Deck of the Day – LaurenWhatever is a Valkyrie

Hello everyone, and welcome to Deck of the Day! I’m Glazer of Snap Judgments: The Official Marvel Snap Zone Podcast, and every weekday I’m going to be highlighting a different deck for you to try out!

LaurenWhatever is a brilliant Marvel Snap Zone writer, and Valkyrie is her favorite card. This season, she hit Infinite quickly with Den-Verse Surfer, and vowed to make something that worked for her favorite card. Two Gold and two Infinity Tickets later – here we are!

Jeff the Baby Land Shark and Echo are both Series 5. The deck works pretty well without Echo, but Jeff is a near must-have. There’s one other thing worth trying, though!

Introduction + Disclaimers

This deck is a very good and extremely surprising deck but can struggle for consistency. The deck is built for Valkyrie and games without her can be tough.

Sometimes the decks featured in this article will be Tier 1, the most competitive decks in the metagame. Sometimes they will be fun tier. Often, they will feature Series 4 and 5 cards (which is hopefully less of an issue with the card acquisition change), but sometimes they will be Series 3 or even lower.

Additionally, these decks can come from anywhere – they could be homebrews, a really cool idea from your favorite content creator, a tried and true meta deck, and sometimes, well, we won’t really know where the deck came from. We endeavor, however, to credit original deck creators whenever possible, so if we miss one, please do let us know! Want to submit a deck for consideration? Email me [email protected].

The Deck

Lauren Whatever’s a Valkyrie

Created by PulseGlazer

, updated 10 months ago

0

2x Collection Level 1-14

1x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

5x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

1x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

1x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

1x Recruit Season

2.7

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.2

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Deck History

Valkyrie decks were almost always a dream. The card is strong but must be built around, and can struggle into any meta that features Ongoing cards like Devil Dinosaur or Darkhawk.

Variants

Devil Dinosaur

Ongoing: +2 Power for each card in your hand.

Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Devil Dinosaur

Variants

Darkhawk

Ongoing: +2 Power for each card in your opponent’s deck.

Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Darkhawk

That said there have been two decks that made Valkyrie work well. The first was Valhalla.

5. Nimrod Season Infinite Deck (Valhalla)

0

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

6x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

1x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

3.2

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.5

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

That’s what this deck does incredibly well is leverage lane control to win one lane, and Valkyrie, with Time Stone or Demon, to win another. This was extremely powerful in its meta because Shuri Red Skull was the dominant deck. Red Skull is a benefit to Valkyrie while she also gets around an opponent’s Armor. Valhalla ended up one of my favorite decks in the history of the game, and you’ll notice some of the key concepts carried through to this deck.

Bastriot

Created by Bviper

, updated 11 months ago

0

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

7x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

1x Recruit Season

1x Starter Card

2.6

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

1.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Bastriot is a deck that’s really strong but was ultimately pushed out of the meta by modern Iron Patriot lists. The decks work very similarly to those, and Valkyrie is not the key card in the deck, but instead a role player that helps close out games. Still, it is the only other time Valkyrie was meta, so it’s worth noting.

This deck may or may not be able to make Valkyrie meta, but it’s as close as we’ve come. Let’s take a closer look.

How to Play

Obviously, the key card is Valkyrie, and it’s the only real Turn 6 play in the deck. Turn 5, on the other hand, is built around locking a lane down with Spider-Man or Professor X.

Variants

Spider-Man

On Reveal: Move to another location and pull an enemy card from here to there.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Spider-Man

Variants

Professor X

Ongoing: Lock down this location. (Cards can’t be added, removed, etc.)

Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Professor X

If Storm has already won a lane with Juggernaut or Jessica Jones, a good hit with these two cards is an instant win. You can even afford to miss with Professor X or Spider-Man. I know that seems bad, but Valkyrie needs to lose priority and know where to play. A bad play with those cards often offers that.

The rest of the deck is largely about grabbing power in the Valkyrie lane.

Variants

Mister Fantastic

Ongoing: Adjacent locations have +2 Power.

Collection Level 1-14

view card details Start a deck Decks with Mister Fantastic

Ant-Man and Mister Fantastic offer a way to win the Valkyrie lane since their Ongoings aren’t turned off by her set-to-3 On Reveal. The Hood is also great for that, as his -3 helps lose priority while the Demon after Valkyrie on the last turn wins a lane.

Finally, we have Jeff the Baby Land Shark, a way to sneak power into a Professor X lane, Echo, a way to make it so opponent Devil Dinosaurs are no longer a nightmare, and Maria Hill, honestly my least favorite card in the deck, but a way to get an extra body.

Here are the play lines:

• Turn 1: Echo in a safe place is often a good play. You can also do worse than Ant-Man or (better) The Hood since they don’t win you priority. Killmonger is, obviously, a concern.

• Turn 2: Jeff is a priority, then the one cost cards, then Maria Hill. I think I’m sold that I’d prefer Hill as Angela.

• Turn 3: Hopefully, this is Storm. If not, Mister Fantastic is just fine.

Variants

Juggernaut

On Reveal: Move away all enemy cards played here this turn. (including unrevealed cards)

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Juggernaut

Variants

Jessica Jones

On Reveal: If you don’t play a card at this location next turn, +4 Power.

Collection Level 1-14

view card details Start a deck Decks with Jessica Jones

• Turn 4: After Storm, win the lane with Juggernaut or Jessica Jones. Here is where it’s good that even though the deck is quite strong, everyone stopped playing High Evolutionary Lockdown. Jessica is fine if you didn’t have Storm, but without the Windrider, I tend to hold Juggernaut for emergency Turn 6 plays.

• Turn 5: Spider-Man or Professor X. If you have Jeff out, lean into X. If not, Spidey is the way to go. And remember from the previous section – missing isn’t an auto loss.

• Turn 6: Valkyrie and Demon, Valkyrie and Ant-Man, Valkyrie on a lane that’s buffed by Mister Fantastic or Valkyrie on a lane they can’t play into because of Spidey. Enjoy the cubes!

Variants

Valkyrie

On Reveal: Set ALL cards here to 3 Power.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Valkyrie

Card Substitutions

Jeff is to make Professor X better, mostly. I think Rescue does a similar job, if more expensive and anti-synergistic with Storm. Echo protects from Ongoings, but losing priority is every bit as important. Ghost is a fine replacement.

Variants

Rescue

On Reveal: If you play a card at this location next turn, +5 Power.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Rescue

Variants

Ghost

Ongoing: Your cards are always revealed last. (Their On Reveal abilities happen last.)

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Ghost

As earlier stated, Angela is, to me, a card worth trying out.

Conclusion + Video

This deck is secretly really good and worth playing!

If you’d like a video discussion of this deck, check my page out. The video for this one is right here: