Hog Mortar Deck: A 3.0 Elixir Minion Horde Ice Golem Plan

Heya guys Lolman here with a Ladder deck guide for you guys.

Decided to change things up and go back to making a F2P guide for ladder.

This is a fully f2p deck that I’ve used to compete with decks with realllly overleveled cards. Just to give an example I will include several screenshots below.

Below are some of my ladder matches. I have a good 70-80% win rate so far this season, climbing from 4000 trophies to Master League.

The Hog Mortar Deck for F2Ps

My card levels are for a reference point at 4400’s at the moment and I am comfortable with pushing to just over 5000 trophies with these card levels. (Level 9 Hog Rider kinda stinks 4700+ but my commons have good levels)

Hog Rider (9)

One of the 2 win conditions in this deck.

Early on, while identifying what deck you are facing, play him like in a Hog deck.

If your opponent has a Hog hard counter deck like Tornado etc, you will need to use your Mortar a lot more.

You will face far more beatdown on ladder, which is why Hog Rider is typically going to be your main damage dealer.

Goblin Gang (13)

This card is very level dependent. Mainly because Zap only needs to be +1 level to 1 shot it.

Gang adds to the bait element plus it is good for punishing.

If your Gang is like mine, maxed out and you are at my range, typical towers of your opponents will 3 shot Goblins which if ignored can deal a LOT of damage.

Here, my opponent played a Golem at the back and I used Goblin Gang on the other lane. He ignored and and voila… huggeeee lead.

Minion Horde (12)

You need this card at least 1 level lower than Zap’s at your trophy range.

What this means is typically upwards of 4200, you need at least a level 12 Minion Horde. Since a max Zap will 1 shot a level 11 Horde.

Other than that only real other interaction you need to be wary of are 1 level lower Minions die to 1 Musket hit. Which can be troublesome vs 3 Musketeers but not a whole lot of other interactions should bother you.

This card should be used sparingly to clean up, typically after baiting out a spell due to 5 Elixir cost and counterpush potential.

Spear Goblins(12)Or Bats(11)

Level doesn’t matter toooo much for this slot in my honest opinion.

They are the main Zap bait card.

You can use Bats here if you want but I like how Spear Goblins can work at drawing ground troops, however they lack the DPS of Bats which can be a downside.

Bats +1 level won’t die on Ice Golem which is probably the one major level dependent factor but other than that upto you!

Spear Goblins are almost always guaranteed chip if you play them on the bridge unless they just keep Ice Spiriting them.

Level 12 Spear Gobs guarantee a good 500 chip damage! While Bats are safer on defense.

Ice Golem(9) or Ice Spirit (11)

I played both but Ice Golem is the mini tank in the deck.

Ice Golem is far more versatile here filling in a missing role if you play Ice Spirit not Ice Golem.

Ice Golem is far more reliable at bringing Minion Horde to Zap range and helping out vs splash damage decks using the tank and spank method.

Ice Golem is also the Hog tank here, plus a defensive sponge.

Ice Spirit has his own versatilities but you need him at an = level to king Tower in order to get chip damage with Ice Spirit at bridge.

Mortar (11)

I can get this to level 12 but not too concerned about it. Level isn’t that dependent.

Mortar has quite a bit of HP early on I only really use it defensively but later on once identified my opponents deck and whatnot I may or may not use it on offense.

You need to make sure to know the placements!

I will address them below in Matchups.

Zap (12)

This is the 3rd most important card in this deck to level up: Goblin  Gang → Minion Horde → Zap → Ice Golem.

This is because if you have an overlevelled Zap, you will have a huge advantage vs -1 level Gang, Barrel even  -2 level Minion Hordes!

Also without any big spells, this deck needs all the chip damage it can get.

The Log (3)

Again, not too level depent.

Try to get it to a high enough level so that the Log 1 shots Princesses at your range.

Hell if you can get your Log to a high enough level to 1 shot Archers at your range which is quite easy at lower trophies, that’s a huge plus on your end.

General Gameplay

Early game (3:00-2:00)

Early on with this deck, there are a few starting plays you should consider, depending on cycle and starting hand.

Since this is ladder, typically in my trophy range there are a LOT of Golem, Giant and Hog decks.

So keeping that in mind, I NEVER play the Mortar at the river as a first play of the game.

I’ll list out several possible starting plays you, yourself should consider.

1. Spear Goblins at bridge: Excellent move! Baits out spell like Zap quite easily. when they’ve used Zap they’re playing to your cycle.
2. Ice Golem at back: Passive move, builds up Elixir while gauging for opponents moves while you can leisurely cycle till Hog + Ice Golem at bridge.
3. Hog Rider at bridge: Typically you want to do this with Zap in hand. I never Hog+ Log early on however Zapping is fine. Just keep it hovered over where you expect them to Gang or Skeleton Army etc.
4. Gang at bridge: Okay move, not the best of plays but if you have a more aggressive playstyle, playing a Goblin Gang at the bridge won’t result in you losing or anything of that sort.

So early on, play fairly passively and cycle your Hogs.

Gauge for counters and figure out what role the Mortar will play in your deck. Defensive or offensive.

Mid game (2:00-1:00)

At this point, you should know what deck you are facing plus what their counters are.

You typically want to go for that 1-0 win but oddly enough I’d say atleast ¾ of my wins are 2 crowns.

Ice Golem + Hog pushes should be commonplace again depending on the situation.

If they have nado, never push without the Ice Golem because for 3 Elixir they will shut Hog down without any hit on Tower.

Just dish out the pain, get creative with your plays! This is a bait deck, so bait and punish.

Late Game (1:00 – OT)

Ideally you want a Tower down at this point and should be pressuring other lane.

If not, cyling spells at the speed of light.

You should have no problem DPSing  down whatever your opponent throws at you with the defensive Mortar etc.

I only really use Mortars on offense if needed in the mid-game portion and solely defend with mortars. Unless of course you are facing a Miner deck or another siege deck.

Get value Logs and Zaps and you should be golden.

Hog Rider will not be as viable in 2x Elixir because your opponent can simply cycle a bunch of defensive cards, keeping him from getting to the Tower.

This is why during 1x Elixir you need to capitalize on opponent’s misplays and make good plays of your own.

Matchups

Giant Beatdown: Probably the hardest of the match-ups.

Because this is Mortar+Hog, you will not have as hard of a time as people playing Mortar 2.9.

This deck has an average cost of 3.0, which means you will also be cycling very fast but all the same you have 2 win conditions allowing for a lot of versatility.

Also with Giant, there are a few variations of Giant beatdown I faced on ladder they are Giant Balloon, Giant Graveyard, Giant Bowler (lost to this he had Log, Arrows and Zap. Plus Barbarians and Bowler…\. Hard counter much?)

Just vs Giant beatdown decks, keep in mind what counters they have.

For Goison or Graveyard Poison, be sure to use swarms on the tank and save spells for Graveyard.

If you kill the tank fast, Log + Zap is more than enough on the Graveyard.

Then if they use Poison, you have free reign to Hog+ Minion Horde. Etc.

Golem

I find this a little iffy because while climbing my 400 trophies testing this deck, I faced 3 golems decks, 2 were level 8 Golems and 1 is a level 7.

Golem will get Tower damage. That must be kept in mind so you have to pressure the other lane.

Minimize the push and get them to repeat the push. This will buy you enough time to work on the Tower you are targeting.

Sometimes even if I have a Tower low and my opponent pushes that lane, I still target the other higher HP Tower. This is very very important to keep note of.

Here I had his king Tower at only 444 HP!
That being said, if I pushed the same lane that would be disastrous as my Hog would have died and he’d have added maybe a Knight etc to the push.

Instead, I went all out on the other lane knowing I’d have time at the end of the game to maybe even go for that 3 crown.

Royal Giant- Honestly Royal Giant isn’t that big of a deal.

Reason? Well Royal Giant + Support will get splashed by Mortar. Mortar tanks a Lot of RGG hits.

You have bait cards that should work their way through his spells and eventually DPS down the tanks.

I find Giant far more difficult.

For 4 Elixir, Mortar has only about 60 HP less than an X-Bow at tourney cap. (Scales up a bit more depending on level but yeah you get my point. Mortar is very tanky.)

So you can play it to tank up a LOT of Royal Giant hits. The higher the level the better. Vs Rg you will have to play a Hog deck rather than a Mortar deck, so keep that in mind as well!

Placement for Mortar vs Royal Giant.

Hog Rider – Again, use your Mortar on defense to distract the Hog while using your Ice Golem, Spear Gobs etc to DPS down the Hog.

Ice Golem typically to soak up damage from a tank while you place the swarm troops on the Hog since Tower will be focusing on the Hog Rider.

Depending on what you face, you will have to adjust your playstyle.

If you are facing Tornado, always have Ice Golem tanking or at least some support troops. Ideally you want to drop them a little after the Hog to try to catch them off guard.

Be aware that if your Hog is underlevelled this might not be a great move

Your troops specialize in DPS so taking down the Hog is not a huge deal just don’t do anything crazy.

If facing a deck with Arrows, don’t play Horde if you know it’s in opponents cycle.

Conclusion

This is a great deck at honing your skills.

While some may call this deck skillless because you *spam* and use swarms, I disagree. There are lots of decks that can counter this, ie- Executioner decks, Princess etc.

You have to learn to keep track of opponents cycle, play your cards when their counter are out of hand, counter their pushes creatively.

Ie- If they play Baby Dragon Giant? Then Ice Golem for Baby Dragon and Horde/ Gang Giant as opposed to just dropping troops on Giant for Baby Dragon to splash.

That’s just one example but that should get the point across.

It’s a really fun deck, albeit somewhat tricky to master, give it a shot!

It’s also 100% free to play friendly except the Log which….

Well if you’re pushing for 4600+ without a Log, not sure what to say you an use Arrows I guess.

That being said it’s a ver f2p deck everyone should have the cards and most are easy to level up, give it a shot!

Lolman out.