Valkyrie (clone) (clone)

Because I enjoy pain I decided to revisit Valkyrie after several years. After a few iterations, I arrived at a deck that I was fairly happy with the results. It is not a solo deck, and was played with Gamora Justice to manage the threat.

Tl;dr The goal of the deck is simple: face tank hits, heal, defend, draw cards, and ready. Summon a minion or use one that's already on the board. Get it into Excelsior range. Defend in the Villain phase and spend an energy, ready, and draw 3-4 cards. Heal up and do it again. I could end the Villain phase at two health and end my turn at 12+ health with a tough.

Priorities Change of Fortune, Dragonfang, Excelsior, Patriot. After that I'd say Blade and Quincarrier to smooth out your hands and protect you from Seduced.

Minion Management You want to get minions down to 1-2 health before the villain phase. On four hit point minions attack before adding Death-Glow if you already have out Dragonfang. If there are two minions on the board, especially in the early game when I may not draw into a "Come Get Me Bub" or Chooser of the Slain every round, I will usually keep my minion out and face tank it. If the minion is in front of another player, you can defend for them to activate Excelsior before the minion hits them, and then either face tank the Villain hit on your turn or block with Patriot. Also, even when tough, you can defend the villain's hit as you'll get ready anyway.

Allies Your allies are meant to sit in front of you and do their thing. Patriot blocks villain attacks nearly every round. Blade is a great place to feed your excess fists to. Victor can block some minion hits when you leave them on the board. Annabelle is card draw and a battery for Earth's Mightiest once you get Honorary Avenger on her. I generally only threw an ally away when the chance of losing the game from not doing so was high.

Obligation & Seduced Your obligation really isn't that bad in this deck, you can still attack for three, add Deathglow after the attack, and then finish it off with Excelsior because it isn't an attack. I would try and get rid of it when convenient, but I'd often lead it on for multiple rounds until the board state stabilized or I had a Ready for a Fight down.

Seduced is far worse, but still manageable to keep some momentum. You can still trigger Excelsior, so if you use your allies or your partner can throw a little damage, you should still be able to get through relatively unscathed. If playing Standard 3, try and keep a Ready for a Fight on the board when you see that nemesis approaching, and hope the other player gets hit.

Excelsior Proper use of your resources with this card ended up being a lot more crucial than expected. If you can reasonably use a card in your hand that will likely be dead, use that over Quincarrier. The reason being, you want your quincarrier to pay for your obligation/treachery and Ready for a Fight. For most the game I'm throwing Have at Thee! or Victor to pay for it.

Changes

I ended up dropping a Ready for a Fight and a Practiced Plan for Side Holster and Honorary Avenger. While Valkyrie's Spear is weak, I hated drawing it and would rather have two more cards hit the table. Do NOT play the spear if you don't have out Side Holster, your other two weapons are just money. I think dropping it is reasonable, but the spear would clog up my hands at times, especially once set up and drawing 9+ cards a round. The spear is a fist at least, so it can be fed to Blade, but this deck has a lot of excess fists and I just got sick of seeing it. Additionally, the one defense helps a bit here, but just a bit. You really can heal a whole lot.

Because I was defending a lot, and because I'd be able to get minions three health away, I'd like to try dropping Victor and adding in an electrostatic armor or even another copy of Earths Mightiest. He was useful sometimes, but as allies rarely leave play, he's the one that would be easiest to cut, the others are better.

Conclusion

This was probably the most fun I've ever had playing Valk. That being said, its still Valk. Other heroes can almost surely do this better and with less finagling.

The deck is slow and will make for a longer game. Until you get Patriot, Excelsior, Dragonfang and Change of Fortune it feels bad, which is a decent amount of set-up. While she's still not the GOAT, this deck made me appreciate her a little more, and I won't be dreading revisiting her again in several more years with an expanded card pool!