Battle of the Forgotten Cards - My First Ever Splinterlands Card: Gargoya Devil

It's a new edition of Splinterlands Community Engagement Challenge and the theme this week is a very special one! It's Battle of the Forgotten Cards!

And this brought my memory all the way to the first ever card that I received, and that is Gargoya Devil!

I started playing Splinterlands in 2021 and back then, the game was a total different format. There are daily quests to complete and we get chests on a daily basis. So each chest had some chance of getting Reward cards along with other stuff like SPS and DEC. And I remembered my first ever card that I got was Gargoya Devil. Back then, I didn't think too highly of this card because for a 7 mana card, the stats were so brittle. But overtime, as the rulesets became more complicated, I think Gargoya Devil has carved out its own niche of battle.

Some examples I could think of would be:

• Neutral only battles: This is a very restrictive ruleset and Gargoya Devil is extremely strong usually in this type of battle.
• Earthquake battles: It's a card with Flying ability so it survives through the rounds of Earthquake.
• Ranged only battles: The Close Range ability allows Gargoya Devil to attack from the tank position and with a high speed and Flying speed, it's not easy to get through that squishy 1 Armor and 3 HP actually.
• Bonus: At Level 4, it gains a powerful Deathblow ability that allows it to excel 1 vs 1 fights at the higher levels.

Here's the lore for Gargoya Devil for your reading too:

The living stone creatures known as gargoya are an especially unique result of battle on the other side of the world with the Chaos Legion. Years ago there was a great stone tower, far away from the Splinterlands and taller than any of its buildings. It was the former tower of a conquered lord, empty and protected only by the dozens of magnificent gargoyles that adorned its architecture. When the Chaos Legion first approached from the rift in the stars, great glowing meteors fell from the sky. They crushed the tower to rubble, but the gargoyles were somehow left unscathed. Not only that, but they were now alive; still stone, but alive. They took off as a tribe across the sea to find a new home as their world was essentially destroyed behind them.

Alright time to show Gargoya Devil in action in a battle! The battle we have here has Going the Distance in the ruleset, which means only Ranged cards can be used.

Pre-battle: True the ruleset, it had to be Ranged cards. I maximised my chances by fielding as many Ranged cards with Close Range as possible, along with my Legendary tank Drybone Raider. Lava Launcher and Gargoya Devil slotted in behind which would allow them to continue hitting from the tank position. Rune Crafter followed behind in the 4th position as we have the mana to put this card which had a Fury ability. Ash Mirage was chosen for its Headwinds ability that was perfect for this battle. And finally, who could forget the powerful Countess Sinash, who had a massive damage output combined with the Opportunity ability. If you also noticed, my opponent also picked Gargoya Devil for this battle, which again goes to show how strong and important this card is for such rulesets.

Round 1: My team came out firing on all cylinders and after the first round, it was down to 6 vs 4 already. My damage output was very strong and the Headwinds from Ash Mirage effectively countered their summoner boost.

Round 2: It's down to 6 vs 1 after just two rounds! Wow!

Round 3: And it was a clean and perfect win!

Final Thoughts

As demonstrated in the battle, Gargoya Devil is a important card to have to excel in specific rulesets, even though it is not exceptionally strong in normal battles (after all, it's just a Rare card). With rulesets getting more and more complex, I think the recent ones have indeed brought some cards like Gargoya Devil back to the front. For me, it has some sentimental value because it was my first reward card that I received from the chest and it was such an awesome feeling back then!

So that's all I have for this week's Splinterlands Community Engagement Challenge. Let me know if you have any comments too!

If you are interested to sign up to play Splinterlands, my referral link is here.