Guide – How To Encounter ‘The Trickster’ in Vampire Crawlers

When you begin your dungeon diving journey into Vampire Crawlers, you’ll be met with a rather extensive list of tasks filed under “Unlocks.” Similar to Vampire Survivors, these unlocks come with the stipulation of performing a certain task to then unlock something, be it a level, character, or in Crawlers’ case a gem. One of the most elusive tasks throughout your main campaign run will be “Defeat the Trickster.” How mysterious.

For those familiar with Survivors, you’ll know that The Trickster is a magenta-colored version of the Grim Reaper that can kill you pretty easily. Encountered in Survivors’ final level, it’s not quite as simple as running into him in Crawlers. There are some prerequisites that the game doesn’t explain need to be met for you to finally engage in battle with him.

 

 

For the sake of clearing up anyone’s confusing, this quick guide will explain how you can encounter The Trickster, and even give some tips on how to actually defeat him.

 

Encountering The Trickster

 

Initially, I thought The Trickster was an end-game enemy that required completion of the main campaign of Vampire Crawlers. I didn’t encounter him until after I had unlocked the “Ovenkilt” relic, which you acquire after finishing the final level. This relic allows you to overkill regular enemies instead of just boss enemies. The reason for the confusion is simple: encountering The Trickster requires you to break one of your cards.

 

 

How do you break one of your cards? You continuously play it during a single turn. From the start, Poe is probably your best bet at spawning him as his special ability makes blue cards draw one on usage. Since you can get armor with a mana cost of zero, it’s not hard to make a long combo that will inevitably break the armor card quickly. When you can overkill regular enemies, you have a higher chance of breaking cards, and that’s what I assumed was going on. At any rate, The Trickster can be spawned at any point during your playthrough of Vampire Crawlers, but you need to create a long combo that will continuously use the same card over and over.

 

Defeating The Trickster

 

Now comes the fun part. Similar to the Grim Reaper that spawns at the end of any dungeon, The Trickster will basically one shot you if you give him a chance. If you encounter him on Cappella Ultimate, for instance, his damage starts at something like 450, which is probably more than you’re going to have early on in a run. Thankfully, unlike Vampire Survivors, you can make The Trickster spawn on any level.

If you want to give yourself the best chance possible of defeating him, pick the “Mad Forest” level and proceed to get a long combo going. Once you’ve broken your card, The Trickster will spawn and the real battle begins. Make sure to end your turn once he does show up because breaking another card will spawn another Trickster.

 

 

When playing on easier levels such as the Mad Forest, The Trickster’s attack should only be around 45 damage or so. Since you should have an extra revive from upgrades, it’s not so bad to lose a single life and restart the next round at full HP. From there, you’ll want to utilize something like Pugnala Provola’s ability to draw four cards while playing a yellow to give yourself more chances to deal damage. Going in with the “Jester’s Hat” arcana will also help as that grants you a wild card for each floor cleared. Wild cards will extend your combo, allowing you to deal more damage as the combo grows higher. For reference, unlocking Jester’s Hat requires you to play 150 wild cards beforehand.

With that setup in mind, it shouldn’t be too difficult to defeat The Trickster. It really is important to not shatter multiple cards, though, as having two, three, or even four Tricksters’ will make things exponentially harder. I’m not sure if defeating a single Trickster and then dying counts towards completing the unlock, but you might as well play things safe.

 

What’s Your Reward?

 

For your troubles, you will unlock the “Unbreakable Gem,” which is a gem you can slot into your cards. As the title suggests, it prevents your card from breaking while doing looping combos. With this gem, you’ll be able to slot it into a card and prevent it from breaking during a massive combo. While it would have been useful before facing a Trickster, at least you can prevent him from spawning in future runs. At any rate, it should come in handy for any updates or DLC that Vampire Crawlers gets in the future.

 

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