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In game Count Vlad Dracula “The Prince of Darkness” actually has very interesting lore and narrative elements from his personal biography and monthly quest line. Unfortunately we did not receive a breakdown of all the details surrounding Count Dracula so I wanted to take a moment to discuss what I appreciated most about his design and the story that he tells. I don’t want this to be a super long thread so I will boil everything down to 5 key points.

1. Dracula the warlord over the mere magician. Marvel typically likes to bounce back and forth between two sides of Dracula. The suit wearing charismatic necromancer/solomanari that we usually see in films like Nosferatu or the hammer series. And a warrior that we might see in a lot of anime (such as Hellsing) or even the unique take on the character in Blade Trinity. In current comics Dracula basically bounces back and forth between both physical appearances but all of the stereotypical traits are still tightly wrapped within himself. The decision to showcase the more warrior like side to him is a decision that is usually carefully considered and is something meant to specifically bring honor to the character while highlighting the man Vlad the Impaler over the monster that would become Dracula. Let’s take a look at an image of Dracula from his mini series in Blood Hunt where he dawned the same outfit as he wears in game. Notice how he speaks and how he’s presented

“I have maintained my title against hordes of challengers. I shall be the mountain they can do naught but crash against” Dracula’s determination and level headedness is admirable in the face of invasion. But even more so when you think about who Dracula keeps being paired with.

2. Dracula’s allegiances
In game it is acknowledged that despite being thought of (and even tagged) as a standard villain, Dracula is much closer to being an anti-hero similar to the likes of Magneto, Blade, Ghost Rider and a lot of the sort of “Knights of Marvel”. Well in the comics Dracula who we may stereotypically think of as a standard Blade or Dr Strange villain has actually been used far more often as of late as a defender of monsters, mentor to vampire slayers, and as an ambassador of monster nations (this was also the purpose of his relationship with Shiklah who he married in order to form an alliance between monster/oppressed demonic communities that were ultimately abandoned. In game it is interesting to point out the description of Dracula’s event quest where it is the Prince who recruits the summoner in an effort to save the monsters of the night from mortal exploiters which I will provide examples for through screenshots.




This reminds me even more about the relationship between Blade and Dracula throughout history where Dracula sees himself (or saw himself) as a vampire/monster hunter. A servant of God who was eventually corrupted and now seeks something greater than himself who can take up the mantle, or like in the case with other forms of media, Dracula may seek to regain his mental state from before he was corrupted so, he may return to power but also once again become a sort of hand of God or merely a protector of the creatures of night.

4. Not the villain per-say
This one will be short and sweet but I think that it was a very bold decision to make the final villain of Dracula’s EQ a clone of Dracula rather than the actual character. This essentially allowed Kabam to keep a standard generic villain version of Dracula for all of us to whale on while the intricacies of the REAL Dracula went unnoticed. It is also worth noting that Dracula actually has a clone in the comics. I believe his name is Bloodspot (something silly like that) and he’s a massive more demonic appearing version of Dracula who on paper should be equal in strength but he has none of Dracula’s drive or resourcefulness.

5. The Prince of Darkness
I think that Kabam was very serious about maintaining this identity within Dracula’s kit/lore. The Prince of Darkness can be thought of under really two schools of philosophy 1. The opposite and equal force to God and ruler of beasts. 2. The opposite and equal force to God… but in a good way albeit a little edgy.

Dracula in game genuinely has presented himself as a philosophical and depth filled character who really desires to oppose oppressors rather than being a pure dictator and seducer (which is often the imagery created by the sorcerer “Steal your wife” Dracula” this version is an actual knight. A WARRIOR! And he still has all of the necessary components of a necromancer (his degeneration is a clever way to showcase a force of nature that can directly manipulate life energy/ki) as opposed to just sucking on blood Dracula is actually draining life energy from ANY target. This would give him literal governance over death.

*Bonus (for the five of you that are still here)
Dracula’s appearance also looks a lot like Knull because they are thematically similar. Essentially Knull is what we would think of as a Devil character (The ENTP personality type) Knull was not annointed, he was created by darkness. When light came into the dark Knull became envious and through his anger and jealousy he forged a weapon that could literally tear down all of the systems that he saw being created. Now let’s compare this to Vlad the Impaler (or at least our fantasy version of him) Vlad was born into a family who were members of the “Order of the Dragon” ignoring religious sides, this was a house that was meant to serve God and literally worked under the pope. Vlad experienced death and torment when he was young, his father and siblings were vanquished and he built himself into a superpower that would spread fear and bring death to his enemies all while serving his god. Dracula through legend became a voice for the voiceless and a defender of certain values. Even in Blade trinity, Dracula has a fierce desire to defend what he believes to be truth and to preserve the future for Vampires and beasts that he deems to be worthy… these are very different characters. Very different “Devils” despite this Dracula is the one who carries the mark of the beast, Dracula imo has far greater potential than what we have seen across Rivals, MCOC, or even the current comics. And now he is officially a daywalker, he was able to EARN immunity to sunlight (and the subtext that this comes with) for ALL Vampires and he did this in both Rivals (through literal safrifice) and in Marvel comics (by helping to defeat Varnae).

I hope that in future “Collections” and maybe even a potential buff for Dracula we can continue to see more of this lore play out through dialogue and through gameplay references of all kinds. And last but not least I really want to say thank you to the game designers for implementing such a well done version of Dracula lore wise. He’s arguably the best version of Dracula across all of marvel and I’m thankful that we didn’t go the mustache twirling villain route.

Battlechips conversion rate in my opening of arena crystals comes down to
529 battlechips yield 1 unit and 1,360 gold

1 million units would require 529 million battlechips depending on RNG

Milestones aside since there are limited milestones every 3 days

1 fight yields 100 battlechips
So you need to win 5.29 million arena fights

Let's say you average out to 30 seconds for a 4* fight, you need 2.645 million minutes

Which converts to 44,083 hours

Let's say you grind arena after work for 8 hours per day since your day job pays you more than grinding arenas

You need 5,510 days while the game has existed for 11 years which is 4,015 days

Let's say you started grinding units since day 1 of the game, you need to put in about 11 hours per day to accumulate 1 million units not considering the free units and milestones you get from time to time

Let's say you start grinding units now, you need the game to last another 15 years based on 8 hours of grinding a day

1 million units is about $32,258 USD depending on where you bought the units

Any faster way to earn $32,258 USD to buy 1 million units from Kabam? Yes there is

Appreciation in your property and flipping properties will easily yield you much more money than just grinding arenas

Investing in US stock market will yield you more money as well

There are a million ways to make money faster and buying units than grinding arenas

It is not the most efficient way to get insane amount of units

I've seen a lot people be excited for Thor Ragnarok buff next year and to an extent so am I, but I really wanted Annihilus to win. He's one of my favorite villains of Marvel and I love his look and origins. I know people probably didn't vote for him because he would an annoying defender but to me he looks awesome and I've always had fun playing with him on the left side of the screen. An offensive buff would have been fantastic for him.


To clarify, this is not a rant on Annihilus losing. I know it may seem like it, but this is just me sharing on how much I love Annihilus and I hope soon after Thor Ragnarok's seven star release the same kind of love can be given to Annihilus, since he ended being second on the poll. Still looking forward to play with Thor and once again I'm happy for everyone who wanted him.