Hey everyone, Reygon here with a new deck tech from set 7! Today were going to be looking at my Valen Solariel, Healer of Eldralore deck!

https://deckplanet.net/d/ac_IrO0Mn1vTS-ZWD997TKBfg

When I first was evaluating the set, Valen did not jump off the pages to me as being "exciting" or wanting to build around right away but I think i was wrong! Valen's 20 ability allows you to draw a card on your turn whenever you gain life and it allows you to get recover one whenever you play an action card!

704.22c. A card with Recover {X} has the following effect, “Whenever this card deals clash damage, your contender gains X health.”

So just playing any action card while having a rogue in play then attacking with it allows you to draw a card! The only constraint to this ability is that in Alpha Clash if your contender is at their starting health, you cant gain anymore health so you cant start drawing until you are below your starting HP. This can slow down your early game card draw but also discourages early aggression by your opponent.

When starting to build around Valen, I wanted to use good action cards and strong rogues to take full advantage of her kit. So lets start by looking at some clash cards.

The first card was a classic from set 1 Haven, Hiding in Plain Sight. Which will usually allow you to gain 2 health, draw a card, and get a body in play for only 2 resources. But if you are at max health, you can just simply play to draw a card and progress your early game. The next card I remembered was actually a card I had played with in the Nashville Protour Draft as one of my best cards and that was Valen Solariel, Beacon of Hope. This card gives additional defense to all our rogues and gains us a health at the start of every turn triggering our card draw effect! Then another card I like to play whenever I am on a 20 health contender playing white is Clarity, Omniscient Envoy. Most of the games you'll likely be able to utilize her trigger enter which lets you fortell 2 then draw 1, shaping your hand and giving you more card advantage. Then a few just "good" cards to run are Linn, Adaptable Fighter (good stats with flight), Clarity Forseeing Fate (buff our team plus more card draw), Master Zephyrion Holding the Line (great stats for a 3 cost 3/5 on their turn), and Cao Ling the Huntsman (for surprise double attacks on your turn).

Now looking at action cards and what made me excited about playing this deck. Life from Ashes is a card I completely overlooked and I dare say, one of best removal cards in the game?

It sends any card to oblivion for only 2 resources with the only down side of giving your opponent a small amount of health equal the SPECIFIC resource cost on the card. So we usually only talking between 1 and 3 health maximum. I had originally had Deliverance in this slot, but I have never been a huge fan because it was too slow and cost to many resources to be effective in my opinion. But reducing it down to only 2 resources is such a big deal. your opponent can play Torque, the Uncontrollable all the way up to Alpha Aster, Giver of All and you have a clean answer. On top of that, playing the action card will also give one of your rogues recover one letting you get a card draw to replace it. We also get to run Triumphant Revitalization, one of the better clash buffs in the game. It makes us extremely tanky giving 3 health and increasing our defense to 2 for an entire turn.

As you all know I am also a big fan of Bombardment and Moxie sharpshooter so I decided to splash black because they are efficient and strong early game cards and Bombardment triggers our recover 1. Another card I have really enjoyed lately is From Life to Death. This is a clean answer to any deck trying to run torque boom or torque overwhelming burst or for that matter just any problem clash card you need removed before you take the damage. Even if you have no black resources, you can just pay 4 life to make this card cost 1 generic resource to send any clash card to oblivion once you get attacked. The trick here is that once you get attacked, you can use this as the counter attack and target any clash card in play not just the one attacking. This can catch your opponent off guard who might be trying to protect an important card by not attacking with it yet . You can also use this as early as turn one to intentionally start to lose health early game and gain it back to start drawing cards with the rest of your deck.

Being mainly in white, we also get access to 2 really strong clash grounds in Victory Peak and Grant Park, Chicago. Victory peak lets us negate big chunks of damage every turn and Grant Park buffs our rogues and lets us search up our strong 5 cost or less cards ensuring we have late game plays. With the new event cards this year, there is a premium to play clash grounds as well!

In summary, Valen appears to be a powerful contender that gives us access to some uniquely strong cards combined with her kit, role, and color designations. I have not play tested this list a bunch yet so I am sure there will be edits and tuning to be made to make it even better.

Thanks for reading :)

Reygon