Making vampires fun

[quintivarium]

Ok, I confess I don’t like vampires — I don’t like books about them; I don’t like movies with them; I find the lore about them tedious and artificial. Thus, I haven’t played them before (except for Regis who is a very unvampirish vampire).

But I wanted to take advantage of the Valentine event to complete my monster event contract, that contract requires winning with the faction, and I was tired of Keltullis. So I decided to try vampires. And I found it the most unfun deck I’ve ever played.

In five games, only one was remotely interesting. In the other four, I dumped bad bronzes as deeply into round one as I could safely do so. All opponents happily took me to a long round three. Aside from playing defender, then engines, then bleeders, I gave almost no thought to my plays — card order was irrelevant. I didn’t even pay attention to my opponent’s plays because they didn’t really matter — what they killed I couldn’t protect anyway, and what they threatened I couldn’t counter. I could only hope to have more points in the end. Without fail, I did have more points, but I didn’t feel good about it.

And the one interesting game — that was against a no units deck. At least I could try to play around traps while still accumulating points where possible. With my monster contract now completed, I don’t expect to ever return to vampires unless the archetype drastically changes.

Obviously I am jaded. And there are enough vampire players that I assume there is something appealing about the archetype that I am missing. Can anyone enlighten me?

 

[NoGG4Netdeckers]

Myself I've always been into vampire lore and while building my first deck in this game it quickly became apparent it was a vampire deck I was making since I really enjoyed those cards. I probably played like a thousand games with that deck, refusing to even try anything else.

I like the concept of slowly draining your enemies and their entire board, all the bleeds everywhere can be completely devastating. You aren't playing optimally if you don't give thought to your plays, it's a lot to keep track of with all the bleeds and boosts going, many times I've passed on opponents underestimating how far behind they really are.

Your opponents gladly taking you for a long round 3 isn't that surprising since a lot of vamp decks nowadays go for round 2 bleed because of Regis and sabbath. Before Regis you absolutely wanted a long round 3 and avoid getting bled in R2 (ironic for vamps I know).

Personally I don't really like the Fleder spam deck that much, I prefer more vampire cards and some control in the deck. If you didn't already, I highly recommend you put Gael and Detlaff in the deck since those are imo the most fun vampire cards, very satisfying when you get a deathblow.

 

[ShinAkira00]

Maybe when they aren't reduced to only long term effects. It's the same limitation with Frost decks. You have to commit your entire deck to the archetype for it to work well and in a short round you are screwed.
Instead of stacking bleed they should consider other effects. Monsters are versatile by definition yet human units have more varied mechanics for some bizarre reason.

Ideas for units off the top of my head:

1. Deploy: Give bleeding to the highest unit in the opponents deck for X turns. If destroyed before counter reaches 0, shuffle card into opponents deck and give self bleeding equal to base power.

2. Some trance/seduction mechanic that lures an enemy unit to your side after some condition is met for a set number of turns. Once the counter expires, return the unit to the opponents row.

3. Destroys self and split damage to each opponents unit by one. After x turns revive self at the bottom of your deck and reduce power by half.

4. At turn end transform into a coffin artifact (can be damaged) . After x turns transform into y. If destroyed before counter reaches 0 then summon it's original form and give doomed to the last card that damaged it.

5. Regeneration. Damage self and an enemy unit by X and gain vitality equal to the damage done.

Etc....more details needed of course but just ideas and I made that up in under a minute. The devs either lack creativity or interest in making the game better.

 

[Pacifixer]

Ok, I confess I don’t like vampires — I don’t like books about them; I don’t like movies with them; I find the lore about them tedious and artificial. Thus, I haven’t played them before (except for Regis who is a very unvampirish vampire).

But I wanted to take advantage of the Valentine event to complete my monster event contract, that contract requires winning with the faction, and I was tired of Keltullis. So I decided to try vampires. And I found it the most unfun deck I’ve ever played.

In five games, only one was remotely interesting. In the other four, I dumped bad bronzes as deeply into round one as I could safely do so. All opponents happily took me to a long round three. Aside from playing defender, then engines, then bleeders, I gave almost no thought to my plays — card order was irrelevant. I didn’t even pay attention to my opponent’s plays because they didn’t really matter — what they killed I couldn’t protect anyway, and what they threatened I couldn’t counter. I could only hope to have more points in the end. Without fail, I did have more points, but I didn’t feel good about it.

And the one interesting game — that was against a no units deck. At least I could try to play around traps while still accumulating points where possible. With my monster contract now completed, I don’t expect to ever return to vampires unless the archetype drastically changes.

Obviously I am jaded. And there are enough vampire players that I assume there is something appealing about the archetype that I am missing. Can anyone enlighten me?

This is how many MO decks play. Brain-dead solitaire, you either have more points or you don't, no strategy no thinking no fun. It's not as bad as it used to be (tall thrive deck was the reason why i started hating MO), but vampires in perticular got worse.

 

[quintivarium]

Maybe when they aren't reduced to only long term effects. It's the same limitation with Frost decks. You have to commit your entire deck to the archetype for it to work well and in a short round you are screwed.
Instead of stacking bleed they should consider other effects. Monsters are versatile by definition yet human units have more varied mechanics for some bizarre reason.

Ideas for units off the top of my head:

1. Deploy: Give bleeding to the highest unit in the opponents deck for X turns. If destroyed before counter reaches 0, shuffle card into opponents deck and give self bleeding equal to base power.

2. Some trance/seduction mechanic that lures an enemy unit to your side after some condition is met for a set number of turns. Once the counter expires, return the unit to the opponents row.

3. Destroys self and split damage to each opponents unit by one. After x turns revive self at the bottom of your deck and reduce power by half.

4. At turn end transform into a coffin artifact (can be damaged) . After x turns transform into y. If destroyed before counter reaches 0 then summon it's original form and give doomed to the last card that damaged it.

5. Regeneration. Damage self and an enemy unit by X and gain vitality equal to the damage done.

Etc....more details needed of course but just ideas and I made that up in under a minute. The devs either lack creativity or interest in making the game better.

I think you are definitely onto something here. Not only are these creative ideas, vampires decks need more creative cards.

With two exceptions, all MO vampires do one or more of the following: inflict bleeding (or spawn an effect that inflicts bleeding), get boosts from bleeding (or deathwish enhanced by bleeding) or spawn Ekimmara.

And the two exceptions are Detlaff: Higher Vampire which only fits consume decks — not vampires) and Unseen Elder (with devotion) which is a great card but somewhat antisynergistic with the boost vampires.

One reason playing vampires needs so little thought is the degree to which all cards are interchangeable.

 

[DarksideDestro]

Just play them in Draft. Way OP there... I give up again until Arena comes back.

 

[NihilisticHeart]

Just play them in Draft. Way OP there... I give up again until Arena comes back.

Arena isn’t coming back lol

 

[hellzyeahcu]

I enjoy playing as Vampires for a few reasons:

1.) The surprising amount of variety that this deck allows for. While it is traditionally thought of as a greed deck, it can actually provide decent control if you design it that way. My vampires deck has around 11-12 cards that provide some level of control (not including bleeding, which is an element of (albeit slow) control in of itself). Furthermore, I see a wide variety of core vampire cards used, with not a ton of agreement on which vampires cards/approaches are the best. It's nice to see some deck variety where not every player is netdecking the same deck.
2.) The artwork - quite well-done for cards like Alp, Detlaff VDE, Unseen Elder.
3.) The synergy that the cards provide. It feels like a cohesive and organic deck (with everything based on bleeding -- which is exactly what vampires should be).
4.) As a prior poster mentioned, the element of sneakiness due to passive point generation from bleeds and fleder/orianna. This can really catch your opponent off guard.
5.) The versatility in terms of ways to play a given vampires deck. You can win long-rounds as an engine deck, and you can win short round 3s with Regis and a few other cards. This really helps you to deal with a wide variety of opponent tactics.

When playing at low ranks (5 or below), it actually can take a fair amount of thought to survive vs strong control decks like most NG, SY, and NR decks. I would actually say that Vampires is one of the most though-provoking MO types (certainly compared to Vy, Kelltullis, or Gernichora, all of whom make me sick).