If you have no cards in your Extra Deck, you can Normal Summon this card without Tributing
Rather, its main function in the matchup is to kill an excess creature of ours in order to exile their copies of Bridge from Below
Modally, it can basically remove a blocker, protect your guy from a wrath youre about to play, or at instant speed, become a combat trick that also ramps you
It's important to calculate the mean when talking about cards on average, as you only get to go first about half of the time
Instead of banning Vein Ripper, the card that caused the rise of Rakdos Vampires, Wizards of the Coast decided to ban Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord, because the cards existence makes any massive top-end Vampire printed in the future a threat to the Pioneer format