Gramel the Hunger is a legendary neutral fiend card in the Conclave Arcana set. He is a limited-time promo card during the Conclave Arcana pre-sale making him scarce and sought after.
According to lore, he was summoned from the Plane of Chaos by Portia Nyr but was never truly subservient to her. He's a fearsome creature and one of the most powerful cards in Splinterlands.
Gramel the Hunger's Stats and Abilities
Gramel is the first card to have all three attacks. At maxed level, he deals two damage of each attack and has a decent speed of three. On defense he has one armor and seven health. Aside from his tremendous stats, his abilities are strong. Among his abilities include:
Charge - Allows Gramel to use melee attack from any position making full use of all three of his attacks from any position. This ability is also immune to Fog of War ruleset.
Relentless Strike - Allows Gramel to deal extra damage to units who has Void, Shield or Forcefield turning enemy defense into their liability.
Shapeshift - Allows Gramel to benefit from any Bloodline Dominion buff. This is true to Gramel's lore: “
It wears your face. It speaks with your voice. And when it claims its next victim, it’ll eat them with your mouth.”
Gramel's Disadvantage
While Gramel is undoubtedly strong, he is not perfect. He has a large mana that means he is not the optimal unit to use in low or mid mana battles. To be able to take full advantage of Gramel, he should at least be at level three to have the Shapeshift ability.
My Battles Against Gramel
I compiled some of my battles with Gramel and these battles show where it's not best to use him.
Battle 1 - 33 Mana Limit
In this battle, the mana cap is only at thirty three. My opponent included a level one Gramel among his units. This means that his team is not that optimal since Gramel sucked a lot of mana in a mid mana battle. This battle includes Briar Patch ruleset meaning Gramel's melee attack will come back to bite him. My opponent also has a unit with Electrified.
On the other hand, my team is composed of high damage dealers with two units doing three damage and two doing four ranged damage. I also included a unit with Taunt to divide his attacks. I won the battle in three rounds.
Gramel and Bren Palesworn vs Quora
In this battle, my opponent has the two strongest legendary neutral cards. Gramel the Hunger and Bren Palesworn. Bren already has the Shapeshift ability at level one but he wasn't able to take advantage of the Bloodline Dominion buff since his units do not have such synergy. My opponent's units are individually strong. He has three legendary cards but they do not synergize that well.
The battle allows Gladiator cards so I formed my team around Quora. My team is composed of Folen Flameeye who has the Flank ability. This is perfect for my secondary tank, Quora who is allowed to use melee attacks from the second position. I have the Halaran Huntress who is a decent damage dealer in third position. In fourth, I have the Blackmoor Wildelf who will have the Execute ability granted by the archon. In last position I have the Halfling Refugee to tank against melee attacks.
Folen Flameye did a decent job as a tank allowing Quora to do damage from second position and activate her Bloodlust. The Blackmoor Wildelf disposed of Bren Palesworn who only has four health with her Execute ability. The Halfling Refugee was well placed in last position and guarded against Bren's sneak attacks. I won the battle in four rounds losing only one unit.
Dynamic Duo Cavewise Wayfinder and Vicious Giraffe
In this battle, only the Fire splinter was allowed. I had a chance to use one of my favorite combos: Cavewise Wayfinder and Vicious Giraffe. Cavewise Wayfinder is an offensive tank dealing three melee damage and has three speed. His defense is decent with four armor and eight health. His abilities include Ambush but he also has Reckless which would harm adjacent allies. To take advantage of this, the Vicious Giraffe is perfect in position two. It has the Reach ability and more importantly, Painforge making him a masochist who gets stronger as he gets hurt Poison, Burning or by allies. In third position, I had the Conclave Tracker for support duties, repairing my tank's armor. In fifth, I have the Portly Cannoneer who buffs my melee attackers. One of my favorite strategies is to divide enemy attacks so in sixth, I have a unit with Taunt ability.
My opponent again have half decent units with his Gramel. They were quickly disposed of by my damage dealers and the battle was over in three rounds.
Final Thoughts
There are powerful cards in Splinterlands that may turn the tides of battle. I'd like to call them "carry cards" that are essential in certain rulesets. However, these cards cannot stand on their own. They must be used in rulesets where their unique abilities will make them shine. They must also be supported by units around them either to sustain, buff or help deal damage. This is what makes Splinterlands a fun and exciting game. You may have weaker individual cards but you can win against stronger opponents if you form the optimal team to deal with the battle conditions as well as the opponent team.
