Vampire Crawlers is one of those games where every run serves as a learning experience. In the early game, at the end of each run, you’re unlocking something new, whether it’s a new Card, a new Relic, or maybe a new Crawler. While the basics are pretty simple, when you get to later stages, things can quickly get overwhelming.
In this guide, we’ll give you six advanced tips and tricks that will help push your deckbuilding skills to the next level in Vampire Crawlers.
For more guides, check out our Vampire Crawlers Guides Hub.
For more information about the game, check out their official website here.
Table of contents
Coin Runs are Important
Vampire Crawlers is a grindy game, and without going on Coin runs, you’ll soon run into a brick wall. They are exactly what they sound like: runs where your main goal is to earn as many Coins as possible, and as quickly as possible. Without a steady supply of Coins, you won’t be able to increase your Power Up ranks, unlock new Crawlers, or imbue your unlocked Cards with additional Gem Slots.
A good rule of thumb is whenever you notice your progress starting to slow down, or you feel that new zones are beginning to feel harder, it’s time to go on a Coin run. Use the additional Coin to upgrade some of your stats, and it should make the new areas more manageable.
If you’ve completed the Dairy Plant zone, you’ll unlock a Relic called Bomba Infernale. With it, you can bombard the first floor of any completed zone to clear out the entire floor and run straight for the exit. Then, even if you quit back to the Village, you’ll retain all the Coins you earned for clearing the First Floor. Rinse and repeat this loop to farm up Coins whenever you need.
Create Combo Groups
We’ve talked about how the Combo mechanic works in our beginner tips and tricks. Simply put, this system lets you deal bonus damage if you play your cards in ascending order of their energy cost (0 → 1 → 2 → 3). When you get to the later stages of the game, it becomes even more important to actively create groups of cards that let you build your combo multipliers easily.
You don’t want to blindly pick cards without thinking about their energy cost. For instance, if you have 16 cards in your deck, at least 5 of them should cost 0 energy, 4 should be 1, 3/4 should be 2, and the rest should cost 3 or more. Of course, this isn’t a rule written in stone, but this gives you a baseline of how you should build your deck.
Long story short, make sure you pick cards that let you chain Combos easily so you can deal massive damage on your starting turn and
Managing Your Deck Size
There’s no hard-and-fast rule about how big your deck should be on a run. Some Crawlers benefit more from a big deck, while with some, you want to keep it short to make it easier to cycle through. As a rule of thumb, when you manage to build a deck that lets you cycle through your cards efficiently and consistently build up your combo multipliers, you want to avoid picking up additional cards.
That means, when you find chests, instead of picking up a new card that will bloat up your deck, you should Cash Out and take the extra Coins. However, when you level up, cashing out is not an option. That’s where the Banish, Skip, Reroll, or other Power Ups come in handy. If you do end up with extra cards, look for rewards in the dungeons that let you Sacrifice Cards for additional mana, gems, or evolutions.
You’ll always want to keep thinking about your core loop when you build your deck during the early stage of a run. Avoid picking up cards that force you out of the loop. If you do so, try to sacrifice them the first chance you get.
Energy, Card Draw & Armor
There are three main effects you must learn and master for the latter portion of Vampire Crawlers.
- Energy is the resource you spend when playing your cards. Cards such as Empty Tome, Light Tome, or Weighty Tome refill your energy. Some Gems also refund or restore your Energy when you trigger them.
- Draw Card is a mechanic that lets you draw additional cards on your turn. Your Hand size doesn’t affect your card draw. Some Crawler Abilities, Attractorb, or Draw Gem are good examples of things that trigger this effect.
- Armor serves as a damage block against the enemy. It remains active for only one turn. You can gain Armor from the Armor Power Up, Armor Cards, or Armor Gems.
Cards that provide Energy, Draw Card, or Armor serve as your primary support cards. While it may be tempting to keep going for Attack Cards, later on, having more energy and draw card options will let you put out more damage than an extra Attack Card.
On top of that, bosses in the later zones will always get their hits in. You can’t take them out in one turn. That’s where Armor Cards come in handy. Golden Armor is particularly useful as it gives you 8 Armor if you chain it as the second card in your sequence and only costs 1 Energy to play. Try to experiment with these effects and see how they fit in with your deck to get the most out of them.
Build Around Your Crawler
Crawlers are very important in Vampire Crawlers. As you progress, you’ll eventually gain a Power Up option that lets you bring additional Crawlers (up to 2) to the dungeon. On top of that, you can find Crawlers you can recruit when exploring a dungeon if you’ve got enough Coins.
When choosing your primary Crawler, it’s important to understand what their strength and weaknesses are. Personally, I always prefer Crawlers that can draw a card as a trigger. For the early game, Poe and Pugnala are great choices. The main thing to remember is you want to take cards that trigger your Crawler abilities more frequently.
For example, when playing as Pugnala, you’ll want to have enough Yellow Cards to consistently draw more cards to your hand and use them to build up your combo chain. Spellbinder is an exceptionally good card to use with Pugnala as it lets you extend your Crawler Duration and also draw an additional card to your Hand. But this is just one example.
If you prefer another Crawler, you need to figure out what makes it good and use its strengths to set up your deck.
Take Advantage of Wild Cards
There are two types of combo chains you can create in Vampire Crawlers. First is your standard short combo that goes up to the highest-energy-cost card in your deck. So if you’ve got a 3 energy card in your hand, your combo chain would be 0 → 1 → 2 → 3. In that case, your combo multiplier would go up to 3x, which is a decent chunk of damage that’s enough to deal with most enemies in the early game.
However, when you reach the later stages, you’ll see that your damage quickly starts to fall off. The enemies have a much higher health pool, and the 3x multiplier just isn’t enough to clear the encounter in one go. That’s where Wild Cards come in.
Wild Cards allow you to create long combo chains by allowing you to chain your high-energy cards with your low-energy cards and keep the combo going. So, for example, if you reach a 3x combo multiplier and then use a Wild Card, you can use a 0 energy-cost card to keep the combo going without resetting your multiplier. As long as you manage to keep chaining cards in their ascending energy order and have enough Wild Cards to place in between sequences, you can push your combo multiplier to absurd lengths.
Thank you for reading this guide for Vampire Crawlers. For more interesting articles related to indie games, check out the links below:
- Into Indie Games Homepage
- Pragmata Complete Walkthrough Hub
- MOUSE: P.I. For Hire – Walkthrough Hub
- Grime II – Walkthrough Hub
- The Occultist – Complete Walkthrough Hub
Muhit Rahman lives off two things: gaming marathons and endless cups of tea. He writes guides, reviews, and occasionally forgets that real life doesn’t come with checkpoints. His favorite genres are Soulslike and Metroidvania, with Dark Souls III, Hollow Knight, and Dota 2 forever holding top spots on his all-time list.
