SHARE YOUR BATTLE Weekly Challenge! GARGOYA SCRAPPER
Introduction
Welcome to my review of the Splinterlands Gargoya Scrapper Card. Life was my Splinter Focus yesterday and I played a number of games with Gargoya Scrapper. I'm excited to share my thoughts on this card and awesome battle with you.
- Brief Card Overview
- Strategy and Battle
- My Final Review
1. Brief Card Overview
Gargoya Scrapper is a Common Life Unit from the Chaos Legion set. For one mana, we get a: 1 damage, 2 speed, 2 health, 5 power monster at level 1.
At At level 3, the card gains the Void ability, reduced damage from magic attacks. At level 7, damage bumps to 2 and we get 3 health at level 10.
At the time of writing, the level 1 regular card costs $0.04 and rents for 0.10 DEC/Day. A Level 3 Gold Foil card costs $0.93, and is renting between 0.15-0.42 DEC/Day. If renting, its worth it to rent the Gold Foil Card.
Lore-wise, the Gargoya Scrappers have a troubled past and are fighting to reclaim their future. The Chaos Legion destroyed their home, but the Scrappers refused to leave. They stayed in the rubble of their former great castle, determined to find a way to rebuild their kingdom and home. Now they've found a way to create more of themselves and seek to reclaim their former glory and then some. The full lore on the card's page has a fantastic mini-story, is well written, and worth a read.
2. Strategy and Battle
Gargoya Scrapper is best utilized as front or backline cannon fodder in low mana games. Usually, the Scrapper won't survive more than one hit, so we're paying one mana to tank one (two if we're lucky) enemy hit(s).
The Battle linked above is a seventeen mana point match with the Armored Up condition (+2 Armor in addition to their average armor stat). I have the Gargoya Scrapper in 6th position to protect my Stitch Leech from enemy monsters with Opportunity and Stealth.. Soul Fiend is in the first position with similar stats and serves the same function as the Scrapper. In hindsight, I should have put my Scrapper in the first position to take advantage of its Void ability and potentially block some of the magic attacks.
If an enemy targets Gargoya Scrapper, it'll likely die in one round, maybe two. But the Scrapper passes with honor giving your attacking monsters more chances to hit the enemy.
In my shared Battle, my opponent's life sapper takes out my Soul Fiend in one shot. My Pelacor Conjurer takes the front line, tanking and reflecting attacks, allowing my Loan Boatman and Stitch Leech to take out the enemy mid and back lines.
3. My Final Review
Any deck needs to include a one mana monster. You need one mana monsters both for low mana games and for those higher mana games where you've slotted five monsters and have one mana point remaining to spend. To assess Gargoya Scrapper, let's look at the other one mana options we have when building a Life deck. At $0.04, Gargoya Scrapper is definitely the cheapest one mana Life card if you're looking to buy. But, I primarily rent, so am more concerned with function.
Gargoya Scrapper is the only mana monster available with a melee attack. The Scrapper is usually dead before it can get an attack off. However, the attack can still be helpful in certain instances. When running General Sloan, I'm more likely to slot Lensmaster to take advantage of the +1 ranged attack. I also would generally choose the neutral card Creeping Ooze for one mana and the Slow ability.
But some games don't allow ranged and don't enable neutrals. Hence, Gargoya Scrapper definitely has situation function value in a life deck.
At its low price point to rent and buy, the Gargoya Scrapper is an auto-include for me when playing Life.
Conclusion
Gargoya Scrapper has earned a place in my life decks. The competition is tight for one mana monsters, but I'm always glad to have Gargoya Scrapper on my team.
Peace, Thoth