Nico Minoru’s build guide

Role

Nico Minoru is a troubled kid with immense power. Even though she prefers Dark over Light her goals are good and sincere. When you meet her, she will invite you to join the EMO club and help her to determine how you dealt with Lilith centuries ago. She is very close to Magik, and she insists on helping Scarlet Witch even though the Caretaker is against it. Through her actions, we will learn that beneath her Dark shell there is a Girl that is a beacon of Light who will never abandon or harm her friends.

If you wanna be on good terms with her, you need to understand the thinking of the teenager. You have to show interest in watching teenage movies. In dialogue, your answers need to be cunning and witty (not dull and predictable) and you have to support her goals to help Wanda and Magik. If you do so, you will be one of the rare “adults” who earned Nico’s trust.

Nico’s main weapon is the legendary Staff of One. It gives Nico great power, but she can never know in advance what effects she will cause. That makes her support fully random because you can never know or plan what to do next. Her combat role is to be a supporting character who will accumulate Heroism and who can cause enormous damage in the right circumstances. Playing with Nico is meant to be always fun considering that the outcome cannot be predicted, but in practice, she can often be annoying, especially if she doesn’t provide what you need.

Nico is too random for my liking, so I never really counted on her help. Nonetheless, you will be forced to use her in several missions, therefore, I suggest that you learn how to maximize her potential.

Best Build

Attack

• Curse
• Blood for Blood

Skill

• Blood Magic
• Empower
• Restore
• Double Up

Heroic

• Witchstorm
• Crack the Sky/Swarm (if you don’t have a Legendary Card)

Skill Cards

Nico has 4 different Skill Cards, and it is best to use all 4. Since her main goal is to accumulate Heroism and provide Healing it is best to fully focus only on that.

“Blood Magic” will buff a single member of the team with Blood Magic, Counter, Fast, or Strengthened providing 2 Heroism and 1 Card of the buffed character in the process. Each of these buffs can be extremely useful but you can never know if you will get what you need at the time.

“Empower” doesn’t provide any Heroism but it nullifies the cost of all Heroic cards in your hand. When upgraded it will provide another random Heroic card. This card can be essential if you don’t have Heroism and lack a way to accumulate it fast enough. Obviously, you should use this card at the start of the turn so you can play at least 2 Heroic cards for free.

” Restore” will grant you 2 Heroism and fully heal 1 target. Unless upgraded this card can be used only once. When upgraded it will not be discarded if the target has less than 50% HP when “Restore” was used. Being able to fully heal while generating Heroism is always helpful!

“Double Up” grants 2 Heroism and makes a copy of each Attack, Skill, or Heroic card in your hand. If you could choose which cards will be copied, this card would be one of the most powerful cards in the game. Unfortunately, you can’t do that, and sometimes drawing this card will not be helpful at all. Nonetheless, being able to copy the cards that you need is an amazing ability!

Attack Cards

Nico doesn’t have Attack cards that replenish Card Plays; therefore, she is the worst Hero for dealing with trash and near-dead Mobs. She only has 2 different attack cards, so her options are limited.

“Curse” provides 1 Heroism, causes minor damage, and applies Stun, Marked, Vulnerable or Weak. I cannot say that this card is not useful because being able to freely Stun the target can be the difference between winning and losing. All other 3 effects can also be useful in a lot of situations, but you can never know if you will get what you need at the time.

“Blood for Blood” also provides 1 Heroism and causes immense damage for an Attack card. If you kill an enemy with it, you will heal an ally for a significant amount of HP. This card is actually amazing especially if the target has Marked debuff on itself. Keep in mind that you will have to upgrade this card as soon as possible in order to maximize the healing.

Heroic Cards

All Nico’s Heroic cards are fully random in their nature, but you can lower the randomness by lowering the number of possible targets. This means that you should consider Nico’s Heroic cards as single-target cards because if the potential damage splits the effectiveness will be totally reduced.

” Swarm” costs 1 Heroism and causes random damage against a single target. Like all Nico’s cards, “Swarm” efficiency varies from useless to insane. Depending on your luck, you can annihilate a single enemy with just 1 Heroism, or you can waste 1 Heroism doing nothing in particular. I am not fond of this card, even though it is really cheap because its average damage does not grant the elimination of average mobs.

“Witchstorm” costs 3 Heroism (2 when upgraded) and causes moderate damage 4 times in a row against the primary target and random nearby enemies. Unlike “Swarm”, the usefulness of this card can be controlled. By targeting enemies separated from others (you can change enemy positions almost always) you can focus the damage on a single target causing imminent destruction in most cases. It is true that the same amount of damage can be produced with “Swarm” (if you are lucky) for 1 Heroism less, but I always prefer depending on my strategy instead luck.

“Crack the Sky” is Nico’s legendary Card which is unlocked when you finish Nico’s challenge in the Forge. It will consume all Heroism to cause heavy damage against random enemies 1time per each Heroism. Each KO will replenish 1 Heroism. You have to upgrade this card to be effective because the initial damage is not high enough. Since it will randomly hit all remaining enemies on the map it is best to use it when there are no more than 3 available targets. Due to the randomness, the effective cost of the ability will vary from 3 Heroism to at least 6 Heroism.

If there is only one targetable enemy, you will be able to cause insane damage for a low price. There is another way to use it but only if you are full of Heroism and there are a lot of trash and near-dead mobs. In that situation, you will be able to clear the map swiftly replenishing all Heroism invested.

Synergy

Mainly as a healer, Nico is best suited with Heroes who will lose Health constantly. Those are obviously Ghost Rider, Wolverine, and Blade. Most importantly all her buffs from “Blood Magik” can be helpful for those Heroes.

Wolverine will be especially effective if paired with Nico. He doesn’t need much Heroism, he can go fully berserk without fear that he will be punished, and all accumulated Heroism will be available to Hunter or some other Hero for hammering things up.

Give it a try and you will see what I am talking about.

Passive

If you decide to focus on Nico and improve your relationship with her, you will unlock her passive ability.

• And another one! I – If Nico’s HP is at 100%, she has a 33% chance to draw a Card whenever Nico’s card is played
• And another one! II – Nico has a 33% chance to draw a Card whenever Nico’s card is played

This passive ability is extremely strong, but it requires Nico to be uninjured. On level 2, it doesn’t have HP requirements anymore, meaning that Nico will draw a free card on every third turn. It is important to say that cards gained from Nico’s passive can be of any kind and any character (depending on your current team).

At first glance, it seems that Nico’s passive is much better than others. However, since Nico doesn’t have Quick cards, she will not use different cards as often as other residents of the Abbey. This means that the generation of new cards will be a lot slower than you expect.

Conclusion

As you probably already figured, with Nico Minoru it will be impossible to plan your strategy in advance. The diapason of her possible effects is so large that you can’t know what to do next until the spell lands. You can’t say which Cards she will generate; you can’t know which additional Cards she will draw; you can’t know what damage she will cause; you can’t know who will be healed and you can’t say which debuffs she will place. In short, nothing depends on you but the main decision – to put Nico on the team or not.

Honestly, her kit grants you fun – you will never do the same thing twice. Also, if you put your trust in her, you will be awarded in the end game with the full effectiveness of her awesome passive ability.

In short, if you are a fan of RNG (random number generator), Nico is the right choice for you. If you want steady and expectable outcomes based on the current strength of your characters, you should avoid Nico. It is simple as that.