A Nuu Fan-Made Format of Flesh and Blood

Today I present you with NuuNuu: Battle for the Deep Blue Sea, a fan-made two-player variation of Flesh and Blood using a single deck. One game takes an average of forty minutes with a competitive feel. Gameplay features battling over the positioning of cards in the shared zones while you fight on the combat chain. Like all Flesh and Blood decks, your list can be modified with your own personal expression. I've listed budget and power versions of the deck with different gameplay focuses. If you have some free time at your local armory, or your friends' schedules never align for a cube night, or you're just traveling light to a convention, consider the benefits of a NuuNuu deck.

This single deck contains two heroes (young Nuu), a set of equipment for each hero, a 68 card deck, and tokens. All cards fit comfortably in one deckbox (about 85 cards including tokens). Each player plays as the young hero Nuu and has the same equipment package. The deck is shared between the players and counts as both your deck and your opponent's deck. The graveyard, banish zone, and pitch zone are also shared. You will not share resources from pitch. Sharing the deck modifies the following rules:

• During start or end phases, if both players would draw, the turn player draws first.
• Both players own the cards; when an effect puts a card in the owner's hand, it goes to the player who triggered the effect.
• The turn player orders all pitch cards in the end phase (which is still private to that player)
• One player should equip armor on the left side, and the other player should equip on the right (so the armor is mirrored). The deck and pitch will be on the unarmored shared side. The graveyard and banish zone work best on opposite ends of the combat chain.

Fan-made formats are a fun and different way to enjoy the game. However, most of them are large pools of cards for cubing (drafting from a fan-curated collection of cards often with a specific theme). This is great fun but requires a lot of cards, space, time, and friends. The NuuNuu deck provides unique experience while also being compact in cards, space, time, and friends. The NuuNuu deck aims to use most gameplay concepts found in Flesh and Blood. This deck provides an assassin theme with fan-changed rules. These changes open up new possibilities where you fight your opponent for top-of-deck and zone location of cards while battling them on the combat chain. The shared zone design of the NuuNuu deck is just the first of this new possibility. Additional ideas come to mind of unique shared deck battles such as a Chane and Vynnset together deck, or a Levia or Kano mirror.

A NuuNuu deck can be built to the owner's budget or taste. I've designed two variations which have different budgets and gameplay. The budget version focuses heavily on rares and commons, with only a few majestics. 

Snag is a critical part of the gameplay design, and while it was formerly a budget card, that has changed with the current meta. I recommended trying Snag in the deck, even as a proxy, just to understand its function before cutting it. After Snag, a handful of majestics are in the deck with no card being more than a few dollars. This is a casual fan format idea and proxying is for testing things out. The budget version focuses on faster gameplay with fewer non-blocking cards (by two) and less opting. More game decisions will happen on the combat chain. 

In contrast, the power version of the deck has no thought given to budget, tossing in legendaries and fables and more majestics. Decisions off the combat chain are as influential as those on the combat chain and lines of play are more atypical.

The deck can also have variations in card art with different prints. Several of the cards have promotion or cold foil editions. If you are testing this out with proxies, you can chose your own arts. If you're artistically inclined, you could change one of the heroes to be Satsuki – a vipressa trained by Nuu – for a twist on the mirror match.

The shared ownership of deck, zones, and cards adds a unique element of the gameplay, heightening the power of this hero. While all chosen cards are legal with this hero, some are not typical. The deck is a careful balance of blues and attacks. Of the 68 deck cards, 52 are blues. Most cards are blue in order to be accessible from the banished zone by Nuu's hero ability. A select number of cards are yellows or reds to get the percentage around 80% blue, 20% non-blue. Having some non-blues added balance to the deck and allow for situations where a banish trigger might not occur as the top of the deck won't be blue. 

Statistically, the deck appears to have a low count of attacks, 28, and a high count of non-blocks, 21. Eight of the non-blocks are transcend cards and six are Snag. With a low number of attacks, the higher number of non-blocks is not as punishing. Accessing the attacks in the banish zone or returning them to the deck with Remembrance ensures no attack is wasted, keeping the full potential of all 28 attacks. The rest of the deck is single or double copies of cards making a variety of possible hands to explore and keeping the gameplay feeling like an exciting puzzle. While 68 cards suggests the game could end in fatigue, that is intentional. In testing, this has not yet happened.

Both players equip a Nerve Scalpel and Beckoning Mistblade. These are the most interactive daggers with the deck and make the most decision points. The chosen equipment – Redback Shroud or Heirloom of Snake Hide, Mask of Perdition, Arousing Wave, and Undertow Stilettos – block well and provide a variety of reactions, plus some reuse with Silver from contracts.

There are two focus points in the deck: one is Deep Blue Sea, and the other is Snag. Deep Blue Sea is the main attacking card in the deck at eight copies. The intention is this will be played from the shared banish zone. This attack on average swings for 7 power. The deck was designed around this card and it remains a focal point as the big attack. Add more to speed up gameplay. Snag is the counter to Deep Blue Sea and the many attack reactions in the deck. This will not stop every source of power increase but can be played defensively from the banish zone with Nuu's hero power. Snag can stop more damage on average than most blocking cards when timed well.

For the rest of the attacks, the four contract cards are chosen to create Silver and fill the banish zone. The stealth cards and Nuu's Stealth hero power allow additional banishes. If you have an Inner Chi and a Deep Blue Sea, blocking a stealth card with the Deep Blue Sea is a strategic way to set up your turn. Gravekeeping fills the banish zone. If played from the banish zone with go again from a Slither or Quicken, it can create a nice chain. Looking for a Scrap also fills the banish zone but was chosen to be one of the non-blues. Switch Looking for a Scrap to blue to increase gameplay speed.

Rounding out the Assassin theme are reactions and transcend cards. Attack reactions are plentiful to push damage and block damage. These are a variety of colors to increase non-blues. Both defense reactions are blue to allow play from banish. Sink Below allows you to tuck a Slither or Fang Strike into the deck for later or gives you general hand filtering. Fate Foreseen's opt is a strong ability. You could know what your opponent will draw or prevent them from drawing it. Six of the common transcend cards have effects that work well with the deck. The Sacred Art: Undercurrent Desires and Mistcloak Gully give more challenging but powerful transcends. Neither of these are needed for gameplay and can be swapped for additional copies of any other common transcend card.

Finally, the deck is meant to explore interesting lines of play. First of these is the ability to opt. Normally you would only make choices on your own draw, but with the shared deck and timing on your opponent's turn, you could see what your opponent would draw or remove a card from the draw. Several cards not commonly found in Nuu are added to support these lines of play. Having a shared deck also creates a unique situation for Potion of Deja Vu. If your opponent pitched something you want to use, you can put all the cards from the pitch zone to the top of the deck before your draw. Or, more deviously, sculpt your opponent a hand from the combined pitch before they draw giving you knowledge and control of their hand.

Another unique interaction is banishing cards. The deck has many ways to do this, including the normal Assassin attack hit triggers, Nuu's Stealth ability, and even Art of War. The banished zone is a double-edged dagger, that could fill up quickly and can be accessed by both players offensively and defensively.

FANDOM IS ALWAYS INOVATING

If you have not guessed by now, this deck is inspired by a Magic: the Gathering concept known as a Dandan deck. I wanted to transport a few concepts from this; 

• a focus attack (the Dandan)
• battling your opponent over the top deck and graveyard options
• variation of gameplay experience using single or pairs of cards only
• building a deck with bulk

Several other concepts (only one way to deal damage, exactly five hits) did not translate to Flesh and Blood and that's okay. Instead, a new gameplay experience was created.

I first built this deck using just my Part the Mistveil bulk, but it quickly outgrew that. I added in cheap cards from across the game's history and discovered how critical Snag felt as part of the gameplay. For me, the gameplay experience was complete after adding in the Legendary, Fabled, and other Majestic but none of these other than Snag will matter greatly in the experience. I look forward to seeing what new cards could be considered for this in the future of Flesh and Blood.