Valkyrie, Slayer of Drones

Valkyrie, Slayer of Drones

While this deck should perform well against any villain who uses a lot of minions, I designed it specifically to play against Ultron (see the game here).

My thoughts about the Ultron matchup:

In my opinion your top 3 priorities should be:

• Valhalla
• Hall of Heroes
• Dragonfang

For the most part you WANT DRONES, so don't stress too much when you get to Main 2 (Assault on NORAD) (but you don't have to be in any hurry to get there either). Don't take the extra Threat, take the DRONE!

With 12 HP, +4 HP, 4 REC, and a little bit of healing in hero form I don't mind taking attacks from Ultron when I don't have a blocker. I usually flip down to Alter-Ego often enough to Recover and keep my health up.

You should rarely have to worry about getting to Main 3 (Countdown to Oblivion) because Flight of the Valkyrior, Professor X and single copies of Chase Them Down and Into the Fray do a really good job of keeping the main clear. I like to leave a Flight of the Valkyrior in play ready for when Drone Factory or Under Attack come out of the Encounter Deck.

With that said though, a poorly-timed Advance can still send you to Main 3, so keep the pressure up with Relentless Assault and Have at Thee! so you can end it quickly if you find yourself on the timer!

Beat 'Em Up and Thor are emergency buttons for when you have more DRONES to deal with than resources to attach Death-Glow to each of them.

On the subject or Beat 'Em Up, an event which defeats a minion still counts as Valkyrie defeating that minion, so make sure you remember to:

• attach Death-Glow to a minion you want to blast with an event AND...
• basic attack the villain...
• ...OR basic Thwart if you need to...
• ...OR exhaust and spend resources to discard an Ultron attachment (yes that's what Sunfire is here for, but sometimes you have to do it the hard way)...
• ...BEFORE playing the event because you'll get to ready after that minion with Death-Glow is defeated.

For the same reason, if you have an event in hand which will defeat a minion don't be afraid to Recover before flipping up to Hero. You'll be exhausted, but attach Death-Glow to a minion and it will ready you after you defeat that minion with the event.

Chooser of the Slain is fantastic against Ultron because you can pull an Advanced Ultron Drone and draw 2 cards in the process. With Dragonfang in play you're attacking it for 4 with Death-Glow attached. This combo-ed really well with "Bring It!" on turns when I only had one DRONE, as I did in the video a couple times:

• Play Chooser of the Slain and pull Advanced Ultron Drone (draw 2 cards)
• Sometimes play a second Chooser of the Slain for another Advanced Ultron Drone (and draw 2 more cards)
• Play "Bring It!" to draw 3 more cards
• You'll have plenty of resources and events to defeat the Advanced Ultron Drones and the baby DRONES they spawn and you can...
• ...reap the rewards for defeating all those minions :)

Speaking of "Bring It!", three copies seems like too many because there are loads of times when you'll have a copy but only have one minion. On the flip side there'll be times when you don't have a copy but want one because you have four minions! I like running three copies in hopes of having one in the latter case, but also because I can "throw one away" in the former case and not feel bad about it. At the very least it turns itself into something potentially more valuable. I also don't mind holding onto one between turns (like if I have two and have already played my one per turn) because at the very least it will draw me the card I would have drawn if I hadn't held onto it. (Apply that same logic to Fearless Determination when you're playing Captain America).

The last card I want to say something positive about is Visit Valhalla! When I'm flipping down to Alter-Ego to Recover and/or use Annabelle Riggs and/or draw cards with Hall of Heroes, being able to snag a Valk card out of discard is really powerful. I generally always have the same two targets in mind:

• Flight of the Valkyrior
• Have at Thee!

Annabelle Riggs is not a great card but she's a two-cost ally, which is nice. I neither block with her nor do I make basic attacks or thwarts with her though (at least against Ultron) because of Concussive Blast because I don't want to lose her before I get any value out of her... i.e. potential "card draws". I'm fine letting her sit on the table waiting for me to use her in Alter-Ego. She "drew" me 4 cards in the linked game (10% of the deck), bringing my total cards drawn to 50, which is 1.25 extra deck passes!

Two cards I never played in the linked game are Shieldmaiden and Valkyrie's Spear. I'm just not going to be defending with Valkyrie because I'm not attaching Death-Glow to Ultron. With that said, if I was planning to go down to Alter-Ego after the attack anyway, I might play these cards and attach Death-Glow to Ultron so I could get a big defend. Her Alter-Ego action let's you detach Death-Glow, so it's not "stuck" on the villain for the rest of the game!

Finally, I'm running both Quincarrier and Helicarrier, but you could cut one without making too much of a difference. I'd cut Quincarrier since you can't play it while in Alter-Ego. Most of the time that doesn't matter, but when you have 6 or more counters on Hall of Heroes you can draw three cards when you flip down AND three more before flipping back up, so when I draw three on the flip down I'm looking for something I can put into play right away.

I'd probably add a Hand Cannon if I cut one, which would lower the cost curve a tiny bit and give you some more Overkill. But there are other options:

• Combat Training
• Martial Prowess
• Follow Through

I tested all three of these at various times, but rarely played them because I always feel one resource short while playing Valk and have other priorities! Another option is Build Support (which I have in pretty much every deck except for this one). It can grab any of the following from deck OR discard, which is super helpful if they ended up as Drones!

• Hall of Heroes
• Whichever ...carrier you went with
• Valhalla

At the top of the description I noted that two of these three cards are priorities for me!

Final Thoughts:

I like this matchup, but not as much as I like my Rocket Raccoon matchup!

• Deck: https://marvelcdb.com/decklist/view/32946/drone-slayer-1.0
• Video: Rocket Raccoon vs. Ultron

That said, I was only able to draw 29 cards with that Rocket deck against Ultron and this deck drew me 50, and it's REALLY fun to draw a bunch of cards :)