Tues

Vampire Duke, in the chain of command I'd assume Duke would come under Lord, so that could be someone directly under Vampire Lord. Similar to Vampire Lord, Duke is Level 5, Dark, a Zombie and has 2000 attack. However, the 0 defense is a concern and lots of these new Vampires in this set have 0 defense. I'll circle back to this point in a bit, but just because you play Zombie, doesn't mean you have to play strictly Vampire. When Normal Summoned you can target a Dark Vampire in your Graveyard and Special Summon it. So you're forced into Tributing for this guy but you get an additional Monster out of the deal. You don't get that with Vampire Lord. However, when Special Summoned, you can select a type of card (Monster, Magic, or Trap) and your opponent chooses one and sends one of the chosen type to the Graveyard. Finally, this card cannot be used for an XYZ Summon except for a Dark Monster. In direct comparison to Vampire Lord, I like Lord better. Having defense could be much more important, Lord has resurrection you're likely to get, and it's more likely to get the Deck discard more than once.

Ratings:

Traditional: 2/5
Advanced: 3/5
Art: 4/5

In yesterday’s article we talked about the engine of the new Vampire theme. Today and tomorrow we will be discussing the meat and potatoes of the deck. We start off with Vampire Duke. Duke has a number of effects that make it vital to the Vampire theme.

When Vampire Duke is normal summoned, you can then special summon a Dark Vampire from your graveyard in face-up defense. As Vampire Duke is a tribute monster, this effect effectively negates that drawback by replacing the tributed monster with another monster. If that special summoned monster is another level 5 monsters, you can then overlay for a Xyz rank 5 Dark monster. If that monster is another Vampire Duke monster, you will tribute Duke’s second effect.

Vampire Duke’s second effect is to send a card type of your choice to your opponent’s graveyard when special summoned. This effect works great with Vampire Kingdom as the field spell card will allow you to destroy a card your opponent controls. It also works great to get a monster to your opponent’s grave so you can use Book of Life. If you know that your opponent does not play many spells or traps, you can send them to the grave so you do not have to worry about that card type.

Special summoning Vampire Duke to get its effect and trigger Vampire Kingdom is pretty easy in a Zombie deck. Book of Life, Call of the Mummy, and Call of the Haunted are the most notable ways to do it, followed by tomorrow’s card – “Shadow Vampire”, Vampire Sorcerer, and Pyramid Turtle.

Zombie/Vampire decks can be a lot of fun and Vampire Duke is a big part of it. I do not think that Zombie decks will be fast enough or plus enough to compete with the top dogs in today’s Meta, but they can be competitive.

Traditional: 1.5/5
Advanced: 2.5/5

Hello Pojo Fans,

It's the end of November and on this short week we've got Vampire Duke today. A monster of the “Vampire” archtype, Vampire Duke is a Level 5 Zombie effect monster with 2000 ATK/0DEF. It's effect states that “When this card is Normal Summoned: You can target 1 DARK "Vampire" monster in your Graveyard; Special Summon that target in face-up Defense Position. When this card is Special Summoned: You can declare 1 card type (Monster, Spell, or Trap); your opponent sends 1 card of that type from their Deck to the Graveyard. You can only use this effect of "Vampire Duke" once per turn. This card cannot be used as an Xyz Material for an Xyz Summon, except for the Xyz Summon of a DARK monster.”

Vampire Duke isn't the best monster in the “Vampire” archtype, but it is a monster that gets the Vampire Deck rolling. It can be searched by Goblin Zombie, Pyramid Turtle, and Vampire Sorcerer (the last two being the better choices for this deck). Once Normal Summoned, Vampire Duke will Special Summon a “Vampire” monster from your Graveyard, evening out his -1 (or giving you a plus if you remove Vampire Sorcerer to Summon Duke without a Tribute). The ability to easily go into a Rank 5 XYZ monster (Crimson Knight Vampire Bram) is very handy. Like most “Vampire” monsters, Duke is able to force a player to discard either a Monster, Spell, or Trap from their Deck to the Graveyard, but instead of needing to do damage like Lord and Lady before him, all a player needs to do is Special Summon a Vampire Duke. Discard Duke to the Graveyard with Zombie Master and Special Summon him by removing Mezuki or Special Summon him from the Deck with Pyramid Turtle. Duke can also be returned to the hand from the Graveyard with Recurring Nightmare, a card which should see increased play with more targets in Shadow Specters. Vampire Kingdom boosts it's attack during Damage Calculation, and, when a card is sent from your opponents Deck to the Graveyard (like when Duke is Special Summoned) Kingdom has you “target 1 card on the field; send 1 DARK "Vampire" monster from your hand or Deck to the Graveyard, and if you do, destroy that target.”. You could also use Mausoleum of The Emperor, paying 1000 Life Points to Normal Summon Duke, but most like you would play the Kingdom over Emperor.

Vampire Duke usefulness is limited to only a Vampire Deck. 2000ATK isn't bad, but being a Level 5 with that ATK and 0DEF hurt this card if you aren't XYZ or Synchro Summoning with it. Vampire Kingdom can help this card's ATK, but you can't always depend on having it with Duke. Only being able to XYZ into a Dark XYZ excludes Volcasaurus and Tiras as options, but if you are playing Vampires you most likely are going for Crimson Knight Vampire Bram anyways. What truly hurts Vampire Duke is the restriction to using his effect once per turn. It may make it balanced, but if if his effect could be used multiple times in one turn, it could make the Vampire Deck very interesting.

Traditional- 1/5- Only worth playing if in a Vampire Deck
Advanced- 1/5- Only worth playing if in a Vampire Deck
Vampire Deck- 4/5- You play 3 Dukes, he gives you plays, plain and simple
Art- 5/5- It's dark, intimidating, there's fog, the red moon fits, Duke is a true-looking vampire

Until Next Time,

KingofLullaby