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Clash Royale |OT| Should I keep playing when I’m full on chests?

Reposting for newer players-
ALRIGHT

OPENING OF THE GAME AND Y OU!!

So when you start a match, the most important thing is to look at your options, and wait. There are various openings depending on what type of deck you're running, but we'll get into that later. The first thing you want to do is wait. Save up your Elixir. Only react to an opponents move. If you're getting full to Elixir, try dropping a slow unit behind your main castle to buffer the time of your opponent dropping a card. This is also advantageous to you, I'll go into it. Now, your opponent my try to all in a lane or wait to drop units like you are. That's no problem, because if you drop a slow unit, you're maximizing on your elixir and your opponent isn't. If you react, you're maximizing on your elixir and your opponent is it. The only way to put yourself in a disadvantage is if you drop a unit to try and attack one of their towers. This tips the scale into their favor.

THE SCALE, TOWERS, AND YO U!

Think of the map of the game as a scale. When you put a unit on your side, the scale tips into your favor. But the second that unit crosses into your opponents side, then they have the advantage if they can react to this. This is the Tower buffer.

THOSE NEFARIOUS TOWERS!

There are two ways to approach the tower. One, they are something you have to defend. Or two, they are there to defend you. I prefer the latter, since offense is greatly rewarded in this game. So what is the tower buffer? It's simple, when an opposing unit crosses to your side, they start getting pelted by arrows. They may even attack your tower! But this is ok. You want this, because it gives you unit advantage. If you drop a ranged unit behind your tower, then you're able to cost efficiently take out their unit and you end up having the elixir advantage on your side of things. Not only that, but because units tend to stop to attack, that means you can create a huge wave of units on your side, while their units died by crossing to your side. So use your tower offensively, that is, if it's full health don't be afraid to let your enemy attack it, even if it's with a prince or pekka. As long as you gain the advantage on units, then it's worth it.

SCALE BACK TO THAT SCALE.

This is all represented in what I like to call the 'Scale'. Think of a physical scale, evenly balanced, only moving when a unit is dropped on a side. If you have a unit on your side, your scale is heavier and thus stronger than the opposing side. If your opponent has a unit cross over to your scale, then you still have the advantage because of your tower. The trick to being able to overpower their side is to have them throw units at you, and for your units to overpower them and them spill over to their side.

For example, let's say they throw a giant. The second it hits your side, drop your units next to your tower so they have to walk up to the Giant, and don't put them close to the giant because they can counter with their own units behind the giant. The Giant will probably take a bit to take out, so you're growing elixir while your own units are attacking the giant, meaning when he goes down you can start an offense with your stack of units. Because a giant takes a while to take down, that means that you have time to still have elixir reserves to enforce your offense and overpower their tower and their reactions.

KNOWING YOUR OPPONENTS DECK
It's also important to try and 'count' your opponents deck. Each deck has 8 cards, and in a match you tend to use each card once. Low costs let you cycle faster, high costs can be a bit harder to predict but can prove advantageous. Either way, knowing what your opponent can drop can help you tip the scale of power. If they just used a fireball, chances are they can't react with another fireball immediately unless they have a mirror. Dropping your Barbarians right after a fireball can be better than blindly dropping them even in a defensive position. Sometimes you can try baiting card drops, IE you have a Knight+Musketeer combo you want to use, but dropping your goblins and skeletons might scare him into using a fireball.

Knowing the costs of cards is important to in reacting. If they drop a PEKKA behind their castle, then you know they just used 7 elixir and only have 3-4 elixir to react, or if they dropped a Golem then they just used 9 elixir and are open to attack. Keeping mental note of values is helpful in knowing when to counter attack and where. Dragon And Prince is 9 elixir, Skele Giant and Musketeer is 10, etc. If you know you have a response ready for when those units come to your side, then dropping a Prince on the opposing side can effectively win you the game.

OPENING MOVES AND Y O U!

This is the deck part of the strategy. There are various decks. Low, high, mid cost, hut decks, giant decks, zerg decks, either way what kind of deck you have will determined your opening move, and to an essence what cards you have in your starting hand. If you have the Elixir card, usually you want to drop that immediately and drop it in front of your castle. The first reason is because you want it to start producing elixir immediately. The 2nd, if they make a mistake in a fireball or Rocket, they might end up hitting your castle, thus activating its defenses and passively making your towers stronger because it aims that far.

For hut decks, opening with a barbarian Hut is common, but you might want to wait until you have a goblin hut out to make the most of it. Hut decks run counter to a reactionary deck, in that it's always attacking one side, and it can build up if your opponent is playing reactionary. In essence-Hut decks counter reactionary players, and reactionary players have to play offensively to counter a hut deck even if it seems disadvantageous.

As for other Card openings, dropping a fat slow unit behind your castle when you get close to 10 elixir lets you remain defensive while telling an opponent "I have this here, are you going to react to it?". So let's say we drop a PEKKA that will go down the right side. Your opponent will either save cards to stop him, or immediately attack your other side, in which case you can still reaction and put him at a disadvantage. But it also gives you time to build elixir as the PEKKA travels down, and once it reaches the river crossing you can drop heavy support on it OR pull a fast one and attack the opposite lane at the same time, and this can cause your opponent to make mistakes trying to stop both or try and all in that PEKKA, giving a free opportunity to take a tower. This type of strat can be used mid game also, dropping a slow unit behind your castle 1 minute in can be advantageous because by then you know what your opponent has and can counter it, and it lets you create a ball of units.

CARDS AND DECK BUILDS

So let's look at deck builds. A deck with Golem or PEKKA needs to be supported by either The Elixir Generator, or low level cards like Goblins, Archers, Knight because you have to be able to react and support your PEKKA. Bomb Skeletons are powerful for their cost, able to wreck groups of barbarians if placed behind your pekka. Goblins can do work either at range or melee. Usually a fireball or arrows is necessary to be able to counter minions, since your anti air will be your weakest part.

Giants are good as meatshields, and common in mid-cost decks, but their effectiveness varies. Skeleton giants are good for having a big explosion at the end, and good at countering Pekkas or Barbarians because of that. Regular Giants are great if you can build a ball of units behind them, but because they're single minded they'll die fast if you can't defend it. Royal Giants..................we don't talk about them. Other mid-cost supporting cards are hog rider, Prince, Baby Dragon, Witch. All good for specific things, either gunning down a turret, creating a threat that can deal major damage, countering mass units, or creating units whilst having decent aoe spam. Witches can be treated like heavy units, in that you spawn them behind your castle so they can build up skeletons. Princes you want to use to counter assault a lane, baby dragons in conjunction with an air balloon can devastate a lane if your opponent isn't careful, and hog riders are good at diverting an opponents attention from another lane or doubling down on taking down a tower.

Low cost decks tend to be about the unit spam, capping out at barbarians or Giant, and having cards like Knight, bomb marauder, skeleton army, goblins and archers as well as minions. In conjunction with freeze or rage you can deal high damage extremely fast and unexpectedly.

Some staple cards are arrows and fireball. Able to counter low cost units immediately, at an area is great. Fireballs are good for the slightly heavier units, like Barbarians, huts, or towers. The lightning spell is also good to have for taking down towers or huts, or mid-cost units like Valkyrie/minipekka. The Zap spell is decent for stunning and at a low cost, it's also good at taking out skeletons or lower health units. It can also stun magma towers, resetting their damage gains.

Spell cards are useful in any situation. Freeze, Rage, and Poison are all great. Personally I'm favoring Poison right now, because it's a huge area of effect, it slows, and does damage while units are in it. Freeze is good in rush decks, or in combination with hog rider. Rage is good in decks where you can get a little mass of units going, but I don't see it as much. Lightning and Zap I mentioned above.

~~~

So that's it. Go out there and get trophies n' stuff!

For specific deck strats, post your deck and I'll give you a rough idea on what to open with/how to react/ and any suggestions.
 

jgminto

Member
Well the best thing about the Giant is that he heads straight for a tower, pulling any enemies in range with him and taking them away from your tower.
Skeleton Giant is great for pushing a lane because even if killed before reaching the tower it will devastate your opponents forces and tower if close enough with the dropped bomb. It's also great for blocking an aggressive push in the same way.
 

JoeNut

Member
got all the way to like 1550 or so, then dropped down losing 10 in a row by experimenting with my pack, i think a big tip i would give to people is not to change too much in their pack, stick with what's working
 

Chorazin

Member
got all the way to like 1550 or so, then dropped down losing 10 in a row by experimenting with my pack, i think a big tip i would give to people is not to change too much in their pack, stick with what's working

Or just make a second one to experiment. Winning isn't everything, gotta try new stuff or you'll get bored!

I got whooped by a wienie deck and copied it, haha. Super fun! It's about stalling them or giving up one of the crown castles while you surround the other crown with spawn buildings and flood the other lane with dudes during the last minute.
 

Raven77

Member
Right now in my deck i'm using the Witch, Hog Rider, Baby Dragon and the Prince. I have low cost cards to balance this out but feel as though the 4 above are overkill and at least 1 of them could and should be replaced with something else. The other cards are spear goblins, arrows, and minion horde and minion.

I feel like at this point i'm losing or drawing 3/4 matches where as before I was winning at least 75% of the time. Not sure what changed but I'm still in the same arena (4/5 bouncing back and forth).
 

spyder_ur

Member
Anyone have any thoughts to tweak my deck?

Right now it's:

-Tesla for some protection/distraction
-Rockets
-Giant Skeleton
-Musketeer
-Skeleton
-Dragon
-Freeze
-Minion Horde

General strategy is rockets on towers when I can also knock off another unit or ideally another hut. Giant Skeleton, Musketeer and Skeleton for lanes and rushers, and try to rush the other lane with minions, dragons and Giant Skeletons with a freeze where I can.

I tent to demolish hut builds, I have more trouble with strong ground based builds.

Right now in my deck i'm using the Witch, Hog Rider, Baby Dragon and the Prince. I have low cost cards to balance this out but feel as though the 4 above are overkill and at least 1 of them could and should be replaced with something else. The other cards are spear goblins, arrows, and minion horde and minion.

I feel like at this point i'm losing or drawing 3/4 matches where as before I was winning at least 75% of the time. Not sure what changed but I'm still in the same arena (4/5 bouncing back and forth).

I'm in the same spot - bouncing between 4 and 5. I would say maybe you don't need both Prince and Hog Rider? Kinda serve the same purpose. Perhaps a defensive tower or ground horde to hold lanes?
 

JoeNut

Member
Anyone have any thoughts to tweak my deck?

Right now it's:

-Tesla for some protection/distraction
-Rockets
-Giant Skeleton
-Musketeer
-Skeleton
-Dragon
-Freeze
-Minion Horde

General strategy is rockets on towers when I can also knock off another unit or ideally another hut. Giant Skeleton, Musketeer and Skeleton for lanes and rushers, and try to rush the other lane with minions, dragons and Giant Skeletons with a freeze where I can.

I tent to demolish hut builds, I have more trouble with strong ground based builds.
I'd swap rockets and tesla for bomb hut and arrows/fireball
 
Anybody roll with Balloon and Rage? I wasn't impressed with Balloon before, but it can wreck pretty quickly when combined with Rage. That 40% increased movement speed and attack speed is huge.
 
Is there a 'best' thing to spend gems on? certain levels of chests or something? I dont plan on buying any (I never really spend much in F2P phone games), but it would be nice to know if Im wasting the free ones I get.
 

Matush

Member
Is there a 'best' thing to spend gems on? certain levels of chests or something? I dont plan on buying any (I never really spend much in F2P phone games), but it would be nice to know if Im wasting the free ones I get.
Save 500 gems for 10k coins. Buy epics/upgrades from shop that you really want.
 

Dreavus

Member
500 gems seemed like it wouldn't take so long at the beginning, but the amount you start with is misleading. I am crawling toward 300 gems; getting maybe 2 per chest.

I haven't run out of gold yet though and I'm upgrading everything when they hit caps. Only Arena 4 which is probably telling, haha.
 

Permanently A

Junior Member
Yeah the reason people recommend buying the 10k gold for 500 gems is that the rate of acquiring gems is so low that the 500 gem purchase will probably be the only thing you purchase with gems in your whole time playing the game (if you are f2p).
 

JoeNut

Member
I'm not loving Tesla so might try that. Why Arrows or fireball over rockets? Love my rockets vs any huts.

arrows is faster and half the elixer - rockets was useful in lower arenas for me personally, but you'll get wrecked by minion horde before long

Any slots in a GAF clan?

NeoGAF Elite has a few spots left I believe.

We've got 1 spot left at the moment, although i am due to clear out shortly.
 

spyder_ur

Member
Man, ever since getting poison I'm going full scumbag with bomb tower, Giant Skeleton, Arrows, poison, freeze, minion horde, skeleton and balloon. So many ways for me to hold ground.

Poison seems ridiculous. If the other side is using a hut setup, just place it covering the hut and the nearest tower. It'll to DoT to the hut itself and tower and seriously weaken any unit coming out of the hut.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
I'm using Bomb Tower as my building over Gobbo hut. It's okay so far. Mine is underleveled so maybe that's why it's not as impressive and I can't get the hang of placement yet.

I like that it survives the first Prince hit, unlike Tesla, and is still useful by itself, unlike Gravestone.
 

Dunlop

Member
Made it to 1590

decided I am bored of my winning deck and created new ones

Descented into madness (Each loss seemed to have made me stupider) and am hovering at the cusp of dropping to Arena 3

; (

Off to look for good decks with up to arena 5 cards
 
After hearing Giant Bomb talk about this game so much I had to check it out. It's...pretty damn fun. The f2p stuff is super gross, but unlike most timer-based mobile games the gameplay here is its own reward.

I joined NeoGAF Elite, my name is the same as it is on here. Not sure how long I'll stick with this, but for now I'm enjoying myself.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Vanilla decks are best. I slotted in Hog Rider before I learned how to use him and fell back down to Arena 3.

I replaced Valkyrie with him in my original deck and I'm climbing my way back up. Still not convinced of his efficacy just yet though. When I lose against him, it's because I overextended. I guess it's because I'm so used to building pushes with Giant/Musketeer/Dragon I don't know how to use someone so fast. I don't use Mini PEKKA for the same reason. When your building dies in 5 seconds to Hog Rider/Mini PEKKA tho.

Dragon 2
Musketeer 3
Arrow 5
Spear Goblin 5
Minion Horde 4
Bomb Tower 2
GIant 3
Hog Rider 2 (replacing Valkyrie 3)
 

lamaroo

Unconfirmed Member
A guy was able to take out each of my smaller towers with a single Balloon plus Freeze spell.

My deck is fairly weak against flying, having only Minion and Spear Goblins to counter them(well Arrows too but they're only good against Minions). I was just surprised at how quickly the Balloon was able to destroy the towers, even with my Spear Goblins or Minions outside of the freeze radius.
 

TheExodu5

Banned
I expect bomb tower and mortar to get definite nerfs next patch. Any time I go up against a 2500 trophy level 7, I know I'm expecting a mortar deck.

Bomb tower is definitely the bigger offender of the two, however. So much health. It always trades up in elixir.
 

Matush

Member
Requested to join GAF Royale :)

Edit: it looks like I will join NeoGAF clan then, sorry for the mixup guys.

Five spots have been opened in NeoGAF (#2OY9PQ).

Priority will be given to those who include their GAF forum name in their join request until noon ET.
requested
 

Remy

Member
Five spots have been opened in NeoGAF (#2OY9PQ).

Priority will be given to those who include their GAF forum name in their join request until noon ET.
 

DrkSage

Member
Im stuck in arena 6, can go as high as 1900-1950 trophies and as low as 1700. Last game I got paired with a lvl 9 player that had most cards in lvl10 and lvl8 while most of my common cards are 7 and rares 5. I've tried lots of decks but I just can't seem to get to arena 7.

Latest deck I've been using is:
Barbarians lvl 8
Baby dragon lvl 3
Skeleton army lvl 1
Minion horde lvl 7
Valkyrie lvl 5
Musketeer lvl 5
Arrows lvl 7
Spear goblins lvl 7
 

yatesl

Member
Struggling to break out of arena 4. I get to 1250 or so then lose 5 in a row.

Also just fought a guy with mirror. That's OP. 2 Knights every time.
 
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