I have grinded vampires almost all of today, starting from Rank 3, and here is a summary/commentary of my results. I thought it might be interesting for people to see how it performs (some people earlier were claiming it's op, broken etc and I wanted to test this theory) as well as what kinds of decks are currently prowling the ladder. Summary at the bottom, and here is the list:
Played 20 games in total from ranks 3-1. I swapped to NG Assimilate at one point to get up to Rank 1 with a few wins, because I wanted to see what players I'd face at a slightly higher level.
L- NR Alumni: quite possibly the worst way to start the day… still very very strong deck and vampires' lack of removal stood no chance.
W- SK Warriors: but that nightmare was followed by an extremely satisfying first win with the new Vampire package.
W- SK Warriors: these two decks were almost the same. A cool list making good use of the new cards but I edged out the win in both.
W- SK Flurry Control: pretty sure this guy was netdecking but didn't know how to pilot his deck. Made a few misplays which possibly cost him the match.
W- SY Firesworn: kind of destroyed this one but props to them for running a deck you don't see too often, making use of the new Hemmelfart of course
W- ST Control/Movement: a narrow win against a really strong deck using the new Milva. Managed to wipe out most everything I set up, but Regis: Reborn came up big at the end.
L- ST Movement Witchers: didn't expect this one after the last game, instead of control this guy went all in on engines. Gezras and some Cat Witchers just barely managed to outpace my Fleders and Elder in the end.
W- NG Soldiers/Illusionists: this player was very unfortunately introduced to the fact that Armor does nothing against Bleeding 🙂
L- NG Assimilate: lost by one point. The verge of greatness…
L- ST Control/Movement: this time I got totally deleted by Milva and the Madoc package. Unitless decks are a very obvious weakness of vamps, because they don't give you anything to bleed.
L- MO Vampires: Ah, mirror matchups. Unfortunately, my opponent pulled more of his set pieces and set up a good Witches' Sabbath, props to them.
W- NR Stockpile Siege Engines: I was rather worried by my opponent playing Henselt into Raffard's for their first play on blue coin, but managed to barely win R1 and bleed out their Siege in R2, leading to an easy round 3 with Regis: Reborn.
W- ST Symbiosis/Vitality: honestly didn't expect to beat this deck, but bleeding almost directly counters vitality which helped as I was putting out much more bleeds than they could handle.
L- ST Alzur Orbs: a clever spin on Alzur that ran Milva/Madoc package too. I was totally shocked by the Orb/Alzur combo after being handily controlled for a while by Milva and Madoc.
W- MO Arachas Swarm Tokens: a nifty deck using Arachas Queen + Ruehnin, but didn't quite pack enough punch late in the game. I saw the Glustyworp coming and was able to whittle down the tokens, and Regis proved a better finisher.
W- MO Vampires: karma was on my side and I won the vampire mirror this time.
L- ST Control/Movement: this deck is quickly proving to be the bane of Vampires.
W- ST Traps: Managed to win narrowly despite an unfavorable matchup, mostly thanks to my opponent springing a Serpent Trap when I had a special as the last card in my hand and would've lost if he just passed.
L- SK Pirates: honestly got rather unlucky this one, never drawing Elder or Regis. But a solid performance from the opponent who pulled off some crazy armor combos.
D- NG Tactics: a control deck using Jan Calveit along with the usual NG suspects. I managed to squeeze a draw with a 20 point Regis after being bullied all game. I thought that was a good time to call it a day, as by god did I play a lot of Gwent today.
Final Tally:
11 wins, 8 losses, 1 draw. Not bad for a fairly unoptimized list and mediocre play as I'm still getting used to the deck. It's much too early to assess the meta though, as I saw wayy too many unique and new decks. The most common faction was Scoia'tael, particularly movement control lists with Milva and Madoc. Saw a few new Skellige decks as well which seem somewhat promising, and of course a classic meta deck every now and then. Overall though, the ranked environment was great today and I had a lot of fun, probably because people are still experimenting with the new cards. Now some closing comments on Vampires:
Strengths:
Vamps have one of the best long rounds in the game if you draw what you need. Elder/Fleder/Nekurats/Orianna/Detlaff absolutely wreak havoc on the opponents board while buffing your own. Also has a good blend of engines and light control with all the bleeding- you can shut down slower or fragile enemy gameplans with ease. Witches' Sabbath is a great tool for essentially replaying your main strategy (Defender + Elder + engines), as long as you get the needed cards in your graveyard. Regis: Reborn is excellent and functions as an even heftier Gord, giving you a solid chance in short rounds as long as you had bleeding ticking for a lot of the game. Overall fairly versatile with strong synergies, point generation over time, and even some big pointslam.
Weaknesses:
Consistency. Despite having more viable cards overall now, vampires only really reach full potential with Elder, Defender, and Fleders, as well as Regis: Reborn for the last round. It's possible to brick if you either don't get the engines, or don't get enough bleeds to power them up. Vampires do not have thinning or tutors, so I used generic monster ones like Naglfar for risk of getting stuck with bronzes. The deck is Devotion because of Elder, thus we do NOT have access to things like Oneiro, Heatwave, or Truffle.
Control. Vampires both do not have adequate control to deal with everyone's favorite "answer or lose" mages, and are also themselves slightly weak to hard control, particularly unitless type decks. Vampires have little to no proactive plays, you need to have something to apply bleeding to or it becomes very difficult to get value. Also, bleeding generates huge value over time, but is too slow to reliably finish off units that need killing. I was lucky not to face much graveyard hate or hard control, but Xavier ruining Witches' Sabbath or a Heatwave yeeting Elder/Defender could greatly damage the overall gameplan. As the meta shapes up we'll have to see what becomes widely used. Overall still a very satisfying deck to use and I would highly recommend. Thanks for reading if you made it this far and feel free to comment if you agree/disagree with anything!
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/gwent/comments/rb9tcm/vampires_performance_and_analysis/
