The Valiant is a card-based combat system. In the Core Game are the 6 Heroes archetypes and all of their respective cards. Thematically, the Valiant uses "fantasy" and "role-playing" conventions.
Rather than building a deck with dozens of cards, Heroes in the Valiant are comprised of only 8 cards, all of which begin the game in play In this respect, customizing a hero is more like filling out "action bars" in an MMO than building a deck in a CCG.
Players can use the core game for dueling single heroes or for team combat. With future expansions, the Heroes from the core game can be used to play cooperative scenarios.