I am starting to look like a liar.  I keep telling people I don’t have time to review any cards… and I don’t, at least not consistently.  I just have a weird “gap” and I’d rather use that morning energy (coffee=good) for something rather than nothing.  So here’s my take on Vampire Lord, or rather on the changes that have occurred since we last looked at him (click here, here, and here for our last, next to last, and first review of Vampire Lord.

 

My last review of the Vampire Lord (that would be the first link above) was pretty thorough, so this time I will merely comment on how the current metagame seems to match up to it.  Unfortunately, that is something of a hard call, as said environment is still pretty “new”, so I’ll tackle the obvious question: will the option of running a third Vampire Lord matter?  Yes.  Zombies are amazingly well supported.  Warriors are still the true favorites of this game, and once their structure deck is released, they will likely be even easier to build with than Zombies.  For now, at least, I can definitely see a third Vampire Lord working its way into pure Zombie decks, especially ones that want to focus on Control/Depletion.  Why?  All though it of course entails a risk, Zombies have this fantastic ability to bend the rules and run more than even three Tribute Monsters efficiently.  This is due to the combination of Book of Life, Call of the Mummy, and Pyramid Turtle.  I am not saying it will be a must, but especially if you can keep your opponent’s bigger Monsters under control, there is little hope any Monster Removal will be that effective.  Imagine Dark Hole practically being a waste!

 

One thing I feel has changed is the risk of discarding a card via Vampire Lord’s depletion effect.  You see, while Chaos Monsters and Magician of Faith are less of a problem, and you’re free of Sinister Serpent, thinning the deck just got a whole lot more useful with the loss of both Pot of Greed and Graceful Charity.  Still, you can always just side in a few Soul Release or Fiend Comedian (remember, you have up to five recursion cards for a Zombie deck) and you should be fine.

 

Traditional       : 4/5-As I said last time, he can be a solid addition even here, though much less likely and only at one.

 

Advanced        : 4/5-No, being unrestricted won’t boost his rating.  He is more vicious in dedicated Zombie decks now, and has lost one of his principal foes, but he won’t be seen a whole lot outside such themes now.

 

Limited            : 4/5-So long as it hits the field before the opponent can mount a serious offense/defense, you likely just took control of the game.