Rock, Paper, Sword, Sword, Sword

In keeping with Valk'Pool tradition, a poem for this deck (in haiku form)

Sturdy as a rock,
Light as paper in the wind,
A flurry of blades.

Nidhogg suffers death by a thousand cuts.

The two things Valkyrie really wants to do are to use her favorite cards frequently and to one-shot anything with Death-Glow. With this in mind, this deck takes a maximalist approach to turning Valkyrie into a whirlwind of death. There really aren't any fancy combos, just the shear, unstoppable force of Valkyrie's Three Sword Style.

It probably looks something like this.

At full power, you will have a basic ATK of 10 against the enemy with Death-Glow, and you're activating a minimum of twice per turn. My personal best is 7 activations in a single turn (of which 3 were against the villain).

Key cards:

• Symbiote Suit
• Rock, Paper, Scissors
• Stick-To-Itiveness
• Healing Factor

Symbiote Suit is usually my number one priority. The boosted stats, especially for THW are nice, but its really the hand-size economy that makes this well worth the hazard icon.

Rock, Paper, Scissors is a card draw in many cases, and if nothing else, helps cycle the deck quickly.

Stick-To-Itiveness is probably one of the best ready options in the game. There are plenty of to trigger it, along with Quincarrier.

Healing Factor will of course keep us alive, and keep us recovering despite a strong preference for hero form.

There probably aren't a lot of surprises there, except maybe the high priority that I place on Rock, Paper, Scissors and how early I will play Symbiote Suit. Being able to thwart for 2, and the ramp that an extra card adds justifies an extra encounter card every round, even with the added risk of Crisis of Infinite Deadpools and Valkyrie having the worst nemesis in the game. In solo, Shadow of the Past can be a game ender, so we bring along Get in Front of Me! just in case. It's usually not so bad in multiplayer, so you can be a little less careful about playing around Shadow.

Piloting the deck

Aside from high attack and ready, we want to build into some strong draw. With Avengers Mansion, Valhalla, and Rock, Paper, Scissors, you can easily pick up 3 cards a turn. 4 if you have a specialist upgrade from Specialized Training.

To increase our odds of Rock, Paper, Scissors adding a card to our hand instead of just discarding, the deck contains several resources, two of which are Digging Deep, which always add to your hand when discarded off the top of the deck. Also be aware the deck is skewed towards resources, so if you don't have a , showing typically has the highest hit rate. (This tends to remain true even as you have upgrades/supports on the board.)

We never plan to play Valkyrie's Spear. Instead, we will use Side Holster to run both Laser Swords and Dragonfang. It doesn't particularly matter what order you get these in, I will typically play either as soon as I have them. The one caveat is that, while I will drop fang to play swords, don't do it the other way around. Swords is both more expensive and can provide a much higher boost, without the requirement of paying for Death-Glow. It's much easier to play Dragonfang a second time if you have to.

Distraction will also boost our Laser Swords, or shuts down non-elite minions in the rare event that we can't wipe everything off the board in one turn.

Keep in mind that in order to ready off Death-Glow, it must be Valkyrie who defeats the enemy, but it need not be a basic attack, or even an attack at all. You'd be surprised how often I've gotten a cheeky ready by using Tic-Tac-Toe to take out a minion with Death-Glow.

Resources: I've included lots of resources to assist RPS, and Digging Deep is always added to your hand. I tend to play recklessly, so I usually had sustained more than 5 damage, and got more consistent value from The Power in All of Us to pull Lockjaw out of the discard, rather than the 'Pool Self-* resources. Once you're set up, TPiAoU has fewer good targets, so if you play more defensively, you might consider the 'Pool resources instead.

Shout out to andyr for some brainstorming help in the comments of Sweet and Salty. I had initially avoided Laser Swords in Valk'Pool because I was hesitant to include so much restricted, however after after checking out that deck, I decided to give it a try and it became core to the identity of this deck. That discussion also prompted me to try the deck in multiplayer, where it actually performs much more consistently.

I've tested variations of this deck against several scenarios and encounters, in both solo and two-player. Like most Valkyrie decks, this one thrives when there are plenty of minions. We really want to lean into our Death Glow to delete anything with health lower than our attack.

The deck does work in single-player, but can be a bit reliant on luck early on. If you don't get your important cards out in the first couple turns, you can start to lose control of the game. In multiplayer, you have much more breathing room to survive early game so you can easily dominate late game.

Valkyrie would appreciate a thwarting partner so that she can focus on dealing damage. Maybe someone who isn't too phased by a few extra icons... I found great success running this with a Justice, Confuse/Ally-spam Kitty Pryde, which you can find here!