Valkyrie - Asgardian Ninja

One of Valkyrie’s weaknesses is lack of thwart capacity. Flight of the Valkyrie can take down a big chunk of threat, but can be quite unreliable.

I tried some Justice builds, but none of them seemed to perform well because Valkyrie wants to dish out damage. I figured that Leadership is the second best thwart aspect available.

Another of Valkyrie’s weaknesses is lack of resource generation. Especially when many Leadership decks are “greedy” requiring a good amount of resources. Sneak Attack was my solution to this.

So, Sneak Attack Valkyrie? Sounds like an Asgardian Ninja to me.

You’re probably familiar with Sneak Attack decks at this point. The War Machine pack really added a whole new style of Leadership. The main goal is to “cheat” in expensive Allies and profit.

Most Sneak Attack decks are Avengers based, but Valkyrie adds the Asgard trait to the mix. This means Heimdall and Beta Ray Bill are added to the mix.

Heimdall packs a beefy 2 THW and 3 ATK. He also has a quite useful “enters play” effect. At 5 Cost he really doesn’t see much play, but Sneak Attack solves this problem.

Beta Ray Bill adds some big synergy to the mix. This 3 ATK minion masher lines up great with the whole minion focus of Valkyrie’s deck. With Beta Ray Bill in play you can use Chooser of the Slain to toss in a chump minion, draw 2 cards, blast it away and remove 2 threat. No Death-Glow needed. Can’t kill that minion? No problem Save the Day will still hook you up with a sweet 5 thwart.

There’s also plenty of other high cost Allies to Sneak Attack in as well.

All of the added Allies have 2 THW to help you keep a handle on schemes. Command Team allows you to profit more before they disappear. Falcon also can provide some additional Thwart.

It’s not all about Thwart though. Many of this Allies pack a nice 3 ATK, and a well placed Go Down Swinging makes a heavy hit.

Then you have Valkyrie being the Attack machine on top of that. Dragonfang brings her up to a solid 3 ATK.

Many turns your Allies will take care of Schemes while Valkyrie trashed minions and deals damage to the Villain. Make sure you’re using Black Panther “enter play” effect to grab the right choice of Save the Day or Go Down Swinging as the situation requires.

This deck runs two Command Team because they allow you to profit more off of Sneak Attack. You can think of them as, over a couple of turns, as 6 Thwart and/or 9 Attack. You really only need one in play at a time.

It also runs a Team-Building Exercise exercise, which can be very useful early on, but is low priority later. Team-Building Exercise can reduce the cost of Allies if you’re Sneak Attack deprived, but can also be used to get in Valkyrie cards like Valhalla and Aragorn in for cheaper. You’ll need those two cards because Sneak Attack will leave you no blockers. Aragorn is a nice bonus 4 HP, and Valhalla will provide some heal and card draw.

Quincarrier provides extra resources, Death-Glow feels a lot better getting played for “free”.

Leadership Training also does a lot for Sneak Attack decks allowing you to shuffle them back in. Nothing is worse than getting stuck with high cost Allies and nothing to do with them. If you find that your Sneak Attack are all in your discard pile, make sure you switch over to Alter Ego.

Make the Call is a back up card here, just in case you need those Allies, but most of the time they’re just resources.

I’ve played this deck mostly 2 players, but the couple of times I tried solo it’s been quite strong too.

Priory setup includes Aragorn to take hits, Quincarrier to make resources and Dragonfang to attack. If you get Team-Building Exercise early, go for it but it isn’t a requirement.

Pay good attention to your discard pile. It pays to know where your Sneak Attack are, and how many Allies are in your deck. Don’t be afraid to discard “dead” cards like Valkyrie's Spear and Shieldmaiden at the end of your turn because you want to line your combos up.

One of the things I really enjoy with this deck is the flexibility. Sneak Attack combos are quite strong, but you can also do the whole minion shtick as well, or just pound away with your ATK and Have at Thee!.

I haven’t tried it, but I also see no reason this shouldn’t work as a Thor deck either. You’d want to prioritize Asgard though to increase hand size for your combos.

Thanks for taking a look!