Death comes for us all in Vampire Crawlers. Much like Vampire Survivors, you have a limited number of floors you can dig to before the Red Reaper shows up, and you will need to be ready if you hope to survive the encounter.
1. The Red Reaper or Red Death in Vampire Crawlers
The Red Reaper, also known as the Red Death, will always show up after the final floor of the chosen level, and it will immediately attack you when you hit the shovel. You can tell how many levels you have to go on the mini-map; there will be a floor number counter in the bottom right corner.
Battling against the Red Reaper.
1.1. Which Crawlers Are Best To Take Down the Red Reaper?
Before you jump in, bring at least one Crawler that helps you survive the opening hit or recover from it. The best choices are the ones that give you an immediate safety net, followed by any companion that supports your build.
- Krochi Freetto: This Crawler grants Revive when summoned. This is the best choice. Choosing him for your first Crawler is always a good idea.
- Suor Clerici: Heals you when summoned and also heals whenever you play a blue card.
- Any Crawler that fits with your play style.
1.2. Which Tarot Cards Are Best For This Fight?
Tarot Cards buff your entire run after they have been equipped in town at the Fortune Teller. There are a couple that are extremely helpful to kill the Red Reaper.
- Chain Link: Allows combos to persist between turns. This is the best choice for this fight.
- Experimental Medicine: Doubles all healing done to you.
- Your Shield My Liege: Armor persists between turns.
1.3. Best Cards to Help Defeat the Red Reaper
You need to be prepared to survive the Red Reaper’s insanely hard hits and deal a lot of damage to it to win. This means gathering a bunch of cards that can help you raise your max HP, hit harder, retain combos, and more.
- Forever Heart: Forever Heart is a two-drop that raises your Max HP during your run. It does not have Destroy.
- Hollow Heart: A one-drop yellow card that adds Max HP to your run. It does have Destroy.
- Spinach: Ramping up the damage you can deal is important, and Spinach gives a boost to your Might.
- Sprig o’ Spinach: Gives even more Might than Spinach.
- Bracer: Expands the number of cards you draw by default every turn.
- Clock Lancet: To win this one, you will need to Freeze the Reaper before it can hit you.
- Any Wild Card: Wild cards are amazing for retaining combo bonuses as you continue to play cards.
Freeze cards prevent the Red Reaper from hitting you.
1.4. Everything You Need To Know About The Fight
The Red Reaper fight will not be easy, but it is very doable with the right deck. Red Death will hit you hard every six turns, which is shown by the circle of eyes just over its head.
- Chain Link: Use Chain Link and as many wild cards as you can while building your deck.
- Hard Hitting: The Red Reaper or Red Death will hit you for 333 or more HP when you first hit the shovel.
- Revive to Survive: You will most likely need a Revive to survive this initial hit, which is why Krochi Freetto is the best choice for one of your Crawlers.
- Hits Every Six Cards: As you play cards, the eyes in the circle above the Red Reaper’s head will fill. When all six are filled, it will hit you again for 333+ HP. Survive with loads of armor, revives, or by freezing the Reaper before it can hit you.
- Hits Between Turns: At the end of each of your turns, it will hit you as well.
- Ramp Up Combos: Build and preserve combos so you can deal enough damage to defeat the Red Reaper.
- Keep Your Cards: Continue to keep your combo intact, but be careful not to break cards by playing them too often; you will summon additional enemies.
- How to Stay Alive: Block, freeze, or revive for each hit while whittling the Red Reaper down.
- A Ton of HP: The Red Reaper has 1,000,000 HP.
1.5. The Second Fight
The Red Reaper is an endless fight. When you finally kill it the first time, it will return stronger and with more life than before once you hit the shovel again.
- Higher HP: The second Red Reaper appears to have around 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 HP, though this value is not confirmed.
- Stronger Hits: Damage starts at a minimum of 666 HP.
- Same Attack Cycle: It still attacks after every six cards you play.
- Same Survival Mechanics: You need reliable healing, Revives, strong armor, or enough HP to survive repeated hits.
- Infinite Reapers: The fight continues indefinitely, with another Red Reaper spawning each time you defeat one and hit the shovel.
- Increasing Difficulty: Each new Red Reaper has more health and deals more damage than the previous one.
The MissingNO Crawler in Vampire Crawlers.
1.6. Rewards for Defeating The Red Reaper in Vampire Crawlers
When you defeat the first Red Reaper for the first time, you earn a new Crawler. If you continue to fight Red Reapers, they do not give you any additional rewards.
- Defeating this first Red Reaper gives you the Crawler called MissingNO.
- Red Reapers will continue to spawn after the first.
- Downing additional Red Reapers does not grant any additional rewards or achievements.
2. Other Reapers in Vampire Crawlers
There are a total of three different colors of Reapers in Vampire Crawlers. The Red Reaper is the one you will most likely come across first, but there are two other colors to battle against.
2.1. The Trickster or Purple Reaper
The Trickster is the easier of the three Reapers to down, and you can fight them alongside other enemies or other Reapers. Here is how to summon it.
- Load up your deck with Reverse gems and Wild Cards, ways to draw cards, and other ways to keep playing cards on your turn.
- Play the same card until it cracks and breaks.
- Once the card is broken, it will no longer be in your deck this run.
- Every time you break a card, you will summon a new Purple Trickster Reaper.
- You can battle up to five Purple Reapers at one time.
The MissingNO Crawler in Vampire Crawlers.
2.2. The Blue Reaper or Drowner Reaper
The final color of Reaper is the Blue Reaper. It appears if you play no attack cards four turns in a row across different turns.
- The Blue Reaper deals damage at the end of every turn as opposed to dealing damage based on the number of cards you play like the Red Reaper does.
- Since you are underwater when you fight it, you take -10% of your total health every turn as you slowly drown. You can negate this damage with block.
- The Blue Reaper’s total health is unknown.
- You can summon up to three Drowners at a time.
