Not all are sunshine and rainbows, however. While drawing a card is less powerful in Nuu, Alluring Desire, due to the specialized nature of the deck, being split into pitch cards, attacks, and attack reactions, a blind draw can be difficult to fully utilize off of a small hand. Secondly, it only takes blues, and those are rarely the power cards of your opponents’ decks, and merely hinders their ability to use them on that given turn. Certain decks also boast a low blue count, resulting in this card being ineffective. Lastly, it disarms your opponent, but it does result in your attack being blocked further, thus an ineffective card in terms of pushing attacks through.

Regardless, this card is a staple of Nuu’s toolkit, of which every blocking opponent has to consider moving forward.

Payoffs

Bonds of Agony

Among the two majestic blues, Bonds of Agony is the more interesting one. This card looks immensely terrifying, especially if your opponent has a critical part of their deck in their hand, such as Lumina Ascension or Bloodrush Bellow. First thing to note, if you manage to activate three attack reactions on this card, it’s a zero-mana, four-power attack, on rate. Secondly, even if you don’t hit a critical game piece, you’re still taking a card out of your opponent’s hand. Disruption is disruption. 

You also get to view your opponent’s entire deck. Taking note of critical one-ofs, attack reactions, or win conditions grants you a powerful informational advantage, such as Singing Steelblade targets or Reckless Swing/Pummel copies. Lastly, the threat of this card is as powerful as the effect itself. Using Slither on this card into Nuu’s hero power activation after your opponent overblocks is also very powerful.

However, the card isn’t perfect. If Mask of Recurring Nightmares is used as one of its reactions, a wise opponent can banish their critical piece to deny you his other copies. Funnily enough, you can use this to your advantage to feign the card’s activation, and disrupt your opponent’s turn without being able to activate the card’s full text. Reading your opponent is immensely important when playing this card, as it can hint at the contents of their hand as well, even if you can’t trigger its ability. Fear is an insidious tell.

Lastly, this card can be utilized in Uzuri, Switchblade as her hero’s activation counts as the first activation. Isolating this card and triggering its effects via using your equipment can lead to early extraction of your opponent’s win cons, for the very low price of a blue.

Surely, Bonds of Agony is a staple for the Stealth Assassins.

Persuasive Prognosis

Persuasive Prognosis is the less menacing of the two majestic blues, but is powerful nonetheless. Unlike Bonds of Agony, it doesn’t gain power above its one base, however, its effect is nonetheless powerful. Banishing a card off the top tends to lead to similar costing cards in their hand, regardless of being a red- or blue-heavy deck, often leading to healing for two. This either forces armor or blocks; breaking apart five-card hands in Flesh and Blood is the main way slow decks avoid being blown out, and this gives Nuu, Alluring Desire an additional tool.

While banishing off the top might misalign with an opponent’s hand, an opponent will block it as if it were to be effective. This is important to be understood as the threat of the card, even if you weren’t to commit resources to it. This card threatens disruption, and your opponent has to play around being disrupted via blocking breaks apart their five-card hand, and itself is sufficient. 

Art of Desire

The Art of Desire cards, are deceptively powerful, occasionally causing a draw on hit or on block is essentially stealth Snatch red. Art of Desire: Body is further effective, as Nuu, Alluring Desire‘s ability disincentivizes blocking with blues, leading to life gain and draw if an opponent were to block with a red. The blue is powerful as well, fulfilling Nuu’s blue and attack ratios and threatening an opponent’s blues alongside Nuu’s other cards. As previously discussed, the draw is less powerful on Assassins compared to other classes due to the ambiguous nature of your draw, but nonetheless drawing a card as a pseudo-Ponder alongside the incidental life gain is a powerful effect to gain card advantage against your opponents.

Enablers

Beckoning Mistblade

The new Assassin dagger enables Nuu, Alluring Desire to utilize high blue count hands effectively, lest an opponent blocks an innocuous dagger for one, opening up her possible lines greatly, threatening a double stealth turn, and marginally increasing your damage output. It pairs particularly well with Levels of Enlightenment, enabling it to activate its draw or damage modes, alongside gaining go again.

Importantly, while you might not be able to use its go again ability, your opponent can’t know the contents of your hand, and blocking correctly around her potential reactions on the first attack, or saving blocks for the second attack is very difficult for an opponent to read. Beckoning Mistblade also enables go again on the opponent’s blues, leading to Transcended turns to become more effective when stealing from classes gated by action points, leading to a must-block in the end game. 

Lastly, in a pinch, the Beckoning Mistblade can be thrown with Flick Knives, enabling the go again on a critical turn by which you Transcend, granting your opponent’s blues go again without counterplay, regardless if the dagger is blocked or you lack the spare pitch to swing it.

I’d likely pair it with the classic Assassin daggers such as Spider’s Bite or Nerve Scalpel to expand your options to put your opponent in difficult situations.

Gorgon’s Gaze

This card looks extremely powerful, but in reality is largely overkill. Without Chi, it enables go again and potentially pushes an attack or on hit through at the high cost of two pitch. However, if a Chi is pitched, it further punishes an opponent for blocking with attack actions by enabling you to use those attacks during this combat chain for free, regardless of their color, leading you to continue the assault after your attack due to the Slither generated. This punishes the traditional line of blocking with reds against Nuu, utilizing these powerful cards against them.

This card being yellow is very inconvenient for Nuu’s deck ratios, and needing your opponent to play into it causes its effectiveness to be very swingy, and yet, like Spreading Plague, the threat of the card is always looming. This card can turn games on their head, punishing an opponent’s careless block on a Command and Conquer, and blowing them out. As such, while this card is unlikely to be run as a staple, one or two copies sideboarded in versus Guardians or Brutes could turn the tides of the game.

Just a Nick

Just a Nick enables the blue cards Nuu, Alluring Desire tends to rely on to threaten an impressive attack value that is difficult to predict, especially due to its zero cost. However, this card causes deckbuilding restrictions and some potentially awkward turns. Arsenalling the card awaiting a target is awkward with Codex of Frailty turns, and forces you into the line of using your zero-for-ones instead of taking other lines. As of now, my opinion of the card is it’s very powerful, but has to be built around.

Hiss

Hiss is the card that defines Nuu, Alluring Desire. Being able to push an on hit to damage and saving the Slither for a future turn is intensely powerful – no on hits required. The problem with cards such as Razor Reflex is they encourage you to keep a big hand to utilize both the damage and the granted go again effectively. Being able to split up the go again to enable the following turn is extremely powerful, and is very strong in a class gated in action points. 

The Slither enables Nuu to transcend for her hero ability after her blue attack, or lead into a Codex of Frailty. It also can be utilized on the following turn in arsenal, causing her attacks to be further unpredictable. Lastly, Slithers can be used on opponent’s cards after Nuu Transcends, giving her opponent’s cards go again enabling for extremely powerful turns out of nowhere. Hiss also serves as two reactions for Bonds of Agony, enabling the card drastically. 

Hiss’s blue requirement forces Nuu uniquely to be most powerful at three-card hands, with the first card being the attack, the second being the pitch, and the third being Hiss. This prevents her from using Fyendal’s Spring Tunic from casting Hiss effectively, which would otherwise be a very powerful turn cycle. However, playing around these three-card lines whilst further improving on four- and five-card hands with Transcend possibilities and further attack reactions will likely represent most of Nuu’s turn cycles. This card is her bread and butter.

Venomous Bite

One extra damage granted by Fang Strike is less powerful than go again on demand, however it’s still a uniquely important piece to keep options ambiguous against Nuu. Three attack is a critical breakpoint due to Hiss’s known prominence, and being able to subvert expectations of an opponent’s block and pushing one damage over the top of a critical on hit will likely swing the game in your favor and keep an opponent on their toes. It can also be used to push critical breakpoints on future turns, such as Command and Conquer, while unfortunately being easily telegraphable. While unexciting, Venomous Bite is likely warranted in Nuu lists as a mix-up.

Sacred Art: Undercurrent Desires

Lastly, Nuu’s specialization.

This card, unlike other Transcend options, costs three. However, if a blue card is cast, it gives you both Fang Strike and Slither, the ability to banish your opponent’s cards, and everything you need to abuse your opponent’s cards.

The play line of banishing your two best blue cards and using them with Slither and Fang Strike is immensely powerful. It’s an excellent way to finish an opponent off in the pitch cycle and spike your turn, granted your opponent’s blue banish zone is valuable. The main drawback of this card is that it doesn’t block, and is only at the apex of its strength in the end game. Lastly, if the opponent lacks any good targets, this card is functionally an expensive Mask of Recurring Nightmares activation. 

Conclusion

Nuu is very strong and, more importantly, very fun. Her deck encourages proactive control similar to Iyslander, Stormbind, as the Transcend cards cause her to be pretty poor on the defense. On the other hand, while she is ahead, she causes the opponent to struggle immensely to retaliate through her disruption, all while avoiding giving her value for her endgame hero activations. Uzuri, Switchblade gains several side-grades, with new Stealth options potentially encouraging builds that rely on Spike with Bloodrot, namely Bonds of Agony stealing games on occasion, alongside a new card to Stealth out The Weakest Link for use against decks such as Kayo, Armed and Dangerous, or Transcend cards. Lastly, poor Arakni, Huntsman gains the least, yet Persuasive Prognosis might be useful for him, as a blue that forces blocks out of an opponent in a pinch.

I look forward to the metagame after Part the Mistveil, between the three new heroes and awesome set of expansion slot cards, Flesh and Blood is surely to be full of fun and innovation for the next quarter year. 

Until next time! And hope not to see you paired in GEM 🙂

Stay Tuned for More Part the Mistveil Reviews!

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Part the Mistveil Review – Ninja & Generic

Part the Mistveil Review – Illusionist