Vampire Crawlers: Best builds, explained

Vampire Crawlers is a game with near-infinite build potential, but there’s a lot to consider before you craft builds of your own.

Every build thrives on the same basic rules, and the more Power Ups you purchase, the more capable you’ll be in each run. You might not have the coins to buy every Power Up and Crawler, but with the tips in this guide, we’ll break down how to make builds of your own, and give you a few powerful build examples for you to clear through the game with.

Rules for all builds – Vampire Crawlers

Every build in Vampire Crawlers shares the same basic rules you’ll need to keep in mind for every run.

You need to draw cards

Drawing cards allows you to keep your turn going and makes the best cards in your deck immediately available to you. It sounds simple, because it is, and that’s why you should either use Crawlers with card draw effects, or use Attractorb cards and gems in your deck.

You need mana to use cards

You can’t use cards without mana, so having more mana between runs is, again, pretty essential. There are several Arcana you can equip, which will boost the amount of mana you can generate and use each turn, but there are also Tome cards and effects that can grant you more mana. If you’re going to be drawing cards, you also need to build mana.

Combos are always important

The higher your card combo, the more powerful each card you use is. This applies to every effect a card bestows — offensive cards will deal more damage, Tome cards will give you more mana, and so on. This is incredibly powerful, so you should do your best to keep up your combo constantly. One way to do this is to keep Wildcards in your deck, which can combo from and into any card, allowing you to essentially reset a combo whenever you use one.

Extra gem slots

When you unlock the Blacksmith in the Village, the most important thing to do is give your favoured weapon evolutions extra gem slots. When you evolve a weapon, it slots and Evolution Gem into the weapon, but with an extra gem slot, you can combine it with powerful gems like damage multipliers or other gem effects, making you far more fearsome in a fight.

Synergise effects with Crawlers and weapons

Every build should start with your Crawlers and their effects/weapons, then your Arcana, and then your Power Ups. The dream is to have all Power Ups unlocked, and then you can activate Curse when you wish, but it takes a long time to build that much money. Instead, you can refund your Power Ups and equip them as best fits your build before each run. These are the building blocks of a good build, and you just need to select cards and rewards in your run that complement the strategy you have in mind.

Infinite draw build – Vampire Crawlers

One build we saw on Reddit has us quite impressed, considering how simple it is. Once you have three Crawlers in your party, you can put a build together consisting of Poe, Giovanna, and Pugnala. With these Crawler effects active, you will draw cards whenever you use Blue, Purple, or Yellow colour cards.

As long as you have Tome cards ready to increase your mana, and perhaps a Wildcard or two to restart your combos, this build should keep you drawing cards repeatedly. You might be put in a situation where you have no cards to trigger effects – a common issue on earlier floors – but as you expand your deck and slot gems into your weapons, this build comes into its own, and is capable of wiping tough enemies in turn one.

Bosses will deal damage during your turn as you use cards, so this build isn’t invincible, but it should wipe the floor with most of the game’s stages, especially if you have a full set of Power Ups by your side. Just remember that you shouldn’t use cracked cards, else they risk breaking permanently. If all you have left in your hand is cracked cards, end your turn.

Overwhelming amount build – Vampire Crawlers

Drawing cards and building mana is important for any build, but so is dealing massive amounts of damage. For this, we recommend Mortaccio, Bianca Ramba, and Giovanna Grana. Yes, Yatta Cavallo can help build Amount more than Giovanna, but we do want to use her card draw capabilities.

Mortaccio and Bianca will increase your Amount when played, and top up your Amount further when you play Blue and Purple cards, respectively. Remember, Giovanna will be giving you a card draw when you use Purple cards – like Tomes – too. This should hopefully keep your mana and hand stocked up, while Mortaccio and Bianca keep increasing your Amount.

Mortaccio is great for this because of his Bones. He comes with three Bone cards, and if you give them extra gem slots via the Blacksmith, they’ll become incredibly powerful. Bones do way more damage than you’d expect, and can often finish a fight, especially with increased damage and Amount. You should add weapons like the Runetracer or the two pistol cards, which also scale with Amount, and you’ll see your weapons do absurd damage in later floors.