As season 9 comes to a close, Valkyrie has had a great debut season. Join us as we take a closer look at her strengths and weaknesses, and have a look at the ALGS stats for the Season 9 legend.
In each new Apex Legend season, Respawn introduces a new Legend to join the ever growing roster of playable legends. In their debut season, new legends seem to either make a huge splash like Horizon or flop like Rampart. Fortunatley, Season 9's addition, Valkyrie make quite the splash on Olympus.
Her unique mobility with her VTOL Jets and crazy repositioning skills allow for great competitive and casual play. Valkyrie is not the most meta defining Legend, however she is a good pick with the right team composition and teammates to play around her kit.
Valkyrie in Casual Play
In Casual play, there is no argument that Valkyrie is a good pick. With wide and open areas all over season 9's main map Olympus, Valkyrie's kit synergizes well with the terrain. Her passive allows her to reach unique areas or jump off the map only to reappear on the other side. Then, her ultimate is basically a free jump tower to get out of sticky situations. This ability synergizes well with Olympus, allowing for great repositioning in a bind.
Like most mobility legends in their debut season, keeping up with a new legend's movement is a challenge. The same is true with Horizon in Season 7 and Octane in Season 1. So in Season 9, Valkyrie is no different. In a firefight, consistently hitting Valkyrie as she flies around is a challenge, especially if she's got 2 other teammates shooting at you. On top of that, the light that comes when she uses her ultimate to get away provides a challenge to shoot at.
So, in Casual play, Valkyrie is great. Allowing for great rotation and mobility around a map that compliments her kit. The synergy that Valkyrie has with Olympus is nothing to scoff at. As previously mentioned, the ability to weave in and out of areas of the map is invaluable. On top of that, casual players can have trouble following her in fights, as she plays alarmingly well in open areas.
Valkyrie in Competitive
Valkyrie had some decent usage in competitive. The main reason that people picked her was due to her unique ability to make huge rotations. Her ability to fly is great in Casual play, but in competitive it's a different story. When she flies, she becomes a floating target that can't fire back. Additionally, World's Edge is very different than Olympus.
What are the pros of picking Valkyrie?
World's Edge has more tight spaces and close quarters that doesn't allow Valkyrie to take advantage of her VTOL Jets. However, the flying target practice is offset from Valkyrie's incredible rotation ability. In sticky situations where teams are pinned behind cover, the ability to have your very own jump tower and get out is invaluable.
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What are the cons of picking Valkyrie?
Although Valkyrie's kit provides great rotation abilities, she is normally picked instead of the "Utility" Legend. In most cases, this meant that team compositions were a mobility legend, Gibraltar and then a Valkyrie.
This team composition sacrifices the "information gathering" Legend, which in most cases was Bloodhound or on occasion Crypto. However, the information gathering legends are incredibly important in the meta, as fights are often dictated by the information that these legends provide.
Valkyrie 3rd most popular legend in ALGS EMEA
Notthesun from Apex Legends statistics outlet Singh Labs posted the competitive legend pick rates on Reddit. The stats show that Valkyrie was picked a decent amount, and was typically replaced the "information gathering" or utility legend. Although it was not the most picked composition, it definitely found some success in certain compositions.
Most popular legends in NA ALGS
- Gibraltar 98.3% (174 picks)
- Octane 64.4% (114 picks)
- Bloodhound 62.7% (111 picks)
- Caustic 25.4% (45 picks)
- Valkyrie 24.9% (44 picks)
Most popular legends in EMEA ALGS
- Gilbraltar 80% (112 picks)
- Wraith 75.7% (106 picks)
- Valkyrie 38.6% (54 picks)
- Crypto 35% (49 picks)
- Bloodhound 26.4% (37 picks)
Alliance's Vaifs and Forg Gang's Legitlolly's thoughts
As Alliance's Vaifs explains during an interview about the ALGS EMEA Finals
Vaifs: "Valkyrie is a really strong character when it comes to rotations and us as an edge team makes it even stronger. We can secure really good positions and do fine rotations across the map easily. Bloodhound can give you much more if you’re centered on the map but Valk gives more if you’re far out all the time. So Valk being a top tier pick is a yes for me and I feel that she’s perfect in our comp."
As Forg Gang's Legitlolly explains during his Blast Finals winner interview
Legitlolly (Forg Gang): I think Valkyrie is really very strong but I wouldn’t say she is overpowered because you sacrifice a lot to run a Valkyrie. So in our comp we were running Valk, Gibraltar, Caustic. We had no way to really gather info. Crypto has his drone, Bloodhound has a scan, but the only way you can get info with Valk is when you’re committed to ulti. So you’ve got to make decisions on the fly, if you can do that, then she’s very strong, but I wouldn’t say OP.
Verdict
At the end of the day, Valkyrie is a great niche pick that is allows for great rotations. She isn't the most meta defining pick, but she can hold her own against other legends. If you can play around Valkyrie's abilities and take advantage of her ability to rotate on Olympus, you are sure to catch some wins. Valkyrie is definitely one of the better new legends we've seen in recent seasons and is a solid legend to unlock early on.
