Vampire Crawlers – How to Defeat Death (The Ultimate Guide)
If you’ve put any serious time into Vampire Crawlers, you know the ultimate heartbreak: having an absolute god-tier run, melting the final wave, and then watching Death (The Reaper) spawn in and immediately one-shot you.
Beating the Reaper at the end of a run isn’t just about having high DPS; it actually requires a very specific setup. Massive thanks to Lightshift from the Steam community for originally mapping out this strategy. I’ve broken down exactly what you need to do, step-by-step, to finally put Death in the dirt.
1. Choosing Your Crawlers
Your crawler lineup is going to make or break this run. The most reliable trio for this specific strategy is Iguana (Main), Pugnala, and Imelda.
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- Iguana (Main): You want her as your main because she gives the highest base stats and lets you reroll cards early on. Note: You unlock her by finishing the Gallo Tower.
- Pugnala: Absolutely critical. Her passive ability gives you consistent card draws whenever you play yellow cards, which is the engine that keeps your deck moving.
- Imelda: Good for the early game, but keep in mind she falls off hard at the end. Growth is hard-capped at 1000% (which you can easily hit by comboing the crown), making her passive useless in the endgame.
2. Essential Shop Upgrades
You don’t need to buy out the entire shop for this to work. Most stats can be maxed out during the actual gameplay. However, there are two upgrades you absolutely cannot skip:
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- Extra Card Draw: This is mandatory. With this upgrade, every yellow card you play will draw you 2 cards (triggering Pugnala’s passive). Once you have this, just spam your deck with yellow cards for ridiculous consistency.
- Extra Revival: The Reaper hits like a truck. Even if you buff your max HP to tank a few shots, RNG happens. If you end up with a hand that has zero freeze cards, you’ll need those extra lives to try again.
3. Deckbuilding & Getting to the End
Because you’re starting with Iguana, your starting deck will have the most important card in the game: Clock Lancet.
- Enchant your Clock Lancet with Quick Draw gems as soon as possible. This allows you to freeze the Reaper indefinitely.
- Reroll early: You start with over 10 rerolls. Use them in the early game to fish for Spellbinders or gems that grant bonus duration. Spellbinders cost 0 mana, give two card draws, and boost duration, so they won’t bloat your deck.
- Grab Friendship Bracelets: These are incredible. They draw two cards and give infinite combos.
- Watch your Luck stat: Luck isn’t capped. If you get it high enough, ‘W’ (Wild) cost cards become super common rewards. Be careful, though—adding too many non-yellow ‘W’ cards will bloat your deck because they don’t draw cards for you.
Crucial Tip: The Reaper has a base attack of 333. If you want to survive a single hit, combo Hollow Heart to push your HP past that number. Do not take Curse items for this run. I made the mistake of adding curse, and the Reaper’s damage spiked to 400+.
4. The Boss Fight: Killing Death
When Death finally spawns, your immediate priority is to use your Quick Draw-enchanted Clock Lancet to freeze him. Comboing the Lancet freezes him for longer.
Here is where it gets tricky: Attacking breaks the freeze. Because the game doesn’t show you how many “stacks” of freeze an enemy has, you either need to estimate (stack it like 100 times to be safe) or count very carefully. Once he is solidly frozen, start stacking your Might (capped at 1000%) and Amount (capped at 50).
Even with max Amount, max Might, and a 20x combo multiplier, a 3x damage Vandalier hitting a frozen Reaper (who takes double damage while frozen) is still not enough to one-shot him. You have to be patient. Attack, let the freeze break, but make absolutely sure you have enough mana and cards in your hand to instantly reapply freeze before he attacks you back.
⚠️ WARNING: After Death dies, you gain +100% Curse. A shovel will appear. Do not touch the shovel. If you do, a second, infinitely stronger cursed Reaper will spawn, and the game gives you zero extra rewards for killing it.
5. The Reward
If you manage to pull this off, you will permanently unlock the secret character: MissingNO.
Bonus: Alternative Community Strategies
If the standard freeze/DPS method isn’t working for you, other players have found some incredibly broken alternative builds:
- The Decimate Cheese: Several players noted that the Decimate card deals 10% of max HP damage and, crucially, does not break freeze. If you combine Freeze + Decimate (or seal unnecessary gems at the Jeweler so you only draw Wildcard + Decimate + Freeze configurations), you can kill Death safely in 10 hits without him ever unfreezing.
- The Coin Count Nuke: If you stack the “Coin Count” gem, its damage scales with your wallet. Gathering around 1.6 million coins and playing two cards with the Coin Count gem will instantly delete Death from existence.
- The Infinite Revive Loop: Run the red crawler (grants revive on summon) and put the summon crawler gem on a 0-cost card. Even if Death one-shots you, you revive, keep your combo (no shatter mechanics trigger), and use a wild card to resummon the crawler for another revive stack. Combine with Disarm and Knockback cards.
By Lightshift