Stats                : Vampire Lord is a Level 5 Dark/Zombie Effect Monster.  Being a Level 5 means two things: it has some good options for Metamorphosis… but (d’uh) normal Summoning it tends to be a pain since it requires one tribute.  Fortunately, it’s not a nomi Monster, so it can be brought out via the normal dump-and-revive tricks.  It is a Dark Monster, which means that it can be used as Chaos food, at the very least.  It is a Zombie-Type Monster, which adds some serious support to it.  Now we get to the stats.  We have a 2000 ATK.  This is worse than it should be; unfortunately, it appears someone with authority for YGO card creation feels that they can “reinvigorate” the game not by creating exciting new game mechanics or tweaking old ones… but by releasing the same old stuff with just a slight power boost.  At least the current top offender, Berserk Gorilla, appears to have been an accident: they tried to make it balanced.  Anyway, thanks to that card, the 2000 ATK that should be reasonable ends up being sub-par for a Level 5.  It has a 1500 DEF, perfect for Traditional, where it remains a legal target to be searched out via the effect of Witch of the Black Forest.  Basically, this is the “perfect” DEF for Traditional.  For Advanced, it is still enough to handle most supporting monsters, but more importantly, it is low enough to allow you to Special Summon via the effect of Pyramid Turtle.  So (since we know the effect is good) the only thing really hurting it is the ATK being just a hair low… or rather Berserk Gorilla’s ATK being just a hair high.

 

Abilities           : Vampire Lord’s “low” ATK score is off set by not one but two great effects.  First, if your attack with it manages to damage your opponent’s LP, you get to name a card type (Monster, Spell, or Trap) and force said opponent to search his or her deck for a card of that type and send it to the Graveyard.  This is a very nice touch of control/depletion, as long as you are careful (they get to choose the actual card from amongst the type you name).  Yes, you are thinning your opponent’s deck.  That’s only going to matter if there’s some key card or cards that they are trying to draw into.  There are also some options to make this almost no problem at all: include some cards to remove cards from their Graveyard.  Go ahead and call Monster unless you think they are actually running one of the obscure “anti-depletion” Monsters.  As long as it’s not something like Fear from the Dark, use a Book of Life to revive one of your guys while removing what they just discarded. The second effect is what really makes the card though: if it is destroyed and sent to the Graveyard by an opponent’s card effect, it is Special Summoned to the field during your next Standby Phase.  In other words, unless your opponent can out muscle it or remove it from play, it’s not going anywhere.  Fun fact: this is one of the Monsters that Solemn Judgment, Horn of Heaven, and similarly cards really hate.  You see, they are worded in a manner to say they destroy whatever it was they negated… and this means that even if one of those cards is used by the opposing player to negate Vampire Lord’s initial Summoning… he gets to use his effect to return the next turn.  Sadly, this effect has often suffered from certain overpowered Level 4 Monsters being prevalent.  When it was new, Goblin Attack Force, while in no way a staple, was commonly played.  Needless to say, 2300 beats 2000.  Now Berserk Gorilla, while not a staple either, is also very common and can easily “suicide” a Vampire Lord.

 

Uses and

Combinations  : This used to see a lot of play as the “token” Tribute Monster (outside of Jinzo) you’d see in a lot of decks (competing mostly with Dark Ruler Ha Des and Airknight Parshath). Now, while it is still a great Monster, it has to stick with decks that can actually support it.  Those decks would be nearly any Zombie variant, most control variants, most depletion decks, and I suppose any deck that has a method of protecting its Monsters from attacks without inhibiting the use of Vampire Lord.  That may still work though: with Gravity Bind or Messenger of Peace, Vampire Lord would be a very hard get rid of, and though it would be useless for attacking, would thus be able to “block” most attacks coming from legal to use Monsters.  Any hybrids of the above types have almost no reason to not run Vampire Lord.  Yes, there are things like Control/Depletion/Zombie decks… though I can’t say they are that good, as I haven’t heard a lot about them nor have I ever encountered one.

 

For the doubters, let’s highlight those combos Vampire Lord can be used in.  Going alphabetically, here are some cards that combo well with Zombies in general and especially well with Vampire Lord.

 

• Book of Life-The Zombie only recursion card, for those who have not seen it, allows you to revive a Zombie from your Graveyard for the price of removing an opponent’s Monster from their Graveyard.  This unrestricted recursion is most useful when your opponent suicides a Berserk Gorilla into your Vampire Lord.
• Call of the Mummy-This card lets you Special Summon a Zombie from hand if you have no Monsters in play.  It has no restriction on the Level of the Zombie it Summons, save that it has to be legal for a general Special Summon.  This obviously let’s Vampire Lord get into play easier.  It also can take some advantage of his effect: you can activate Call of the Mummy in either Main Phase, so if your Vampire Lord attacks and is destroyed in an impermanent manner, you can use this card to Summon something to tide you over while you wait, including a second Vampire Lord under the new Ban List.  Call of the Mummy is completely unrestricted.
• Card of Safe Return-While not limited to Zombies, they do have extra recursion methods, and of course, Vampire Lord can repeatedly trigger its effect (draw a card when a Monster is Special Summoned to the field from your Graveyard).  Card of Safe Return is not restricted.
• Patrician of Darkness + Spirit Reaper-Although it’s a Monster intensive set up, and rather potent on its own, it’s just that much more menacing when its protecting Vampire Lord from the primary method of removing it.  Neither Patrician of Darkness nor Spirit Reaper is restricted.
• Pyramid Turtle-As stated earlier, this card can fetch and Special Summon Vampire Lord from your deck if Pyramid Turtle dies in battle.  An added bonus is that the Turtle itself can be brought to the field in the same way (cans the option of Battle Position) by Giant Rat, or brought to the hand via the soon-to-be-unbanned Sangan.  There is also a plethora of Earth/Zombie cards that are also viable targets for one, two, or all three of them.  Pyramid Turtle and Giant Rat are both completely unrestricted.
• Soul-Absorbing Bone Tower-Obviously, the first effect of this Monster means that Vampire Lord’s mere presence, like any Zombie’s, would protect it from being attacked.  The second effect of this card (your opponent sends two cards from the top of his/her deck to the Graveyard when a Zombie-type Monster is special Summoned) also obviously benefits from Vampire Lord’s resurrection effect.  Soul-Absorbing Bone Tower is not restricted.
• Vampire Genesis-Now this Monster, which can only be Special Summoned by removing a Vampire Lord from play, will be much easier to work with now that we are not limited to one copy of Vampire Lord.  Vampire Genesis is not restricted.

 

Also note that any card designed to protect Monsters will naturally see a better return with Vampire Lord than with most other Monsters since it is so hard to destroy outside of Battle.  Of extra importance is the return of Mirror Force, since Vampire Lord can heedlessly crash into it, only to rise again on a later turn.  Finally, as I hope I have illustrated (or at least shown a possibility of) there are several possible Zombie variants for this vampire to lord over.

 

Ratings

 

Traditional       : 4/5-This score only applies to the “tribute Monster” slot many decks allow for.  However, it does face steep competition for this slot, so it is really more like the fourth best choice… out of twenty.  Being up- (or is the down-) graded to the Semi-Restricted List will only make a marginal impact on decks that focus on it, but may raise awareness to it.  Also, it’s possible he could work his way into some or many Chaos variants: he is Dark, and he does contribute to the Control aspect often featured in such decks.  Note that I believe I overrated him in my last CotD, hence why his score stays the same.

 

Advanced        : 4/5-Don’t include Vampire Lord if he doesn’t match your theme.  If he does match your theme, then you have to find a reason to not run him.  Here I rated it more or less correctly before, so the increased potency in his own decks and possible use in Chaos (note: possible) makes him much more likely to show up.

 

Limited            : 4/5-Lets assume you actually get this in a normal “Limited” where you are pulling cards from packs, and that you are willing to risk damaging it by playing it (the original is still a collectible).  As long as you can get it out before your opponent can successfully summon a big Tribute Monster, the game is probably yours.  If it shows up late though, it won’t be useful until you have the advantage in ATK strength with something else.  Now, if you have the Zombie Madness theme deck for a starter deck event (does YGO even do those?)… It’s still great, but faces better competition keeping it the same.

 

Summary

Being unrestricted will very likely turn Zombie decks into the next cookie-cutter… possible the next three to five cookie cutters, given the variance that can exist within them.  Somehow having the top three [played?] decks all as Vampire Lord assisted Zombie decks isn’t very comforting.  I can only hope that this is what Konami meant, as at least Zombie decks (including Vampire Lord) are easy to assemble compared to most others.  I have stated before (though perhaps not here) that if there is going to be a dominant deck, I’d rather everyone had a reasonable chance at assembling it, as opposed to there being a dominant deck that only those with significant amounts of disposable income can run.