Hi everyone, it’s Excalibur back with a guide on how to use the Elixir Collector in Clash Royale.
The Elixir Collector is a six Elixir card that is unlocked in Arena 8: Frozen Peak. It allows you to produce more Elixir. One 
Elixir is added to your Elixir bar every 8.5 seconds.
It can produce a maximum of 8 Elixir over its 70-second timer. That means it’ll give +2 Elixir (when you deduct its cost) when you plant it – provided it lives that long.
Elixir Collector Summary
Pros
- Gives you +2 Elixir, and is the only card in the game that produces Elixir passively.
- It can be used to ‘store’ Elixir before a big push. Think of it as an investment – a place to put 6 Elixir and get +2 for your storage.
- It can also be used to expand your storage by 1 Elixir. If you’re at 10 Elixir, and an Elixir Collector sitting on your map is full, it will not drop the Elixir it contains – thus giving you 11 Elixir. Each Elixir Collector can store 1 such Elixir, which will be added to your bar when you use a card.
Cons
- It is very prone to spell value! A Fireball/Poison can deny 6 out of the possible 8 Elixir generated, and Fireball 2 levels higher will completely destroy the Elixir Collector. If it is timed properly, no Elixir is gained – you’ve lost out on 2 Elixir AND your tower is damaged.
- It is a very-high-risk-but-low-reward card. You’re essentially spending 6 Elixir to get +2, and you may not have Elixir left for defense. If the opponent takes the tower behind which the Elixir Collector is hiding, you’ve lost the Collector too.
- Miner is one of the greatest weaknesses of the Elixir Collector. He can completely destroy the Collector for a +3 trade, and then proceed to deal about a hundred damage to your tower.
Cons that turn into pros
- Spell Value. As the Collector is often the victim of Rocket, Fireball, Lightning and Poison, you can use it to bait these spells out. Then you can deploy cards which are high-reward but prone to Fireball, like Three Musketeers or Royal Hogs.
- Kidding. There’s only one con which turns to pro.
Spell Match-ups
The Elixir Collector is best used in certain decks that either rely on baiting spells, or on all-or-nothing pushes. To use this card, you have to be aware of the spells the enemy has.
| Spell Used | Position of Collector | Resultant Production | Collateral Damage |
| Fireball | Behind Tower | 2 Elixir | ~250 |
| Front of King | 2 Elixir | ||
| Poison | Behind Tower | 2 Elixir | ~220 |
| Front of King | 2 Elixir | ||
| Lightning | Behind Tower | 0 Elixir | ~320 |
| Front of King | 0 Elixir | ||
| Rocket | Behind Tower | 0 Elixir | ~450 |
| Front of King | 0 Elixir | None | |
| Miner | —- | 0 Elixir | ~120 |
Fireball
This is an okay match-up for you. There’s only one way that you’ll be able to retain your Collector long enough to actually get any benefits: use another card as bait. Give Fireball value away, but try to keep it under 2 Elixir – because that’s what you’re going to recover.
Rocket
If you know the opponent has Rocket, do not place the Collector behind your Tower, as this will give him Rocket value. Place it directly in front of your King Tower. The Collector won’t survive, but at least your opponent will not get spell value.
Lightning
This one is a bummer. Lightning has a large enough radius that it’s able to hit the Collector, the Tower AND another troop nearby. You’ll lose out on the six elixir, but don’t bait Lightning with anything else. It’s a tough match-up, possible worse than Fireball because Lightning does a great job of breaking up pushes.
Poison
This spell is actually the nightmare of 3M Bait decks, because unlike Fireball, Poison deals damage slowly in a larger radius. This closes the window to split the 3M behind the King.
Poison’s large area denial and long duration makes sure that swarms cannot protect the 3M on defense. Thus you cannot use Royal Recruits, Minion Horde or Goblin Gang to stall for the 3M’s long deploy time. Moreover, experienced players will note the position you play the 3M in and Poison the area when they push the next time.
8 Tips for Elixir Collector
- If you’re playing against a Miner Poison deck, plant the Collector on the furthest tile from the King tower to the left or right. This makes sure that they’ll Poison the Collector, but the radius isn’t big enough to kill the Split 3M. Also there’s less squares to put the Miner on – he cannot be played on an occupied square.
- The ideal time to plant the Collector is when the timer reads 1:30. The real benefits of the Collector start to show after 70 seconds, so you’ll get a boost of 2 Elixir roughly when Double Elixir is halfway.
- Against beatdown decks, play the Collector in front of the King’s Tower.
- Against Log/Zap bait, use the tile just below the tower. This prevents Tricky Barrel, as the Goblins will attack the Collector.
- For effective Elixir collection, pay attention to the visuals of the Collector. The Elixir is showed filling up in the container. When you see that it’s filled/about to fill completely, it’s time to make space in the Elixir Bar.
- Alternatively, you can deploy 2 or more Collectors to effectively increase your total Elixir Storage. If you’re sitting at 10 Elixir and the Collectors are full, they won’t leak that Elixir. You can then deploy a unit, like a PEKKA, and the Elixir from the Collectors will fill your bar again.
- Keep in mind that the ‘storing’ of Elixir doesn’t stop the Collector from slowly losing health, so you can do this for only ~15 seconds before you start losing on your Collector.
- In a pinch, the Elixir Collector can be used to completely stop a Ram Rider – at an even trade. Do a 5-2 placement just as the Ram jumps over the bridge. A jump stops the charge, so that will slow the Ram down while your Collector does its thing. The Ram will attack the Collector four times. With just a sliver of health remaining, the Collector will spit out 1 Elixir while the tower deals with the Ram.
- This should not be done for a charging Ram Rider.
- A VERY risky move is planting the Collector at a 5-2 placement and then quick-dropping a Dark Prince directly in front of it. This baits out ranged attackers like Wizard, Musketeer and Dart Goblin which will be killed by the Dark Prince. This should only be done if you want Balloon/Lavahound counters to be baited out.
So that’s it guys, hope this guide helped out on how to use Elixir Collector. See you in the Arena, Excalibur out.
