Hey there ladies Lolman here. Yep the one and only, not dead yet.
Yay! So far I have got a few Grand Challenge wins respectively with this deck. I think that’s enough to consider this a consistent and decent deck. (Will have to see how well it works once people figured out how to play vs the Magic Archer)
Magic Archer Bridge Spam Deck
Battle Ram – Win condition.
Not quite a meta win condition but solid. Battle Ram control has been always quite strong despite its nerf.
The Ram is also decent on defence with Prince running amok, or to kite P.E.K.K.A and Mega Knight.
Should typically be used when counterpushing or if you got an elixir advantage.
Furnace – Constant chip damage and Poison / Fireball/ Lightning bait-ish.
Similar as to how you’d bait out a Log for a Princess, you want to use the Furnace to chip and/ or bait out a spell that would kill your Magic Archer!
Also is a secondary win condition, as if not answered the Furnace will deal massive damage to a tower allowing you to Furnace + spell cycle them out.
Also a decent-ish counter to Goblin Hut, just drop in same lane.
P.E.K.K.A – Tank killer.
Keep your Furnace up, but chances are opponent will have a heavy spell so say a Hog + Fireball will likely kill your Furnace and Hog will get tower swings.
Plus Furnace is hardly enough to kill a Golem push. Hence P.E.K.K.A is needed.
P.E.K.K.A counters Giant, double Prince, Golem etc.
Only really a defensive card and can be used as a tank for the Ram in counterpush.
Example of when P.E.K.K.A can come in handy
Guards – With Prince so prevalent, Guards come in handy at taking in the charge. Prince dishes out insanely high damage for his cost.
Say your P.E.K.K.A is attacking a Golem, you will want these bad boys to absorb the charge from the Prince in order to keep the P.E.K.K.A relatively healthy.
Also typically used for defense. Never really go offensively with them.
Magic Archer – Supercell did it again, one word… OVERPOWERED.
Not in the same context of the Night Witch where she literally takes an entire tower down.
Magic Archer’s range and attack speed are so good.
Though damage is low, he 2 shots Minions! He has more range than a Dart Goblin/ Royal Giant.
Range can be utilized for many things, like sniping buildings, troops etc. I’ll include a few examples below.
He will get nerfed eventually try to get as many wins as you can before this.
Insanely valuable Magic Archer. Protecting him allowed me to prevent a few hundred damage of chip from the last Spear Gobs!
Poison – Heavy spell here.
Should be used on Pump, 3M etc. First get a feel of the opponents deck.
Typically in challenges people use meta decks so seeing first few cards should give you a feel of opponents deck and let you know if you should use your Poison.
For example If you see Archers that means either Graveyard or X-bow most the time.
In challenges people tend to run Musket in Hog decks. That sorta thing.
Try and get value with your Poisons! Be patient.
Zap- I still haven’t really transitioned back to Log.
Zap offers a lot of versatility. You don’t have an E-wiz and Zap can help a great deal vs Inferno Dragon.
That being said, P.E.K.K.A isn’t your win condition so unless you are 100% sure that Zap = P.E.K.K.A swing on tower never Zap an Inferno Dragon defending your P.E.K.K.A.
Minions – Can be changed to Bats for cheaper cycle.
These guys are mainly for air DPS on say a Balloon.
Not Zappable, and only really 1 deck runs Arrows is Lavaloon.
Fireball/ Poison bait. They have to spell out your Furnace, Minions, Magic Archer or Guards. So you can make life miserable for your opponent by not giving value.
General Gameplay
Early game (3:00- 2:00)
There are a few ways you can start the game off
- Furnace on lane you want to push, start adding pressure passively. Make the opponent play into you.
- Minions split. Don’t give spell value and Minions same lane. Split makes them less likely to Fireball/Arrow etc. If they say Hog Rider. You will have 1-2 Minions damaging it.
- Magic Archer – Good way to find what spells they have. Ie- Fireball etc.
- Guards split- This I don’t like doing this at all, mainly because of the prevalence of bridge spam. Guards should be saved for P.E.K.K.A, Prince, Bandit etc. Try and get a feel for opponents deck prior to cycling the Guards.
Once you get started, play passively.
Try to keep the P.E.K.K.A as a trump card. Especially if you see the signs of a Golem deck! This can catch them off guard quite often.
So defend, build a lead and counterpush is the name of the early game.
Mid game – (2:00-1:00)
Now that you’ve gotten an idea of your opponents deck you will ideally be doing some damage.
Again, cycle Furnaces and get value Poisons.
This should be the main focus early on in the game/mid game.
Get as much chip damage as you can and the occasional Ram. Unless it’s to punish, a counterpush or you’ve just built a very obvious lead try to not play too aggressive.
Something I find a lot of people do is play too aggressively.
Defense is also something you have to focus on!
Playing predictive Poisons is totally fine but not something I recommend. Try and always have your Zap ready on offense though!
Play cautions and smart before 2x elixir.
Try and get damage passively for the most part with Furnace and aggressively with the Poison rather than risking over committing with your Ram + support and facing a nasty counterpush.
Late game – (1:00 – end of OT)
Keep the Furnaces up at all times!
You want to ideally push with Ram + Minions and Poison/ Zap.
Still don’t cycle P.E.K.K.As.
P.E.K.K.A on defence if facing tanks, try to keep P.E.K.K.A healthy and then counter push with Ram behind or in front of P.E.K.K.A.
There are different situations I’d rely on either.
If P.E.K.K.A has over 50% HP I’d Ram behind and vice versa if significantly less than 50%.
Never proactively place the P.E.K.K.A only reactively as that can probably lose you the game if you mess it up!
In a nutshell, Keep on playing Furnaces whenever you can, defend but also whenever you are able Battle Ram+ prediction Poison with Zap ready. ((Assuming you aren’t playing vs bait with horde/ 3M that is. ))
Match-ups
Golem
Now there are 2 decks with Golem that I am aware. Golem Night Witch and Golem 2x Prince with Baby Dragon + Tornado.
Both are very easy to defeat however Golem 2x Prince can be a bit tricky. By tricky I mean they might use 2x Prince opposite lane when you P.E.K.K.A on Golem, which can leave you in a pickle. Guards aren’t much help vs 2x Prince.
What you want to do is to punish the Pumps and Golems. ALWAYS.
You will need them to split elixir rather than focus on one lane. However if they go for 3 crown, falling back and defending is fine with this deck.
You want to give up the tower then P.E.K.K.A on the Princes, while they hit the tower P.E.K.K.A will take care of them and then Magic Archer other lane to take care of their air troops.
Here same principle applying to punishing a Golem. (Using different deck but giving a general idea)
Mega Knight control-
Mega Knight is still relatively viable because on defense he is still quite tanky at 3300 HP and does decent damage.
Only nerf was to the jump and spawn damage. Plus his radius, that being said not many interactions really changed.
In this match-up, P.E.K.K.A should be saved for the Mega Knight. However you can use other plays like kiting with Ram+ Minions on top to kill the Mega Knight.
Now as for the decks, there can be one of a few options, Mega Knight Hut Spam, Mega Miner, Mega Knight Hog ((haven’t seen this one in over 50 games in gc’s)). The one I faced a few times was Mega Knight Hut Spam. What you don’t want to do is, give huts value!
Always, always and I repeat always push opposite lane, and Poison off their Furnace
Furnace does more damage despite lower cost, Goblin Hut for the most part can be ignored.
Flying Machine can be sniped by your Magic Archer and try and save your Guards for their, Prince/Bandit/Canon Cart and you’ll be fine!
Easy enough win.
Spell bait- Can be a little tough,
Poison off their Princesses! Zap Gang on offence and keep your Minions/ Guards for their Barrel.
P.E.K.K.A isn’t much use unless they run Prince bait or anything of that sort.
This match-up is somewhat of a 65/35 in your favour in my opinion because Furnace chip can be devastating for them if you Poison off their Princess without any way to deal with the Furnace other than rocketing it.
3 Muskets – Punish their Pump/Poison it in 1x elixir.
Don’t Poison in 2x elixir, this can prove to be disastrous for you because they will cycle their 3M very fast with Poison now in a bad cycle they will control tempo of the game.
Even with P.E.K.K.A they will be able to shred through her and take your tower with relative ease.
Only Poison Pumps put up before ~15-20 seconds before overtime.
If you follow this and deal with their Minions Hordes smartly, you will have an easy time vs them with them hardly getting any damage on you.
Lavaloon- Well…
You’re kinda screwed.
Base race is really the only option this deck is very weak air-counters wise.
2.6 Hog- Very popular now.
I face this at least 3 times per challenge.
Not too tough with your Furnace, Minions and Magic Archer acting as Fireball bait.
One gets Fireballed you can play the other. P.E.K.K.A hard counters Hog, and then counterpush.
Splitting your push can win you an easy game as Musket really is their main defensive card. Which you can always also Poison off.
Graveyard – Not too popular these days but reasonably popular.
Try and get Furnaces up, bait out Poison.
If they Poison Furnace then Guards/ Minions on Graveyard. Otherwise you will have to Poison defensively!
Not too tough of a matchup.
You yourself will have to rely on fire spirits chip and Ram damage.
Don’t Poison on offense unless they’d Poisoned you first or you get good value! Especially if they’ve got Graveyard in cycle.
Conclusion
Well that wraps up the first deck guide for Magic Archer.
Very very solid deck give it a try, it’s a variant of the P.E.K.K.A bridge spam deck which has been rather solid.
Not many bad match-ups make use of the Magic Archer while you can!
