Command Deck Strategies Part 7: The Coalition and High Director Valken

Written by Jay Lansdaal

Editor’s Note: This is Part 6 of our Command Deck Strategies Series. We also recommend:

Introduction
Finally, the long-awaited Valken article is here!

Why did it take so long? To answer that, let’s check in with the notes from the other Commanders’ articles on their Valken matchup:

From Nandi: “…, this matchup should go your way”
From Walsh: “Walsh naturally preys on…”
From Newburg: “We open hitting harder, although we may be outgained in authority…”
From Jochum: “This is a good matchup for Jochum.”
From McCready: “This matchup is really good for you.”
From Le: “Another good matchup for you, …”

Ah. I see.

Obviously, after reading all that, there was a lot of enthusiasm among many Star Realms players to give my favorite commander a whirl in the ol’ space combat game. Newburg even left the door somewhat open on whether Valken could get a win! Exciting!

And thus, the age of Valken had begun, and many players had so much fun scrapping and building base-walls together, that everyone forgot there was a missing article!

Editor’s note: …Jay, what did I tell you about lying to our audience??

Right, right. Sorry. That didn’t happen. In fact, most people assumed Valken just wasn’t very good, and only played her when the “?” button cursed them. And why write an article trying to help people play a commander only to have their win% go down after reading your advice? Who wants to tie their name to that?

Well, luckily – Rick and Dustin allowed me to write under a false name!

Editor’s note: We most certainly did not. I just called you Jay also.

No one reads editor’s notes, it’s fine. And honestly, among non-promo Commanders, I do believe Valken is a solid choice! If you play any Commander Skirmish, it’s frequently right to pick her when you get the option. We’ll get to why a little later, but let’s start by taking a look at Valken’s starting deck.

Valken’s Starting Deck

Like most commanders, Valken starts with 12 cards in her deck, 2 Gambits, and an 8-cost ship that gets shuffled into the Trade deck. She draws the usual 6 cards each turn and starts at the second lowest authority total of all commanders: 62.

Mech Command Ship

If you can afford it, you should probably buy it. It just about always draws, and it provides scrap, something Valken almost can’t have too much of. In general, the card is pretty good (as is every card that allows you to scrap up to two cards every time you see it), but the healing it provides is not as useful, given that you can already convert scraps into heal with the next card:

Coalition Efficiency

This Gambit is not the most powerful of all the gambits. You need to use it twice to get your authority up to what some other commanders start with, and (almost) every time you use the gambit, you are making your deck worse. There’s not a single other commander that has a downside to their continuous Gambit. For example, compare this to Newburg’s gambit, who gets rewarded with 3 damage (probably more valuable than 5 authority) every time he gains authority (which isn’t a resource people tend to fight over like scrap, and he has multiple ways to trigger his gambit in his starting deck, whereas Valken only has one), and even he doesn’t have to forego the authority when using his gambit!

Valken’s Enterprise

To make up for having probably the worst continuous Gambit, Valken also has the worst consumable Gambit. Putting a sort of “hidden base” into play sounds exciting until you realize it’s the same crappy base every time, and the app hides the description not because it might be different next time you use it, but out of shame.

(In case you haven’t seen it yet: it’s a 6 defense, Cult-Federation dual-faction Outpost, that can gain you 2 authority or 2 damage each turn it sits in play – not good, but excellent with Missions!)

The main disappointment with the base is that it doesn’t get you any extra trade to buy bombs (7-8 cost cards) off the trade row. Every other commander gets a consumable Gambit that gives you a draw, direct trade (Walsh), or can take a card out of your discard for extra trade (Jochum). Therefore, for most bombs on the opening row, Valken is not the favorite to buy them first.

Then, the cards in her deck:

Cargo Boat

2 Trade with the ability to upgrade into a Frontier Runner if you have another blue card. As maligned as the Frontier Runner is, when you start with them instead of Scouts, it’s pretty solid! Starting with a Cargo boat also means that Valken can get to 8 trade with her starters.

Federation Scout

This is the only card that can make “extra” trade with Valken’s consumable Gambit, but it only works on Trade Federation cards. Nice when it happens, but not something you can count on. Other than that, it’s a Scout.

Frontier Tug

The Tugger is one of the top reasons Valken isn’t just straight up bad. Being able to keep your deck small with scrap and being able to slide extra bases into your next hand is a great way to build up a base wall, set up big trade turns, or just to put up enough roadblocks along the way to survive the onslaught from the likes of McCready.

Salvage Drone

And this is the top reason Valken isn’t just straight up bad. Starting with a scrapper before buying anything is a big deal, and having a leaner deck in the later stages of the game is almost always the key to your victories. Don’t let the 1 trade tempt you, you should almost always be scrapping early. Unless it lets you buy an actual bomb, or it’s the only way you can afford a scrapper your opponent would otherwise definitely buy, choose to scrap!.

Laser Drone, Ranger, Viper Bot

I put these three together because I want you to see that if you hit your ally abilities and scrap at the right time, you have a lot of damage already in the starting deck. While this allows Valken to focus on just picking up scrap and bases – trusting that the starters will be able to get rid of the occasional base on the opposing side– it also allows you to take another route: monopolize the damage on the row and rush your opponent before they can stammer “M-M-McCready?!”.

Looking at this all together, Valken’s starting deck’s potential is high: she and Le are the only decks that start with scrap, and she has some of the highest amount of trade and even damage in her deck. Because of this, she can be flexible on how to approach the game, and can often dictate how long the game is going to last. Valken can buy a lot of scrap and bases and make heavy use of her gambit to make the game go long, or rarely use the gambit and push for damage, or something in between. This sounds very appealing, and it’s part of why Valken isn’t as bad as advertised.

Flexibility does come at a price – for one, it’s not always clear which path to go, and even if you commit to one, depending on how the trade row changes, you may have to switch mid-game. This makes playing Valken difficult (but rewarding). You constantly have to be thinking about the endgame. What does my deck look like when the fireworks come up? Will this next purchase get me to that deck?

On top of that, a lot of her plans rely on certain conditions to be met outside of the trade row cooperating. Viper Bot is great at helping rush your opponent IF you always draw it with a scrapper. Frontier Tug is fantastic at setting up base-walls IF you can ally it (and draw it with trade to buy bases).

Lastly, even the best-laid plans may not come together if you cannot seem to get a hold of scrap. Then suddenly all you have is a deck with the worst gambits and the lowest authority among commanders.

The Plan

Unlike some of the other commanders, Valken’s set of cards isn’t a clear one-way street to “the ultimate Cult-Federation strategy”. Healing nor scrapping wins you a game, so being The Best™ at it doesn’t mean much, unless it’s part of a plan that will actually defeat your opposition. I’ll give some general tips that can be applied in every match here, but the meat of this article will be under “The Opposition”.

Step 1: Acquire more scrap.
As soon as possible, over nearly anything. When in doubt, definitely take the scrapper. This becomes less true as the game goes on, but early on, don’t let your opponent be the one buying the scrap – away goes the big advantage your deck has. Games where you get some early extra scrap are much easier than the ones where you don’t.

The bar for when you’re buying “too much” scrap is much higher for Valken than for your average game of Star Realms as you can convert extra scraps to authority. Especially early on, leaving scrap on the row for your opponent is worse than having a couple too many in your deck. If they can keep up in the scrap division, you’ll have to beat them with better cards, and your gambits aren’t helping you get those, nor power cards up as much as some of theirs do.

As for what you scrap: generally the Viper goes first, then Scouts, then the weaker other starters. Federation Scout being practically a Scout tends to leave first, but don’t be afraid to scrap a Cargo Boat or Laser Drone if they don’t fit into your long-term plan. Definitely don’t waste your scrap just because you’re attached to any of the special starters!

Step 2: Don’t buy things that don’t fit your plan.
Every card you buy that you don’t want to have in your deck towards the end of the game undoes a scrap. When that’s your main advantage, you have to lean into it, not undo it. In regular Star Realms, you may be able to get away with “if I just buy more good cards than my opponent, eventually I’ll keep drawing enough of them together to beat them” – that’s much rarer against Commanders. Games go too fast.

Step 3: Reassess your plan as the game goes on.
What’s your opponent working towards? What works well against that? Again, think: “What does my deck look like when the fireworks come up?”. If you keep your deck lean, it’s easier to pivot. I highly recommend being the one that makes your opponent wonder what happened, and not have it be the other way around.

On Gambit usage: for Coalition Efficiency, ideally you don’t touch this gambit early. Later in the game there’s a few reasons why you would:

1) You can scrap something, but you don’t want to (Hello Neural Nexus!)
2) You have more scrap coming in upcoming hands that will want to scrap the same card
3) The only thing that matters is staying alive

To give an example for #2, there will be cases where you know you have a Repair Bot or something like that coming up in your next hand, but there’s only one Scout in your hand to scrap with your Battle Bot now, and none in your discard. You may as well get back that Scout even if you don’t want or need it, because you’ll be able to scrap it for good next turn.You could also scrap something else with the Repair Bot and get that back (a #1-scenario), but remember you can only use Coalition Efficiency once a turn. If you had another scrapper in the hand with the Repair Bot, you’ll regret not having gained 5 the turn prior. This comes up more often when you have a lot of scrap – try to not let any go to waste.

When #3 becomes true depends on the opposition. Against McCready, it might be from the start.

For Valken’s Enterprise, try squeezing as much value as possible out of it. Don’t just put it in play immediately for what ends up amounting to just +8 authority – you’ll be able to do that at any point during the game. Find opportunities to hide valuable non-outpost bases behind it, use it to trigger Embassy Yacht-like abilities, or to trigger critical ally abilities. Be patient.

The Opposition

Let’s start with your worst matchup:

Jochum

Jochum has more trade than you. Jochum has more authority than you. Jochum draws more cards than you. Jochum’s dog craps on your lawn. His kids drop Legos for you to step on. It’s miserable.

If Valken is the planet’s end-game Queen, Jochum is the galaxy’s end-game Emperor. Drawing more cards a turn means he’ll have more damage than you can put down bases, he’ll have more bases than you can tear down with damage, and he’ll be able to buy and see more game-ending bombs than you will ever dream of acquiring.

There are some ways to win, mostly leaning on Jochum’s lack of damage among his starters:

Your opponent uses their gambit for too little value, and you can out-value them with some trade-generating bases that stick in play for a while, letting you buy bombs first, and hopefully keep you ahead in scrapping. This may overpower them before they can claw their way back in.

Your opponent sets up for the long game because you are Valken, while you pretend to be McCready and buy every card that says “+ combat”, with just enough scrap to get you over the finish line.

However, against strong Jochum players who pay attention to what you are trying to do, you will not win very many games. In fact, Jochum is probably the main reason Valken has such a bad rep. She’s seen as a late-game commander, but Jochum is just better at that, while not really being weaker in any area. Why would you ever play Valken?

Luckily, in Commander Skirmish (and in many fan run tournaments), Jochum cannot be played, and many people consider Newburg the commander to beat, so let’s look at that one next.

Newburg

Among the commander articles, Newburg was the one commander where the expected result against Valken was left clearly open-ended, and for good reason. I think Valken is well set up to defeat Newburg. You’re ahead on two key elements: trade and scrap. Newburg has little of the first and none of the other. Now, it’s no cake-walk – Newburg is one of the favorites among non-promo commanders for a reason – but your starting cards line up in an advantageous way.

In most cases, Newburg tries to win by a large differential. By the time most opponents manage to take substantial chunks out of his sky-high authority, they’re already near-dead. However, the overall damage output of Newburg isn’t exactly overwhelming. He’s not often hitting you for 30-40+ damage a turn. You can very well set up a base-wall and heal your way out of the danger zone, while building a lean deck that will get to work on Newburg’s authority.

In some cases, you can even race! While Newburg is favored in the damage department, if your opponent isn’t healing as much because they are focusing on preventing you from building a base-wall, you may be able to surprise them by buying aggressive cards and using the healing from your Gambit to stay just out of their reach. This is not the easy path, but it’s good to recognize it when it’s there.

In general, try not to let Newburg buy Burrowers and Parasites and other things that increase his maximum damage per turn output (letting him steal scrap is similarly bad for you – try to keep him drawing some starters all the way to the end). Make sure you’re not too singularly focused on setting up a base-wall either. In many cases you need some damage to prevent the differential from getting too high, unless you’re very confident in your ability to lock Newburg out entirely with your wall.

McCready

While the McCready article claims this matchup is strongly in their favor, I am not sure I agree. Not that I think Valken is a strong favorite instead, but you win your fair share. The trick is to keep the game a close race, and buy accordingly. You won’t get much time to stack up a pile of bases, so instead fight them over the cheap damage, and use your healing to swing the race in your favor. McCready has a surprising amount of trade, and there will be games where they buy some big guns and just run you over, but in the close races? You might be surprised how often +5 authority here and there wins the game.

That’s not to say you never buy bases, but be selective. They likely won’t stay in play, so which ones are still good assuming they don’t? High defense ones might help in a race, but weigh it carefully against the available ships. Would you buy the base if it was a ship that just gained you its defense in authority when playing it? If yes, great! If not, probably don’t buy it in this matchup.

For using Coalition Efficiency, this is where you’ll use it most aggressively. You still want to look for reasons not to use it, especially in the very early turns as it’ll just make every next shuffle better when you don’t, but more often than not you’ll use it. Don’t think it’ll keep you alive though – you’ll still succumb to the yellow-green army if you don’t punch back.

Mr. Bicycle himself! Another confident commander that claims to eat Valken for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And, well… it’s indeed a tough matchup for Valken. Good Le players will make their deck even smaller than Valken’s, and then bombard her with discards and/or a continuous stream of high-damage output. In some ways, Le has a stronger “long game” than Valken – it just looks different than Jochum and Valken’s long game. Le seems to not do much early but spin his wheels, but once the engine comes online he starts flying through his deck and dealing a ton of damage, leaving you standing on scorched earth while he blasts off to the moon.

However, not all hope is lost. You can try to outrace Le by buying aggressive cards. Ideally yellow ones, as they serve the dual-purpose of you not-getting-discard-locked, while discards can slow Le down also (less cards to cycle through). Aggressive cards that self-scrap are valuable too – again, they would be good for Le – as they keep your deck lean. The problem with “counter-buying” is that it often bloats your deck, and that’s the opposite of how you win with Valken, so any way to minimize that is good.

There are rare games where you leave Le so little to work with (most often when you manage to monopolize scrap, or they over-scrap too early with too little damage), you can overpower them with a base-wall. Keep good track of what ends up in Le’s deck to spot these opportunities. You might not be able to follow their turns very well, you can always look at the result.

Trying to beat Le is you kicking the chain off their bike, then challenging them to a race as you run away. If you execute it well, and they aren’t too adept at bike repairs, you can turn that head start into a win. But if they are skilled (or the trade row has too many good Le-cards for you to counter-buy while keeping a semi-coherent deck together), you might be racing up a hill.

Walsh

Base-wall Willy is a tricky opponent. His gambit makes your long term plan of base-walling more complicated, but not impossible – and letting Walsh take all the bases is not a recipe for success either. Luckily, you start with scrap and they don’t. Keep that advantage, and you should be able to build a better deck than Walsh, who is somewhat hampered by the amount of damage in his deck when it comes to playing a “straight-up” game of seeing who gets the better cards.

Walsh does have a one-time guaranteed trade boost to get to a bomb early, and some row control, but in most games those don’t beat a scrap advantage. The tough games are when Walsh manages to get some early scrap also, or where the gambit is converted into a scrapping bomb like their (or your) 8 cost ship – now you’re in trouble.

When it comes to using Coalition Efficiency, look how your opponent is approaching the matchup. If they are trying to set up a wall of bases, don’t use it until it’s “free”. If they are instead trying to aggro rush you, you may want to use it a little more aggressively to not get run over. Still, don’t overdo it – Walsh isn’t McCready.

Nandi

Comparing gambits here shows one thing: Nandi will be much better than you at getting the trade for bombs together. Especially early on in the game, it may feel like you are losing horribly. However, this is where you get to feel like Jochum’s little cousin. As the game goes long, you draw more cards, so it’s easier for you to build a base wall than for Nandi to knock it down, and you can absorb a discard or two without much issue, while it can cripple Nandi. Don’t lose your nerve early on, focus on keeping scrap away from Nandi, and cash in later on, having a much leaner deck while drawing more cards every turn. The longer the game goes here, the more likely you are to win.

Do make sure to pick up some extra trade in this matchup – it’s not a great idea to leave all the top cards to Nandi – but try to make it trade that doesn’t clog up your deck. Cards like Farm Ship, Mining Mech, and bases that provide trade are all good ways to be able to acquire some 7 or 8-cost cards yourself. Discard is extra good against Nandi, so if you can scrap down to a deck that hits her with 2-3 discards every turn, you’ll be in good shape.

Valken

Good news, I can confidently say this is a 50-50 matchup!

Putting that all together, maybe it makes sense now why you would frequently pick Valken in Commander Skirmish. There’s no chance your opponent is Jochum (by far your worst matchup), there’s a good chance your opponent picks Newburg if they have the option (a favorable matchup for you), and there’s not that many splits possible where it makes sense for your opponent to take Le (an unfavorable matchup) given Le’s weakness to McCready and Newburg, who are both popular picks (and most non-hardcore cyclists would pick them over Le also).

(Oh, you wanted actual advice for the Valken mirror match? Buy more scrap than your opponent early in the game. You both have scrap and heal, and enough damage that it’s unlikely an early base will run away with the game. This means the game is likely to go somewhat longer, and be decided by better scrap access for one, or by a better “end-game” deck (a bigger base-wall; more card draw; a bunch of dockers; discards overwhelming the other; etc). Just like in regular Star Realms, it is sometimes possible to buy all the aggro cards and rush the opponent, it’s just not super likely here if your opponent is paying attention.)

Whatever I Couldn’t Fit in the Rest of the Article

Overall, I recommend you keep two things in mind with Valken:

Your biggest advantage in most games is a starting scrap advantage. This is very powerful, so try to take advantage of it, and don’t undo it. Buying cards that don’t fit your plan really hurt. Letting your opponent buy scrap early helps them make up for the disadvantage. Don’t let either of these things happen without thought.

You don’t always have to shoot for a “long game”. Your ability to heal and a surprising amount of damage often let you control the pace of the game. By using your gambit(s) strategically, you can make a game last longer, but you can also focus on dealing as much damage as you can and only healing to win a tight race to 0.

How to best use your ability to control the pace of the game is not something I can easily explain, without resorting to not-so-useful statements like “if you’re more likely to win if the game goes long, try to push in that direction”. For now, just try and see if you can notice the pace of the game while playing Valken, and adjust to what the trade row offers you, keeping in mind what’s most effective against your opponent. A short game is fine, assuming you’ll win the race to the bottom! With experience, you’ll get better at recognizing when to go aggressive and when to turtle-up.

I know I also referred to “your plan” a lot, often without further explanation. The matchup section should have given you an idea of what plans are more likely to work out than others in those matchups, but I cannot give you a step-by-step for every game. The trade row influences too much, and it will affect what your plan needs to be. Some games you have no option but to try and win a long game against Jochum. Sometimes you have to try to rush down Newburg. I can’t tell you up front, but I can tell you that if you make your purchases with a plan in mind, you’ll do better with Valken than if you just buy whatever the “strongest” card is. With experience, your plans will get better.

Now, go forth and show people they were wrong to dismiss Valken!