Hello Spellweavers!

I am Rinriet, a Spellweaver regular with three Masters Championship titles. I welcome you back to my article series, where I analyze a deck every week.

For an extensive list of competitive decks, you can check out my What is META? article.

Today I present you one of the best and common deck for ladder: Alexa Valor.

Why should you try this deck?

- It combines the best cards with two levels of all good aspects. It snowballs very well.

- It’s versatile in terms of teching. You can add a lot of cards to adapt to each situation.

- Performs well against aggro and most midranges.

- It’s easy to learn and hard to master.

- If you buy the campaign “The Holy Child” you will get nearly all of the cards by playing it!

What are the deck’s weaknesses?

- It doesn’t fare well against control decks. You need a good curve and a perfect performance to win against those.

- The deck needs tempo to work properly. If you lose board presence you may have a hard time.

Deck List

Hero: 1x Alexa, Battle-Maiden

How to play the deck?

- For your starting hand you usually want to get a nice curve. That means a good distribution of cards so you could play a card every turn and never waste mana.

- The deck works with 2 levels. The first one is an Order level, and the second one a Wisdom/Nature Trigon of the Pact . If you have 2 Trigons in your starting hand, you can use both to level up.

- If you don’t have a Trigon in hand and you still need one to level up, use Divine Offering every turn until you find one.

- The first turns you want to set up board presence and deny your opponent’s good plays. For example, if you play against a Rage player, boosting one of your creatures to 4 HP will make it nearly unkillable.

- If you are behind on board presence or you believe your rival is able to clear your board, you can put your creatures back onto the support line, and wait until you manage to put some threats out.

- A proper use of Steelnor Innkeeper is important. Identify what your opponent is playing and consider that before playing him. If your rival uses Instill Life or Duke Harsford , use Inkeeper to remove their key creatures from graveyard. If your rival runs Angelic Temple or Shifting Aurite , be sure to stupefy them.

- Playing a Timea to get two or more draw triggers is a game winner. Remember that she comboes the draw part with the Valor keyword of Sentry of the Light and Diogen, Wandering Pilgrim . Get as many cards as possible, card advantage is important!

- Try to keep your Saluxio until your opponent lacks removal, or needs to use his heropower. For example when you built a board against Zash the Annihilator , or when Enoch the Steel Horror needs to heal.

- Your heropower has two main uses. The first is to fix the curve. Every time you have one extra mana you can summon a Militia . The second use (and the main reason of why you play Alexa) is to combo with Parallel Evolution . For 3 mana, any threat becomes a “George” (check Militia’s flavor text), or you get a huge threat for yourself.

- Parallel Evolution works well with Valor. For example, if your opponent has a 4/4 creature, you can transform your 1/1 into a 4/4, buff it to 5/5 with valor effects, and then kill it for free.

- Diogen can bring back from the graveyard any shrine or 1 mana cost card, Trigon and Tidal Wave too. Take that into consideration when you play him!

- Soldiers Memorial is a great mid-late game tool for providing value. It comboes well with Timea, and helps for example in getting a Saluxio out of Fireball range.

- Enchanted Spring is optional, but can be key in some matchups against decks based in Parallel Evolution. Also can combo with Dwarven Mortar (to activate it twice the same turn) or Diogen (to draw twice).

Alternative card choices

There are too many cards that can be put in this deck. I’ll share some of them, but be creative!

- Amalric, Holy Knight : It would change the name of the deck to Amalric Valor. You lose the Parallel Evolution synergy, but being able to protect Saluxio from removal or make very good trades is something to consider.

- Bark Convoy : Adds flexibility to have better options against a wide variety of decks that need artifacts or permanent spells to work.

- Reincarnation Spirit : Anti- Johrails Silencer , also comboes with Timea to get more cards and more resurrections.

- Companion of the Heavens : More valor synergy, plus 5/5 stats. A very potent drop.

- Shifting Aurite : 3/1 stats, with Ranged and Flying. Not insane, but can create problems for some decks, plus is a magnet for removal.

- Master Hunter : His ability is situational, but very strong.

What are the common matchups?

The best matchups for Alexa Valor are the aggro ones that rely on board presence, like Soldiers and Zombies. As long as you manage to keep your momentum on board, you will win against them. Anyway, it can win against almost any deck though, because of the raw power of the cards.

The less favoured matchups are the control ones. If you play against a control deck, you need a good curve of your soldiers, and use your valor effects to play around the expected removal (it makes a difference to your strategy if you expect a Fireblast as opposed to Arrow Barrage for example).

I hope you liked the guide! If anyone has a suggestion or comment, feel free to send me a forum message, add me in-game, or talk on the game’s discord.