Lyrics of the Night : Advance Vampires

There are 37 vampires with Advance option, that is, if you have the vampire on table, and another copy of it's other incarnation (be it the basic or advance version), you can spend 4 transfers and 1 pool to merge the vampire and make him into something like an "experienced" version of the same vampire. This merging will replace the advance version's title/clan with the basic's one, and many of them gain a merged ability. Moreover, the abilities of both the vampire's version remains in effect, usually making that vampire quite a powerhouse for its capacity.

The thing here is, is it worth it?

4 transfers and 1 pool to enhance the power of a vampire is generally a very reasonable price to pay. Even giving a typical vampire a .44 will cost you1 action and 2 pool with the risk of being blocked, so using this as a context, enhancing a vampire at the cost of 1 pool and an "unblockable action" doesn't seem like much of a problem. One might also argue about getting the difficulty of getting both the 2 right version of the vampire onto the uncontrolled region from the crypt, but in a sense you need to draw the right equipment card from at least 1 60-card deck in order to throw a gun onto your Janine - while the crypt is usually about 12 cards strong, so it shouldn't be too tough.

So you see, the numerical cost of getting a vampire merged doesn't seem that bad.

But the opportunity cost is another matter altogether.

Let's first ignore the might of a merged vampire, since they range from "completely detrimental" to "oh my Caineness!", and affect different decks in different ways. Let's first assume that it gives an average benefit, like giving a title, or a +1 something (be it stealth or bleed).

For such cases, let me irresponsibly declare that there are enough ways to enhance vampires through better and more efficient means than merging.

Let us analyze the opportunity cost of using a merged vampire. 4 transfers and 1 pool at mid or late game means very little most of the time, but think of the crypt construction when you're doing that. For a reasonable chance to ever see a vampire on table, 2 copies in a crypt of 12 is a pretty common composition. But if you have 1 copy of the basic version and 1 copy of the advance version of that vampire and hope to have them merged on the table, I don't know the math, but I think the odds of doing that isn't very high, and is probably somewhere around drawing your single Heart of Nizchetus in a 90 card deck in the first turn. So the practical solution to this is to increase the number of both vampires in the crypt. But you usually only play with 12, so 4 vampires (any mix of the versions) will imply that you've given up a third of your options of minion selection. But even so it still doesn't give you a good chance of having both versions of the vampires in your opening crypt, and even though pulling vampires out onto your uncontrolled region is easy, it is still slow and painful.

There are very few ways for you to pull out the right vampires from your crypt. Recruitment is the only sure way, but that's 2 extra pool. Cards like Stranger Among Us, Mesu Bedsheet, Kindred Intelligence and Coroner's Contact are not generically useful, and Effective Management has too much of a random factor. And don't even think about Epiphany unless you throw in a very good number into it while reducing your advanced version in the crypt - quite a feat to make it work that way if you ask me.

So you see, if you want to enhance a vampire by merging its versions, the merged effect, has to be really really worth it.

So what constitutes "worth" in this case?

Some vampires, when merged, are ridiculously deadly, and definitely worth merging. Take for example, Tariq. Some others have abilities that compliment each versions very well that together they form the basic combo of the deck, or an advantage so strong that it screams to be merged, such as Ambrogino's combined stealth and bleed, Ferox's combined combat advantages and Petaniqua's ally modification capabilities. For these vampires, who are most often used in Star decks, merging becomes a basic need rather than an option. And IMHO, these are the times that merging a vampire is a reasonable basis for deck/crypt construction.

Otherwise, even another weenie of 2 pool or so is better than using a alternate version of the vampire. Of course, there are also times where it is "good" to merge, but not critical at all, then including one copy of each vampire's version might be a good idea, and usually is, since you won't be wasting the crypt space for a card that doesn't contribute for it's extra presence except for drawing into it.

So how many copies of each of the versions do you use when you need a merged vampire in your deck? I usually use about 6-7 copies combined, and include cycling cards to aid in getting the right one onto the uncontrolled region~

What about you guys?

(o.o)