A Yu-Gi-Oh deck that feels like a bit of a blast from the past, Valkyries rely on some pretty straightforward abilities. They can easily special summon themselves out, easily swarm the field, and either gain or make their opponent’s lose large amounts of attack to get over the opponent’s monsters.
Their goal isn’t to out resource their opponent, but rather to simply run over everything their opponent has and put an end to them in a single turn. They’re a one-turn kill deck, and they’re pretty effective at being that. To do that, they’ve got a handful of awesome cards which allow them to take a duel before anyone knows what happened.
10 VALKYRIE ZWEITE
When Zweite is summoned, she automatically pops a monster that the opponent has. That's a pretty solid effect, as it means she can get rid of any monster that doesn't protect itself from targeting or destruction. Then, if the card battles at all, the player gets to grab a continuous spell from the graveyard and add it to the hand. This means they can recover some of the continuous spells the deck relies on, helping them with future plays.
9 VALKYRIE BRUNHILDE
Brunhilde is a Level 7 that’s unaffected by the opponent’s spell cards. It’s got pretty weak stats, but it gains 500 ATK for every monster the opponent controls, so it can go from 1800 to 2800 off an opponent’s mediocre board. Its best effect activates when an opponent’s monster attacks—Brunhilde loses DEF and makes all Valkyrie monsters immune to battle destruction for the remainder of the turn.
8 VALKYRIE ERDA
Erda’s underpowered, but it doesn’t have the particularly strong given it’s effect. If it’s special summoned because of a Valkyrie card, the opponent’s monsters all lose 1000 ATK.
That means it can run over anything with 2900 or less ATK. Even better, any card the opponent controls that is destroyed by battle or card effect gets banished, which stops a ton of decks right in their tracks.
7 VALKYRIE VIERTE
Vierte can look at the top cards of the deck equal to the number of other Valkyrie cards on the field, then add a normal spell or trap from the deck to the hand. The remaining cards go to the graveyard. This works to thin the deck out, but can also grab a spell the player couldn’t find for several turns. Vierte can also special summon a Valkyrie monster from the deck if it’s destroyed by battle.
6 VALKYRIE DRITTE
Dritte is capable of adding a Valkyrie card from the deck to the hand just because it was summoned to the field. There’s no level restriction, meaning it can grab the bigger ones out of the deck, but more likely players will want to add one of the Valkyrie spells to their hand so they can start on their combos. Still, Dritte aids in helping the consistency of the overall deck and its strategy to get tons of monsters in hand for later.
5 VALKYRIE SECHSTE
When Sechste is special summoned, it can also grab another Valkyrie monster from the deck and special summon it to the field. During the main phase, it can also send the top two cards of the opponent’s deck to the graveyard.
The second effect...is debatable in how helpful it is, as the opponent might not care what’s sent to the graveyard, or it could make their next turn better. But taking monsters from the deck to the field is always a good option.
4 GODDESS URD'S VERDICT
A continuous spell card, Goddess Urd’s Verdict makes all Valkyries unable to be targeted by opponent’s card effects, and unable to be destroyed by the opponent’s card effects as well. Once a turn, the player can guess a card’s name, then target a set card the opponent controls, reveal it, and banish it if they picked correctly. Otherwise they have to banish one of their own cards. This works for any deck that sets cards directly from the deck, as they often have to reveal them first to verify what it is.
3 MISCHIEF OF THE TIME GODDESS
Mischief of the Time Goddess activates at the end of its owner’s battle phase. If every monster the player has is a Valkyrie card, it goes to the graveyard, and it immediately becomes the start of the player’s next Battle Phase. This accomplishes two things: it bypasses Ride of the Valkyrie’s restriction, because it’s now the player’s next turn. Second, the player can attack a second time, this time likely into a completely clear field.
2 VALKYRIE ERSTE
Erste is capable of getting back the spell card Mischief of the Time Goddess, which is useful enough alone. Then, if the player controls a Valkyrie monster besides Erste, Erste can also banish a monster from the opponent’s graveyard and make Erste’s attack equal to that monster’s original attack.
1 RIDE OF THE VALKYRIES
Ride of the Valkyries is the reason players run Valkyries at all. It can special summon as many Valkyries with different names as the player has from the hand. The player takes no battle damage until the end of their next turn if they summon three or more, but that part is less relevant. During the End Phase of that turn, Ride shoves all the monsters the player controls back into the deck, but thanks to another spell card even that effect isn’t concerning, because of Mischief of the Time Goddess. Ride can be banished from the graveyard to add that very spell card from the deck to the hand.