Royal Hog Deck: A 3.5 Elixir Valkyrie Guards Plan

Hi guys, my username is Joven (a joke in spanish as i’m mexican), and today I’m going to show you my finest creation. It all started when I was on Arena 4 and was still pretty new to Clash Royale, I got the Lava Hound in a Gold Chest and I was in heaven. I made a LavaLoon deck (of course) and in like 2 weeks I already was on 2000 trophies. But then, a problem occurred, in Arena 7 the players were getting smarter; they didn’t panic at the sight of the Lava Hound, they defended it successfully. My LavaLoon deck was getting weaker and weaker as i acquired more trophies. I kid you not, I got stuck on Arena 7 for about 2 months! I tried and tried very hard to create a deck that could beat (almost) any deck that you could encounter in the game, and hence this beautiful creation. Well, enough story for an article, here is the deck that I promised:

Hog Rider (Minimum lvl: 5): Offensively, the Hog Rider is as good card as you can find, he’s fast, has a lot of HP and does a lot of damage if used correctly. On the other hand, defensively, he doesn’t offer much than just a desperate distraction in order to avoid damage to your tower(s). In case your opponent has every counter for this gem he can be used as a decoy to make your opponent use said card(s) (Barbarians, Inferno Tower, Mini P.E.K.K.A.), and win the matchup with a different approach.

Royal Giant (Minimum lvl: 8): Aside from the fact that he is a slow, ranged troop, we won’t be using him very differently from the Hog Rider. It’s easier to win with this guy, though, as you just summon him and he can start shooting enemy towers from far away. On defense he can soak some damage in case you have a bad hand to counter and give you time to charge some elixir as well. If your opponent is using a fast deck (such as a Hog cycle) you won’t have to use him so dont worry about him making your deck slow.

Tesla (Minimum lvl: 8): Your defensive MVP. It isn’t very hard to use, but we are mostly going to use it as a defense to tower-targeting troops. It can handle a Hog Rider on its own(with some help of the towers), and if your opponent summons any tank (Giant, Golem, P.E.K.K.A.) you have to place it in the middle of your field and wait for it to get closer, after that you take care of the support troops (if they send any). If your opponent’s deck is based on the air game you will have to involve this card in your strategy a bit more. You want to make sure you place it correctly as it not being properly placed can lose you the match.

Fire Spirits (Minimum lvl: 8): These little guys are a gadget card, as they are used as the situation demands it to. They can help on offense, with the common mini-push of Hog Rider in front of them, or you can use them to protect your Royal Giant from a Minion Horde or any low HP troops in general. Defensively they are used to counter Barbarians, kill a lone Musketeer, help on aerial defense, or any situation that demands splash damage. They can also be used to sweep quickly through your cards to get the one you really need. Read more about the super Fire Spirits at here.

Valkyrie (Minimum lvl: 6): She is, in my opinion, the best card in the game as she has a lot of HP for a 4 elixir card, has splash damage that you can somewhat control (not like a Baby Dragon that sometimes targets the wrong cards). In this deck she is used for a variety of reasons but mainly to get rid of the supporting troops of a giant deck, as those are very common in the game. She can also be used to absorb some heavy damage, like a couple Mini P.E.K.K.A. hits or the charge of a Prince, while some other card does the real damage. If she survives the defense she can be easily used as rebound damage, mainly with the Hog Rider.

Guards (Minimum level: 2): On my past decks, one of my struggles was that i couldn’t counter P.E.K.K.A. or Prince decks, much less a Sparky deck. The answer? Guards. They are going to be the nightmare of your opponent if he uses strong single-hit troops. In case your opponent doesn’t have such cards you are going to use them in different situations; to help killing a Giant, distract an incoming Musketeer, exterminate a lone Princess damaging your tower, etc. Use them as you would use Skeletons or Goblins.

Fireball (Minimum level: 6): This is a very important card, as it will have many tasks during a match. It is used to destroy Elixir Collectors to prevent your opponent from having more elixir to play with (PLEASE destroy them, if you don’t you will lose). This spell is also used to damage a group of different mid-HP troops (Musketeer, Wizards, Barbarians, Mini P.E.K.K.A., Valk… you get it) as this tends to prevent a lot of rebound damage. It can also be used, and i strongly recommend this, as slightly more expensive arrows. Please take a look at here to read more about the Fireball!

Zap (Minimum level: 9): Level 8 is also ok but level 9 is optimal as you will encounter level 9 Goblins frequently and you want to be able to kill them only with the zap. Other than that i don’t really have to tell you how to use this all-purpose card.

General Gameplan

At the start of the match you can only use these 3 cards: Hog Rider, Royal Giant and Fireball. If none is in your hand wait for the opponent to do anything as the other 5 cards in the deck can play critical roles in the match and you don’t want to waste them in the beginning. If you get the Hog Rider in your starting hand summon him on the upper left corner of your area when you have about 8 of elixir, we want to see how it is defended to plan ahead in the match. Do the same with the Royal Giant but with him wait until you have 10 of elixir, if you have both on your starting hand use the Hog Rider. As i mentioned before use the Fireball with an elixir collector or an expensive medium-HP troop (Barbarians, Wizard and Witch) and make sure you hit the tower too.

The main strategy of this deck is to know your opponents’ deck and use their weaknesses against them. The starting Hog Rider/Royal Giant move is to reveal the counters that your opponent will use against your win-condition cards.

Let’s say that your opponent has both the Barbarians and the Minion Horde on his deck, you start with the Royal Giant and he uses the Minion Horde (as they tend to kill troops faster than Barbarians), you use Fire Spirits and the Horde is gone. His desperate answer? Barbarians. There really isn’t a good way to counter them while they’re defending so we wait until they kill our Giant, after that we deal with the Barbarians with our Valkyrie or Fireball. The next move you do is send the Hog Rider and your opponent will not have a good defense against it; by this point you will have done 1000+ damage to his tower while receiving none!

After that you defend your opponents’ push and rinse & repeat the story told above. There are a lot of counters to our main win conditions, though; the catch is in knowing exactly what your opponent is going to use and know what to do about it.

If your opponent counters with:

• Minion Horde: Easy, Fire spirits and boom.
• Any small troops: Read the sentence above.
• Barbarians: Bait them and counter them at your side of the arena.
• Witch: The Witch herself isn’t a threat, the skeletons are. Zap them or use the Fire Spirits to protect the troop that is attacking the tower.
• Mini P.E.K.K.A. & Prince: These two are the best counters against our offensive weapons, there really isn’t a good counter to them when they are defending so you would have to do the same as the Barbarians, the difference is that they make you waste more elixir.
• Inferno tower: If your opponent has this strong card you have to bait it with the Hog Rider, and then you let your Royal Giant a little far from it so he attacks it without the Inferno targeting him, or wait until it disappears, whichever one you want.
• Any other structure: Pretty much the same as the Inferno tower but in here you can also bait with the Royal Giant.

Some opponents will have more than one of the counters mentioned above, and that’s when the matchup gets tricky, but since there can be lots of combinations possible i leave that up to you to figure out with help of this guide.

If the matchup is about to end, and your opponents’ tower is low on HP you can go with an aggressive push of Royal Giant and Hog Rider. This is a high risk high reward move that you should ONLY pull out when you’re sure at least one of them is going to do a real amount of damage or enough for you to win the match. If your match is 1-1 you don’t go for the 3 crowns; you have to use the combo mentioned in this paragraph but with a twist: You summon the Royal Giant in his area of the field, but you don’t want the king’s tower to attack him, and then you send the Hog Rider through the normal lane behind the river. This troop placement makes the push harder to defend and you are almost guaranteed to win the match if done correctly.

Common Matchups

Hog Trifecta: The most important thing to do in this matchup is destroy the collectors. That way the opponent won’t be able to overwhelm you with the only combo he can send (Hog Rider pushing Valkyrie with Musketeer behind). To defend said combo you summon your Tesla to attract the Hog Rider and then you summon a Valkyrie close to the Tesla so it can damage his Hog and Valkyrie simultaneously. If you have enough elixir you can summon the Guards or Fire Spirits to kill the Musketeer.

Standard Giant/P.E.K.K.A./Golem Decks: You summon the Tesla in the middle, as said before, and you take care of the supporting troops with the Valkyrie and something else to back her up if needed. Save your Fireball as some players will attempt to destroy your Tesla with a Minion Horde.

P.E.K.K.A. Double Prince Decks: Tesla in the middle, and when the three get closer you zap them to stop both princes’ charges, summon the Valkyrie to handle the 2 princes and the guards to handle the P.E.K.K.A. and if you have enough elixir you summon the Fire Spirits to do some big damage to the 3 troops.

Sparky Decks: Most of these decks use a Giant in front of Sparky, so, Tesla in the middle and if Sparky was sent alone, Guards, if not Zap it, Valkyrie to deal with the support and after that Guards or Fire Spirits.

Miner Decks: If you don’t have enough elixir ignore the Miner, focus on destroying the other troops sent in the push as those are the ones who do the real damage. However if you do have plenty of elixir to use you can summon Guards or Fire Spirits right next to the Miner.

Giant Balloon Decks: This one is tricky, if your opponents’ troops are over-leveled (level 8 Giant against the minimum level of this deck) you are going to lose the match. But if his troops are a decent level you put the Tesla in the middle and use your Fireball and your Fire Spirits at both troops, that way when the Giant is gone, your tower can finish off the Balloon before it does some serious damage.

Royal Giant Decks: If he is sent alone defend him with the Tesla (Make sure the Giant targets it) and the Guards. If he is sent with support,such as the Bomber, Wizards, Baby Dragon or Witch, put the Valkyrie on one side of the Giant to absorb the splash damage and put the Guards on the other side so they can comfortably attack the Royal Giant.

Replacements

This part of the guide is only for those F2P users that arent used to play with a card mentioned above or don’t have a card leveled up enough to use this deck properly. If you do not fall in that category skip this part.

I will start by saying that you cant replace the Royal Giant, Hog Rider, Fireball or the Valkyrie.

• Tesla: You can replace this with the Inferno Tower but i do not recommend it as it will make the deck vulnerable to some Hog Rider Decks, its a matter of with what you feel more confortable with.
• Fire Spirits: They can only be replaced by the Minions or Princess, as any other small troop would leave your deck vulnerable to air attack.
• Guards: You can replace them for any small troop but i do not recommend it as the Guards can survive a Zap, Arrows or any spell while other troops can’t.
• Zap: Arrows only, but the Zap is 10 times more versatile and useful than them.

Thanks for reading my guide, comment if you liked it or not, and remember: at the first few tries you might lose with this deck, you have to practice with it, to really get to know the cards you’re using and when you are using them.