Nefertiri - by Jeff Barnes During your turn, if you have fewer cards in your hand than your current Ability, you may draw back up to your Ability. When discarding cards from your hand, you may place those cards on top of your Endurance. You may have up to 5 Master cards. (errata'd text) Overview Perhaps no Persona is more underestimated than Nefertiri. While many players look at Katana, Connor, or Slan as the elite among current Personas, Nefertiri can match any of these for power and flexibility. Nefertiri's inherent abilities give her two powerful advantages in any duel. First, she has an effective average hand size two or three points higher than her actual Ability, because she may draw immediately to replace any cards she plays or discards. Of course, in a well-built deck, this advantage may increase to five or six cards by mid-game due to use of non-triggered cards (cards not requiring a target or set of circumstances before they can be played). Nef's second major advantage is that she will never discard any card she does not wish to. This can be a major advantage when used with other cards she plays (as we will see in a moment) or when simply used defensively. After all, she can choose which cards to lose and which to simply place on top of her Endurance for immediate redrawing, allowing Nefertiri to filter out dead weight while retaining useful cards and most likely causing her foe to lose several key cards. There are other advantages to playing Nefertiri. If played correctly, Nefertiri should never lose her head. She should hold on to that Upper Center Block or Upper Guard until reduced to zero if on a downhill slide. Then, she should simply place the block on top of her Endurance, where it will be ready for an Exertion to foil any Head Shot. The list could continue, but the main point is this: no other Immortal can match Nefertiri's card control ability. A well-built Nef deck will have advantages in Ability control, Endurance control, and card cycling. Put it all together and it means big trouble for her opponent. Persona-Specific Cards Nefertiri's strength does not lie with her specific cards. In fact, she probably ranks third to last (with only Slan and Luther lagging behind her) in variety and power of specific cards in the two basic sets. She has only three Persona-specific cards in the Series Edition. Her Battle Rage is the same as the ones belonging to other Personas. Nefertiri's might be slightly more useful if she sets it up with another Special allowing her to place her attacks on top of her Endurance (Jungle or perhaps Linda Plager), but is still most likely not worthwhile in tournament-level decks. Also, Battle Rage is an Uncommon card for her, meaning more people will tend to use it with her. Nef's Seduce is a more interesting card, allowing her next attack to be undodgeable and depriving her opponent of an attack on the next turn. There are any number of uses for this: Pistol, Dirty Trick, Master's Attack (brought in with the Methos Quickening), or Hidden attacks. However, its main purpose seems to be for Richie and to use it in conjunction with Slan's Shooting Blade. However, Desperation more than makes up for any other specific card shortcomings. In Nefertiri's hand, this card allows her to place the best card of the top three in her hand and either set her next two cards drawn or discard any useless cards found there (as per the errata'd text). Most importantly, this does not come at the cost of a Special slot, as Desperation allows her to still play Specials. With six of these in a 50 card deck, Nefertiri can get to the cards she needs in a minimal amount of time. Nefertiri receives two new cards in Watcher's Chronicles: Vengeance and Cunning. The full nature of these cards cannot be revealed at this time. When used in conjunction, they have a tendency to penalize an opponent no matter what: one card penalizes an opponent for making attacks (particularly multiple attacks), the other penalizes them for _not_ making attacks. Generic Cards No Persona interacts better with Generic cards than Nefertiri. The most important category of cards for her are ones causing discard effects. InQuest has long been a staple of most every Nefertiri deck. It usually equates to a ripped Thunder Castle Game card in tournament play. However, if it is successfully played, InQuest causes Nef's opponent to lose all his Specials (provided he isn't playing Nefertiri or using Selective Memory, of course), while allowing her to pick and choose which to keep and which to lose. Used with Factory, this can be a hideous combination. Kiss Your Butts Goodbye is another obvious power card for Nefertiri. If she plays this, she may discard her Dodges to her Endurance and re-draw them -- or, if playing against a non-attack deck, she may simply choose to place them in her discard pile and refresh her hand. Meanwhile, her opponent will find himself without any Dodges. The SE Holy Ground, while typically used defensively, can be a potent offensive force in a Nef deck. Six Holy Grounds, each causing your opponent to discard four cards, amounts to twenty four cards per Endurance pass he will never play -- or almost half of a typical 50-card deck. Meanwhile, Nefertiri decides if she wants to lose any cards or not. Other cards are also more effective in Nefertiri's hands. If she uses Delusions, she may choose not to lose the Special to regain the countered card, placing it on her Endurance instead. If she plays with The Prize: Attacks, Nefertiri can become a truly fearsome card-cycling engine. Dr. Sonny Jackson, like Desperation, takes up almost no Ability space in a Nefertiri deck, allowing for fast card cycling. Non-triggered cards (i.e., Patience, Lean and Mean, unprovoked Guards, etc.) also allow her to ditch them and refresh her hand quickly. Location Cards Once again, few Immortals interface with Locations like Nefertiri. As was recently ruled (see CotW #23), Nefertiri can draw up in the Factory, while her non-Nef opponent cannot. This often allows her the freedom to play and draw cards while her opponent's hand locks up. Combined with InQuest to set it up and direct damage for the kill, this becomes a nasty deck. The other obvious Location for Nefertiri is Battlefield. This allows Nef's attacks to get through with much greater regularity. Even if the opponent gets rid of the Battlefield on the next turn, it most likely costs him a defense. In addition, if the deck she plays against does not have a heavy attack aspect, Nefertiri may want to discard her defenses to refresh her hand. If she plays against an attack deck, she may discard to the top of her Endurance and avoid the Battlefield's ill effects while still retaining her defenses. The other Locations seem less useful for Nefertiri. Jungle, while not harming her, seems to help her far less than the two previous Locations. Rooftop can serve in its standard anti-cheese role, but affords her no special benefit, as does Ruins, Catwalk, Dead End Alley, and Parking Garage. Desert is mostly benign, but can harm Nef decks somewhat; "musts" come before "mays", so she will discard at beginning of turn, lose two cards off the top of her Endurance, then draw up. How to Win There are a wide variety of successful Nefertiri decks, testifying to Nef's flexibility. Some are fairly standard cheese decks, often with Katana Quickenings, and usually with Factories and InQuest(s). These also usually have aspects of lock decks to them. Toss in Chessex (using Desperation and Dr. Sonny Jackson when you want to play a non-Event Special *and* an Event) and this can be bad news fast. Others are attack decks with heavy denial (anti-Special) aspects. Sure, you can only have six Renee Delaneys, but add in two InQuests (with a pg Darius) and account for Nef's quick card cycling, and a full-game Renee lock is conceivable. Generally, Battlefields, The Prize: Attack, Dr. Sonny Jackson, and maybe a Khan Quickening can be added to give more bite to this deck. The third (and probably oldest) Nefertiri deck archetype is the deck-burning deck. Six SE Holy Grounds, plus Cat & Mouse: Endurance, Dirty Trick: Kick and/or Pummels can serve to thrash through the opponents' deck. Also, standard and non-standard discard (InQuest, Stunning Blow, etc.) can be used to directly attack the hand. Unfortunately, if this deck runs into another Nef deck, it tends to die horribly. How to Defeat There are several cards that allow a player to combat Nefertiri's strategies. Perhaps chief among these is Reconnaissance, due to Nef's synergy with Battlefield and Factory. With Reconnaissance in your deck, you can successfully deal with both Locations without playing Locations of your own. In addition, Recons allow you to get around the discard effect of the Battlefield for a turn. Selective Memory is another useful card against Nefertiri, since most Nef decks sport some type of discard Event (if only InQuest). ME Holy Grounds seem to work well at disrupting Nef's game, often preventing her from hanging on to cards she wants, particularly if you have her low on Ability and are playing for the Head Shot. Desert helps as well, as noted above. Slan is perhaps the single most effective Persona against Nef, as his free Power Blows can wreak havoc on an attack deck built around blocks. Connor, with his Master's Stance/Master's Block/ Master's Lunge, is also annoying. Healing decks tend to be less effective against Nefertiri decks, due to the draw denial of the Factory and the Renee lock of attack decks. However, a good draw against a Nef deck that cannot lock quickly enough will beat it. Overall In short, Nefertiri's bailiwick is card control. She can cycle cards at a pace unmatched by any other Persona, she never loses a card from her hand that she doesn't want to, and she can set up her deck well. While somewhat weak in Persona-specific cards, Nefertiri more than makes up for this with her synergy with generic cards, particularly Locations. Overall, I give Nef a high _8_ for sheer power and flexibility. If you think that's overrated, I suggest you try some of these strategies against the popular deck types in your area. If properly built, your Nef deck will be able to hang in with the toughest and come out on the good side more often than not. What Our Other Raters Say: Ben - [Abstain] Rick - Nefertiri was an underrated Persona. As the need for card cycling becomes more apparent in Highlander, her Special Abilities start to become required. Patience has found its way into all but the leanest of decks and that card only duplicates half of Nefertiri's ability. When facing a Bloodlust, Nefertiri always has her full Ability from which to choose a defense. Keeping with this idea, Nefertiri should use Factory to prevent her opponent from cycling cards while still having that option herself. Hank - I've always liked the Nefertiri Persona. She has an unusual special ability, she has a few fun cards, and I've always had a soft spot for ex-Fame cast members. I've built a number of Nefertiri decks: my two favorites are a discard deck (using lots of discard cards and Factory) and a fun attack deck (using Battlefield and C&M Defense). She's not the best (most broken) Persona, but she's one of my favorites: balanced and interesting. Steve - Nefertiri has always been an underestimated Persona - Series Edition may have limited her powers, but it also limited the ways in which she could be dealt with (no Selective Memory, no Alertness/Dodge). She was one of only three SE Personas who had all Uncommon Persona- specific cards (Trip, Dodge, Back Away, Extra Shot, Combination, Power Blow), and her Persona abilities were a good emergency measure. ME gives her some more offensive potential (Battlefield, Factory, Kiss Your Butts Goodbye). Perhaps not quite up there with Connor and the Kurgan, but anyone who has to Persona abilities isn't all bad. She is an excellent base upon which to build almost any deck you want. Alan - Nefertiri is one of those oft-overlooked Personas, but who can be quite deadly under the right circumstances. True, prior to the Movie Edition, she was underpowered, but with the release of ME, and two particular Locations (Battlefield and Factory), she has gotten quite a power boost. The introduction of multi-player games has made Nef perhaps the most powerful Persona in that respect. Watcher's Chronicles will only continue to add to her power . . . Jim - Nefertiri is the rising star among the older set of personas. The recent rules changes have been kind to her. Nefertiri is least likely to be harmed by a Lock deck since her hand cycles very well and she can use cards like Desperation to get the cards she needs into her hand quickly. Discards don't hurt Nefertiri, and in fact often help her clear useless cards from her hand. Attack decks work well for Nefertiri but add in a Chessex, and she cheeses with the best of them. Nefertiri's Seduce is not as powerful as Amanda's but it lends itself to some rather interesting strategies. Naturally, the best location for Nefertiri is Factory. However, she can also do well using Battlefield. Wayne - Neferteri has become much stronger with the Movie Edition Locations Battlefield and Factory. Battlefield/Louis Marcus/Seduce is a great combination to clear your opponent of defenses. Neferteri also makes a good cheese deck with Chessex/Inquest/direct damage cards. Desperation is great for cycling cards. I recently played Neferteri for the first time in a tournament and even though I made several mistakes in constructing the deck, it still played very well. Ratings Overall: Jeff 8 Steve 7 Ben N/A Rick 9 Hank 7 Alan 7 Jim 7 Wayne 8 Average: 7.57 Highlander is a protected trademark of Gaumont Television, used under license by Thunder Castle Games. The card text is copyright 1996 by Thunder Castle Games. All rights reserved.