Critique my Valerie

Yomi
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So the word is out, my Big Plan™ was mono-Val, since she’s the first character I picked up at this game and requires a strong grasp of “fundamentals”. I’ve never had much success with her though and hopefully I can change that!

Continuing the discussion from [Tournament] 19XX: Ace 4 - Tournament in progress!:

I was discussing this with Xiba a little after our game (sadly after I stopped the camera). It feels tough: Arg has counters to negate 10*/K*, and without BoS his 2, Q and J all prevent normal attempts. Both sides of A are really scary, and as Val tends to play a little slower than some rushdown characters her 80 hitpoints really don’t go very far against Hex.

I’d really appreciate tips for this MU and general Valerie play, both generally speaking and based on my gameplay videos!

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is not that bad: first arg is not bound to have T* and even if he does, remember that the BoS is not lost just in the deck, so if you need, u can just power up and reshuffle, making them back in action. PLus arg’s A is not that safe cuz K. Sure, he can counter, but is not that bad. PLus remember that he is really slow, so a block block actually advantages val, who can deal a nice 33 off a throw and even more off a normal. My advice is to keep your BoS until u have at least a couple (so he has to spend 2 T* and u can recycle them with pu). Anyway, val has good burst via both attack and throw so even getting a BS online is not that terrible.

EDIT: plus was not a critique, just that i do not consider that MU that bad for val, mate. Just my 2 cents.

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Ah yeah, that’s something I had forgotten about. I think today I definitely lost combat a lot which always makes things very very hard.

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is not just you, AFAIK many ppl forget that arg’s counter is soft, since if the card is played from the hand is not lost :wink:
Once, in a tourney, his T* countering my BoS gave me another XD

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Had a chance to watch the set so I could write some thoughts.

Game 1

So, game one, you ended up in a tough spot in the endgame, but it was still winnable if Xiba drew only 1 Joker. If you had dodged on your last turn, you have a choice between KD to extend your life, or just trying to deal 21 with J++. That would leave them at 7 HP to your 1 for the coinflip.

Game one was lost off being put into Bubble Shield for lots and lots of turns. Xiba won it off the back of 3 Blowfish Spikes, basically. In general, I wouldn’t be too mad at losing a first game against an opponent you’re not familiar with. Your goal should be to try to formulate some sense of their decision making progress, and identify any clear tells.

My take-away from game 1 would be: (1) Xiba doesn’t seem interested in throwing me, (2) I need to conserve J++ and AA for late-game dodges. You also tend to decide to get aggressive too early, imo. Valerie is a mid-range deck: she kind of gets bullied in the early and late game, but she shines in the mid-game. Unless you draw really well, her opening hands tend to be a bunch of garbage. You have to fight the temptation to win sub-optimal combats that don’t benefit you.

Game 2

No throws in the mid/late-game due to REALLY bad draws. This is another reason it’s so important to make sure you are playing for high value in the early game. You went for two throws early that didn’t lead into anything, and spent a 7 looking to draw into normals. Then your deck decided not to deliver any more throws for the rest of the game.

In spite of the most abysmal draws I have ever seen in a game of Yomi, you still managed to bring it to a coinflip. If Xiba had no Joker, you could have thrown into 6J++ for lethal on the last combat. Lessons remain the same. Chalk this loss up to unfortunate draws.

Game 3

No blocks. Jesus. Drop this character, she’s cursed.

Also you throw from KD as soon as you draw another block. Don’t do that. It won you combat, but you lose the block and can’t follow it up with anything or set up for a good cross-up. That happens a bunch more times on subsequent turns. Throw into nothing, no good play on the next turn. Just block. They’re not throwing you often enough that you should stop.

Game 4

Practically no blocking, lots of throwing into no follow-up/set-up.

In the end-game, where you have him at 11 and block up to a big hand, you’re still holding on to 6s when you should probably just power them up for Aces and try to dodge into A or AA to clinch it. You had a guaranteed “do not die” play on the last turn - block with blue-burst to back it up. As you probably realized, clashing Q into AA would have killed you, since you were at 18 - you don’t get to pump moves when they clash.

In general, block more, play from a higher hand, only play to win combats that actually benefit you strategically.

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OH your analysis is really good.
I also find snoc’s favor - almost no follow up. So if I was KD, I could save one card for not escaping and he always want to knock me down for 2 hp. I talked to him after match. I said that maybe follow up to get more dmg is better than KD. Because low hp means more pressure against arg.
So I think vs arg your should have close hp as you can and 2 hp in the early and mid means little compared with late game.
I think I changed my style in these 4 round but one thing never changed - I’m afraid of val’s innate so I must promise I always win or draw against his attacks, so less throw and more fast attacks for me to choose and it really worked.
In game 4, I got As back many times and used as fast attack many times and then suddenly changed haha. As and dodges is really important for arg.
For val, I think use more block and some fast attacks at the beginning is good for val to have large hand and block is always needed to supply hand.

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Emmmmmm, hi legion can you explain with mor details for me with this strategy? I can’t understand it. Thank you!

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Args counter does not put the card that it counters into discard. It puts it back into the bottom of the deck. If you powerup for aces, your deck will be shuffled. This increases the odds that you will draw it back more quickly. This means that your deck and hand will still have access to all your unused and countered ability cards. Arg can stop you from using something, but often the opportunity will arise again.

Example:

Val has one 10 (Burst of Speed) in hand and three 10s in her deck. She uses one 10. Arg uses his first 10 (Crash and Flow). Now she has zero 10s in hand and four in her deck. One of the four is on the bottom of the deck. Val powers up for aces. She now has four 10s with unknown distribution throughout the deck.

As you can see, she still has the possibility to draw into all of her 10s, while Arg only has three 10s left.

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OK I see thank you!

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@mysticjuicer continues to be awesome. Thanks for framing her as a midrange character, it’s something I maybe had some idea in that direction but that’s a really nice way to crystallise it. And yeah, throw into nothing is probably wasteful. Maybe slightly more valuable against Arg to turn hex off for a turn, but still pretty bad.

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Glad it was useful! :slight_smile: Throw into nothing is very good IF you have a good set-up on the next turn. So, a 2 or 3 with 10 backing. Even better when you also have a K with 10 backing. Best if you have all that and dodge into J++.

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Valerie is a grappler.

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I’ll weigh in as an Arg main!

As Legion mentioned, your 10s that get countered get put on the bottom of your deck, so as long as you have 1 Ace left in deck, you can reshuffle to potentially draw it again.

And as MJ and others pointed out, follow up throws. Trying to set up a cross up against Arg is difficult since you have to consider A block on KD and Arg can also just 7* if he feels threatened. Being damage efficient with your throws will also help you be less throw-starved. Like in game 2, you opened with 7 7 9 10 in hand, which is plenty of throws, but the ones that connected only led to 6 damage and KD. Probably better to block and wait until you have more solid follow up options.

Other notes:
Use 5 or 6 as your block card over 9, since you need to preserve throws and losing a 5 or 6 doesn’t really hurt.

Try to utilize J++ more often. It’s Val’s highest damage 2cp ender and highest damage dodge followup. Some face cards were discarded for face downs and that hurts your J++.

Lastly, I think you could play your Jokers earlier to get more cards. Jokers against Arg are weird because you really aren’t stopping much damage, so it’s more of a way to refuel your hand. Jokering a KJ follow up is pretty much the best you’ll get. Arg’s best follow ups are 6/K J, AA, and K+ J, ranging from 13-17 damage (technically K+ K+ is his highest damage follow up, but I’ve never pulled that off).

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you might need to be more worried about Jaina tbh. Her speeds are generally oppressive, good burst damage, and her end game checkmate potential against val is very real.

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I never liked Valerie VS Arg, though I know a lot of people think it’s not bad.

Agree with Shax, though – Valerie VS Jaina stands out as one of herparticularly bad matchups.