Vice Dragon is an interesting card that has garnered much attention spanning back long before its official release in Gold Series 3. Leaked prematurely it remained illegal for tournament play until the GS03 finally distributed worldwide.
Clocking in at 2000ATK Vice Dragon has nothing going for it offensively. Its effect, like Cyber Dragon allows it to be summoned for free from the players hand provided the opponent controls a monster and the dragon-user does not. When this happens it halves its ATK and DEF.
Straight away you have a dividing interpretation on what this means; many players see this as an amazing trait as it allows for the easy summoning of high level Synchro monsters within Dragon decks, whilst also benefiting the summon of Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon.
Likewise other players see these points as reasons not to run it. In order to fulfill its summoning parameters Vice Dragon requires that you not hold board control, yet its effect does nothing to mitigate that; in fact it does the exact opposite. For any player seeking to re-establish control of the field losing hand advantage for a weak monster is the last thing they want to do.
Vice Dragon brings to the dragon deck another Dark Dragon with the original ATK of 2,000. That feeds potential for Allure of Darkness and Deck Devastation Virus. It allows for a Synchro monster to be summoned from it and an in hand tuner, and allows for the summoning of Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon without giving up your normal summon. But are these merits? No. They are not.
The only true boon Vice Dragon brings to the dragon deck is access to Dark End Dragon but given the incredible minus involved in summoning it and the release of Scrap Dragon such a contribution really doesn't lend any tricks to the deck that it can't do better already through other means.
The sole purpose for Vice Dragons inclusion into Dragons decks is to promote overextension. It cannot swing momentum in your favour on its own. It cannot fend off attackers on its own. It cannot kill monsters in battle on its own and once you have any developed board presence its useless.
Successful decks should be able to pull of a synchro summon without shelling out 2 in hand cards.
Successful decks should be able to +1 off a Darkness Metal without it costing them 2 in hand cards.
If you think of Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon as a Monarch and consider how tributing Cyber Dragon for a Monarch is a bad play, the comparison carries over.
Cyber Dragon is good not because it encourages overextension or eases tribute/synchro summoning but because it comes with a 2100ATK body which can swing the entire momentum of the game in your favour. It can run over attackers. It can stop entire fields. It doesn't fall to the first Shura/Firedog/Laquari that hits the field without costing the opponent some other card. Vice Dragon does not do this, thus its versatility is severely limited.
Vice Dragons merits only encourage bad play, it does not aid the deck in establishing itself and on its own it does absolutely nothing. Vice Dragon is an incredibly overrated card and in practice, fewer, if any copies of Vice Dragon lead significantly to success.
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