Deck Overview

This deck uses Bleeding to full effect, with a potent bronze package of eager Vampires ready to sink their teeth into your enemy. That combined with the Blood Scent ability means you’ve always got blood to spare – and with powerful versatility in the form of Orianna, Yghern, and Cave Troll, soon there won’t be anyone left to stand in your way.

Key Cards

Orianna

Orianna may not initially look like it, but it is one of, if not the, most potent cards in our deck. When combined with our leader ability, we can easily get four or more bleeds on separate units in one turn, allowing Orianna to boost by a considerable amount on turn end, which we can extend by applying more bleeds through other units. She’s an obvious target for removal, but with Iron Judgment's addition of Cave Troll, we can grant Orianna some powerful immunity that can be hard to get through.

Cave Troll

Coming in the with recent Iron Judgment expansion, Cave Troll and its Defender tag provide valuable protection to your deck’s juiciest targets; namely Orianna and Yghern. Not only that, it’s a decent body at 7 power, and also has 4 armor to go with it – making it difficult to remove at the best of times. This card, when used in combination with Orianna, provides a huge point ceiling, and can easily win us games if left unanswered.

Weavess: Incantation

Weavess: Incantation may very well be the unsung hero of this deck, and it can cover multiple roles, from point-slam to card draw, to negating negative effects from your own units. The obvious use is using its ability to Consume cards in your hand with detrimental effects – those being Yghern and Golyat. But Weavess also provides some helpful tertiary benefits. For example, when drawn from Naglfar, its ability allows you to Consume a card in hand, then draw the top of your deck – which in this case is a guaranteed gold you just saw with Naglfar. Weavess’s often high power allows it to trigger Thrive as well, providing a few more points that may be critical to pull out a win.

General Gameplan

A lot of this deck’s power comes down to its flexibility. As it runs a lot of classic Monsters power cards, like Ozzrel, Golyat, and Protofleder, you can easily pull out a win in a short Round 3 after you’ve won the first round with your bronzes and bled your opponent in Round 2 – providing you don’t just 2-0 them to begin with.

But in saying that, this deck can also play the long game. When combining powerful engines like Nekurat and Orianna with the inherent long-round nature of Bleeding, the pure point potential at your disposal can often come as a surprise to your opponent.

Round 1

In an ideal world, your opponent goes first in Round 1. This allows you to push with your more powerful cards and often force a pass on even, or perhaps even come out of it with card advantage.

But in most cases, things don’t go as planned.

Mostly, your Round 1 game plan revolves around your bronzes and their Bleed synergies. Garkain provides a decent enough point engine to get you started, and smaller Vampires like Plumard, Bruxa, and Alp are usually enough to get you through, especially when combined with a couple of more potent cards like Nekurat, Gael, and Katakan.

Ideally, you come out of the first round with a victory, so you can dictate the rest of the game.

Round 2

If you have come out on top of the first round, then Round 2 is often about bleeding your opponent down to a few cards, or just going straight for the 2-0. If your opponent is caught off-guard, then Orianna, Cave Troll, and Yghern are often enough to seal the deal.

If that’s not possible, then setting up for a powerful Round 3 with those aforementioned cards is generally the best idea.

If you’re being bled, then the use of a few heavy gold cards is often enough to stop them in their tracks and come out a card on top – unless you’re very unlucky with your draws.

Round 3

If you haven’t taken the 2-0, then hopefully you’ve bled your opponent down to just a few cards. At that point, it’s as simple as dropping cards such as Ozzrel, Golyat, and Protofleder to secure the win.

If not, then you really want to get Orianna going as soon as possible, as its point ceiling can be insane if you can support it with Bleeding. Make sure to protect it if you can – whether that’s through Cave Troll or by letting Orianna boost high enough to be out of range of smaller removal tools.

While you have limited direct removal options, Protofleder and Feast of Blood will hopefully succeed in shutting down enough of your opponent’s engines.

As for your leader ability Blood Scent, use discretion when deploying it. It’s best used in conjunction with Orianna as a way to instantly provide it with a healthy amount of power, but it can also secure a few extra points or to give Gael a juicy target to destroy.

Potential Tech Cards

Iron Falcon Knife Juggler ⇒ Feast of Blood

While the Knife Juggler can give two enemy units Bleeding at once to assist Orianna, it’s not a Vampire and has a very low point floor when countered by cards like Munro Bruys – which is a surprisingly common occurrence. Swapping Juggler out for an extra copy of Feast of Blood provides some more direct removal, some Bleeding, and also a Purify – which is extremely helpful in the current meta.

Armored Arachas ⇒ Imlerith's Wrath, Toad Prince, or Surrender

Although the Armored Arachas has potentially some of the best premium art in the game, it doesn’t really synergize with this deck other than the fact in has Bleeding (read: it’s not a Vampire). As this deck can often feel like it’s lacking in direct removal options, Arachas could be swapped out with any of the three cards above, depending on what you’re finding most prevalent in your current metagame.

Video Guide

_{PR: Callonetta; Website: SwanDive.}