Welcome back to Character "Gems" Corner, this is your host NJ Brock and today we are going to look at a character that in MOST meta's just hasn't gotten any attention and should be looked at, that character is Nina Williams.  The assassin of the Tekken Series was an amazing character to play as in the video game and should easily translate to the game of UFS, what is it about this character that is so fascinating, well she is an assassin and has a long standing feud with her own sister Anna, her fighting style is a blend of military martial arts similar to Christie(DOA) and Leona(KOF).  Though she is an amazing character to play in the video game she has one huge drawback when translating to UFS, let us look at her right now:  

As you can see she has a good symbol spread of Air, Death and Void; Death and Void are great symbols for control and Air is an excellent aggro symbol with so many options availible for stringing attacks together.  Death is a discard symbol and general negation symbol to keep your opponent second guessing themsleves on what cards they wish to use, be it seal of cessation or even in legacy Lost Memories & Yoga Mastery.  Void is a discard and board control symbol, the majority of it's cards are to lock your opponent's staging area (most of the time including their character) down and prevent them from using them against you when you go on the offensive, it also has some Mill aspects to it though not as much.  Her hand and vitality are average for this time in the game and should withstand an early attempt at a kill.  Her lone weakness may also be her best feature, her lone ability:  "F:  Once per turn, look a the top 5 cards of your opponent's deck, Put one into their discard pile and place the rest back on top of their deck in any Order."  'Reverse Glimpse of Fate YES PLEASE, and I get to mill them for one, sign me up, ok what else does it do... thats it?  Oh well this is gonna be fun to get to work then' yes that is the reaction of most people good ability but it's her ONLY ability, what is the point of said ability, it can be 3 fold.  In Legacy you can actually set your opponent into a lock with a couple of cards in play and 1 in your hand The card in your hand being You Will not Escape and the cards in play being Fortune Teller, using your ability first to see if there are any attacks on top of their deck and discarding them, then using fortune teller to stack their deck with non attacks, you proceed to end your turn forcing your opponent into a tough decision use any form abilities they have in their staging area that will get negated by your Oral Dead, Lost Memories or Blown up by Instant Success OR try to build some more foundations (Since you've set them up with no attacks in their hand they got little choice) then pin them with your YWNE, and proceed to do a soft lock every turn until you draw into your kill condition.  Tycho made this soft lock popular in my meta and was running with help of his abilities to speed up the YWNE every turn.

Her second use is very simple, you can search your opponent's top 5 and remove a high check then stack your opponent's bad checks to make sure they cannot block your attacks, so now even your 2M or 3M attacks will possibly deal damage to your opponent or may cause your opponent to commit out and make passing blocks impossible.  Nothing is scarier than seeing a Knight Breaker coming at you for 30 damage knowing that you MAY have a 2 or a 3 on top of your deck with only a +2 Block in your hand, this use is sometimes overlooked about her.  Third and final use is a slow but methodical mill.  As earlier you can lock your opponent to the point that they NEVER draw any attacks, and some cards in legacy allow you off of void to slowly remove their attacks from the game after they reach the discard pile, do make note of certain Cards like Ken's Close Strong Punch which RFG's 2 cards from the game for it's ability as that helps even more to keep your opponent trying to draw their kill very quickly while you calmly watch them squirm.

How does her support fare with her?  Unfortunately most of her stuff does NOT Deal with her abilities it deals with selective discard and/or negation, though just like Ivy has in her support Nina inherits very good 3cc attacks to help her make her opponent's life miserable.  Now to construct a deck for her it is not NECESSARY to have her cards but some are very good to have for her, Ice Pick is good due to the fact it is unblockable under most circumstances, 7 damage AND it can stack your opponent's deck even further.  Head Ringer as long as you can remember the top 4 cards of your opponent's deck you can RFG the top card from their deck upon damage, another nice trick and the ONLY card of hers that directly interacts with her ability.  Wipe the Floor, an amazing discard card as your opponent in combo with cards like Saikyo Ryu and/or Unorthodox Training can cripple your opponent's hand down to 0 cards in a hurry.


Character:  Nina

Assets(3)
Lethal Fighting Style x3  3/5

Actions(4)
Sa, symbol of Protection x4  2/5  +2M

Attacks(20)
Demon Slayer x4  4/3  3H3  +2M
Head Ringer x4  4/3  3H4  +2M
Ice Pick x4  6/3  4M7  (Nina C:  Kick)  +2H
Leg Slash x4  4/3  3L5  +2H[B: 2]
Wipe the Floor x4  5/3  3L4  +1M

Foundations(36)
All Life is Prey x4  2/5  +3L
Forbidden Lore x4  2/5
G-Corp Leader x4  2/5
Intimidating Presence x4  2/5
Maniacle Laughter x4  2/5  +3H
Mishima Zaibatsu Leader x4  2/5  +2H
Sworn to Protect x4  2/4
Unknown Son x4  2/5  +3H
The Twilight Witch x4  2/4

The deck is pretty much self explanatory, it's a combination of Agro and Control, the control aspect is in all the foundations and her Asset which help slowly destroy the staging area and remove cards from the game.  Her attack lineup may at first not look like enough damage but trust me with her ability they can get damage thru in a hurry especially with All Life is Prey in the deck.  G-Corp helps to make sure all cards that you destroy get put back in your hand to play again later, and if you blow up a card with a block hey free block to your hand.  The one main card I want to point out in this deck is Sa, Symbol of Protection, most people have forgotten this card exists, it is a 2/5 with a +2M block, that alone is reason to run it in those 3 symbols, the one part people overlook is that is a STATIC -3 to any attack -4 if it's a weapon, who WOULD NOT love that, especially since it HAS NO MINIMUM something a lot of cards do not have right now in the game.  She has many more ways to build her but with most people's fear/hatred of Legacy and Block 3 I'm unfortunately not gonna take the time to write a decklist for her though with twoheadeddragon still the main source for the cards and coolstuffinc helping in the cause anyone who really wants to make a very good version of legacy or block 3 Nina should be able to knock their socks off and make a broken deck.  Until next time everyone this is Nathan 'NJBrock22' Spade signing off for now.

Originally submitted 07/10/2009