Arcana cards in Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors will determine your playstyle in the next dungeon run. Together with Crawler abilities, picking the best Arcana cards can offer a significant advantage in battle, but like most items in Vampire Crawlers, you have to unlock them first.
Here’s how to get every Arcana Card in Vampire Crawlers, an overview of their effects, and which ones to prioritize.
All Arcanas in Vampire Crawlers
Arcana cards are unlocked alongside the Fortune Teller’s tent in the Village. To get this building, you must collect the Polentir relic in the Furious Forest (unlocked by clearing the Mad Forest). Once that’s done, you can equip an Arcana of your choice, as long as you’ve unlocked them. Here’s a list of all 12 Arcanas in the game, and how they work.
|
Arcana |
Effect |
How to unlock |
|---|---|---|
|
And Another |
Cards are free to play if you already played the same card (the exact same card, not just the same type) in this turn. |
Play 150 free-to-play cards in total. Not to be confused with wild cards! Free-to-play cards normally cost mana, but if you obtain them by leveling up during battle, they will receive the “free-to-play” mark. |
|
Chain Link |
Combos don’t clear between turns. |
Reach a combo of 12 or above. This isn’t as hard as you might think; try to combo up to a mana cost of three (0,1,2,3), then play a wild card. Resume the combo at 0 and continue. |
|
Experimental Medicine |
Doubles any healing effects. |
Automatically unlocked when you find the Polentir relic and obtain the Fortune Teller’s building in the Village. |
|
Jester’s Hat |
Add a random wild card to your deck at the start of each floor. |
Play 150 wild cards. |
|
Make a Scene |
Triggers your Crawler’s ability for free at the start of a turn. |
Activate 1,500 Crawler trigger abilities (in total, not in one run). |
|
Mana Syphon |
Permanently increases your mana pool by one after every 100 cards played. |
Gain 15 mana in one turn. Use Attractorbs to continuously pull new Tome cards from your deck! |
|
Over the Top |
When a Crawler leaves (when their card duration has expired), they will reappear at the top of the deck, so you can almost instantly re-activate them. |
Play Crawler cards 100 times in total. |
|
Sharp Mind |
Keep up to five mana between turns. |
Play purple cards 100 times in total. Purple cards are the same as mana (Tome) cards. |
|
Shield Bash |
Deal your total armor value as damage to the front row after playing an Armor card. |
Automatically unlocked when you find the Polentir relic and obtain the Fortune Teller’s building in the Village. |
|
Swollen Fist |
Deal damage based on your deck pile at the end of your turn. A larger deck size makes this Arcana more effective. |
Reach 40 deck size. In other words, hold a total of 40 cards in your hand. |
|
Wild Buff |
Cards picked up from light sources gain combo multipliers. |
Play 200 cards picked up from light sources (torches, candelabras, etc.). |
|
Your Shield My Liege |
Keep your armor after your turn ends. |
Gain 2,000 armor in total. Just play a lot of Armor cards. |
The best Arcanas in Vampire Crawlers
By far the best Arcana in early game is the Sharp Mind. It’s hard enough to gather extra mana, so losing all excess mana when your turn ends is just painful. In mid- to late-game, as you play far more cards in every battle, Mana Syphon becomes the preferred mana-boosting Arcana as it permanently upgrades the mana pool.
Besides those two, any Arcana that helps you lengthen your combos is a great option. Jester’s Hat is perhaps the best early- to mid-game choice, as the extra supply of wild cards allows longer combos, but Chain Link may be the best overall. With a large enough hand and a proper variety of mana costs in your deck, it basically enables endless combos.