Hey guys! Its Blaze back with another article for you all! Today, I will be talking about what I believe are the top 5 win-conditions in Clash Royale in the current meta, which should last for Season 19-21!
What is a Win-Condition?
Before, I start talking about what are the best win-conditions in the game, it’s a good idea to define what i mean by a “win-condition”, as I have found that it’s a somewhat vague and misleading term for new and casual players alike.
For a card to be considered as a win-condition, it should possess the following two attributes:
- It should have a lot of damage potential. That is if the card connects with a crown tower, it should be able to deal a serious amount of damage to it (proportional to its Elixir Cost). Thus it should create offensive pressure whenever you play the card.
- It should connect with the crown towers with relative ease. This means compared to other cards in the game, they should be distracted less often or should have a way to connect with crown towers different from the other cards.
The 2nd point, what most people don’t realize is the more important characteristic of a win-condition. Let’s take a few examples:
- Cards like PEKKA, Mega Knight, Prince, eBarbs shouldn’t be considered as win-conditions because even though have a lot of damage potential, they can be easily distracted by other troops, especially the cheap ones. In most high trophy matches, they would rarely connect with enemy towers.
- Cards like Giant, Hog Rider, Golem are win-conditions because they are oblivious to other troops. A counter-argument exists that they can be distracted by buildings, but so can be the cards mentioned in the above point. The ability of these building-targetting cards of ignoring other troops is the thing that makes it easier for them to connect with crown towers.
- Building cards like X-bow and Mortar are win-conditions because they can connect with crown towers from the opposite side of the arena. So even though they can be distracted by enemy buildings or troops, in order to destroy these buildings the enemy has to cross the river and fight on your side of the arena, which puts you at an advantage. This ability makes X-bow and Mortar to be considered as win-conditions.
- Princess is another card that can directly damage crown towers from your side of the arena, but her low health prevents her from being a win-condition as it greatly reduces her damage potential.
- Spell cards like Goblin Barrel and Graveyard are win-conditions because well like most spells they can be dropped directly on the crown towers.
- Miner is another card who can be dropped directly at crown towers but with his crown tower damage nerfs, he no longer has a high damage potential. IMO he should be considered to be a “pseudo win-condition”.
- Spells are in a opposite category that the troops mentioned in the 1st point i.e Spells have can connect with towers easily but they don’t have a lot of damage potentials. A counter-argument is that spells are cycled a lot in the last minute of the game, but that’s the point of having spells in the game: to get instant damage whenever needed, and as such shouldn’t be considered as win-conditions.
- Earthquake is the only exception and the main reason is that it has the highest Crown Tower Damage per elixir cost. But to use it as a sole win-condition, you need high defensive and cycling skills. It can be used in conjunction with other win-conditions, but it a spell shouldn’t have such a role in the game. It’s an unbalanced card and should be nerfed/reworked soon.
Now, that we have understood what is a win-condition, here are my top 5 picks for the best win-conditions in the game.
Best Win-conditions:
Note: This list isn’t in order of their strength, so the position in this list doesn’t relate to the cards strength in the game.
Graveyard:
Graveyard can be placed directly on enemy tower and the RNG of the spawning skeletons makes it almost impossible to completely counter a GY, and many times a GY might end up dealing a lot more damage than you may expect. This ability to the annoyance of most of player base, makes GY an extremely powerful win-condition.
Poison and Tornado, usually seen in GY decks can take out most GY-counters easily, make it even difficult to defend against a GY push. The only true counter is ironically GY’s best friend, Poison itself. However, reserving your Poison for enemy GY prevents you from going heavy on the offensive side, which a sticky situation to be in. GY Freeze is also a cheesy way to win-matches, although not so dependable.
Lava Hound:
Lava Hound has slowly crept up and become the best tank in the game. As the one of the few aerial win-conditions in the game and the sole aerial tank, it is the queen of the skies. As Bomb Tower and Goblin Cage, the top two defensive buildings in the current meta, can only distract the LH and not damage it, while the two buildings i.e. Inferno Tower and Tesla who can damage it being used in a few niche decks, LH can freely roam.
Coupled with Balloon and/or Miner, it becomes and amazing card. Balloon has the high damage threat while Miner can take out enemy defensive troops while LH tanks, and both these cards can then in-turn be tanks for the Lava Pups that spawn after LH dies. It also has amazing synergy with aerial cards like Flying Machine and all the different dragons, allowing you to form strong decks with ease.
Royal Giant:
What makes RG different from other tanks in the game, is its range attack. RG can be considered to be a sort-off siege card similar to X-bow and Mortar as it can attack from afar, but the battles are fought on the opposite side instead. Nonetheless, it makes it extremely easy for the RG to connect to the crown towers.
Since, its a common card it is extremely easy to level up, and also over-level. It’s range makes it so that opponent has to react to it quicker than other tanks, as the RG can lock-on and each RG hits deals a decent chunk of damage. You can also support it easily by dropping cards directly at the bridge and letting them do their work from your side, instead of waiting for them to go the enemy side, wherein the enemy can kill them easily.
Royal Hogs:
Although not seen as much on ladder, Royal Hogs are a strong win-condition because of two reasons: Fireball Bait and Royal Recruits. When combined, they make a formidable combo.
The strongest support cards in the game at the moment are Fireballies like Hunter, Flying Machine and Zappies. These cards can bait out Fireball which is the one of the best counter to the Hogs. Royal Recruits on the other hand are easy to use and can create a dual lane pressure by just plopping them down. In fact, you can plop down this 7 elixir card in the back right in the start, and in most scenarios the opponent would be unable to punish you.
Wall Breakers:
With only a 2 elixir cost, Wall Breakers take out 1/4th of a Princess Towers HP and can also be cycled very easily, enabling them to create a lot of pressure. Also the fact that cycle decks are thriving more and more as Clash Royale evolves, Wall Breakers are becoming a dominant win-condition.
They have two downsides: to use a wall-breakers deck, you need to learn the “Art of Cycle” and Kiting techniques & you it’s difficult to win-against bad match-ups compared to other decks. As such, the current meta wall-breaker decks can’t do well against heavy beatdown, especially Lava Hound and decks which have Arrows are an instant loss. The only way to win against them is if opponent makes a mistake in the start and you can capitalize on it, else you’re doomed.
Despite this, it fairs well against the remaining decks, and perform amazing as long as the match-making doesn’t give you problems.
That’s all folks! Hope you guys enjoyed reading this article. Have fun and Clash on!
Sayonara,
Blaze Stone
