Lots of good questions...
Not exactly sure about how balanced this is (kinda looks OP to be honest) but on how this 'battle' works out.
I'm not sure either. It's hard to tell because it's very sensitive to the conditions of initiating and then winning a battle.
One reason I'm guessing it's not OP is because the ability has to be explicitly initiated by your opponent -- this has some strange implications: for example, a guardian angel can battle a valkyrie to death over a few turns by baiting it with heals.
I'm working on a few other cards that will make things like this more interesting. Look at
Battleground, for example. That's kind of the basis for most of these cards.
So an 'ally' is another creature and not a permanent or the player?
Yes exactly. I should probably add that the Valkyrie doesn't consider itself to be an ally. I'll update the notes.
How about an 'enemy'? A card like eagle's eye?
In this case 'enemies' are creatures. 'Battle' is a creature-to-creature mechanic.
What about a black, red or green nymph? (depending on the creature targeted, effect may be negative or positive.)
The valkyrie only cares about who is targeting who, not anything about negative or positive.
Am I correct in assuming a situation like this?
1) Flown Owl's Eye uses 'sniper' skill on a phase recluse, with an upped Valkyrie on the field.
2) Phase recluse is destroyed.
3) Valkyrie attacks OE. OE health decreases to 2.
4) OE attacks Valkyrie. Valkyrie health decreased to 8.
5) Valkyrie attacks OE. OE destroyed.
6) Since Valkyrie won battle, phase recluse is put back into the owner's hand.
That's the basic idea, except in battles, creatures only exchange attacks once. So the sequence would stop at step 4.
If the OE later destroyed another Phase and the Valkyrie were still in play, the OE would be destroyed, the first Phase would get salvaged, and the Valkyrie would have 1 HP left. It's probably worth noting here that a smart player would target the valkyrie and not the spider.
What happens if there are multiple Valkyrie on one side of the field?
Assuming the owner could recast the Valkyries faster than incoming damage could kill them, creature-to-creature skills would be heavily countered.
