Hey guys! Its Blaze back with another guide for you all! Today I will be talking about what I think are the 5 most underrated cards in Season 15 of Clash Royale.
What do I mean by “Underrated”?
Basically, these are cards which don’t see a lot of use (unless it’s a troll/mid-ladder deck), however when used correctly can provide a lot of value and really thrive. The way I have selected these cards is a mix of my personal opinion as well as their use-rates. Using them might sometimes catch your opponents off-guard which you can use to your advantage.
Below, I will be talking about each card and why I think they are underrated followed by some cards you can use them with.
Note: These cards aren’t stated in order of their strength as that is rather relative. Instead, they are stated alphabetically.
Underrated Cards:
Bomber:
Bomber is one of the first cards you unlock in the game and can dominate in the early arenas, but as you progress its usage drops down. A lot of people underestimate the Bomber. For a 3 elixir card, the Bomber is surprisingly tanky as it can survive Log as well as Arrows, and deals a pretty good amount of damage.
It has a small health bar which is confusing for players and makes them ignore the Bomber, but it actually has higher hp than visible so a lot of times it can get a bomb in when you don’t expect it. It is also one of the only two ranged ground splash units, the other one being the Bowler (who is a lot tankier and has a different attack mechanic) making him a somewhat unique card although he is a basic card.
Bomber can really thrive behind tanks as it can easily take care of ground swarms and can deal tonnes of damage. Since it cannot target air couple him with Baby Drag or Skel Drags too care of the skies, add in a Tornado and you can pull any defensive melee troops from the Bomber to the enemy tower and let the splash attack wreak havoc.
Electro Spirit:
Electro Spirit is second latest card added in the game and before its release, people thought it would be an over-powered card. However, it turned out to be rather underwhelming and hasn’t seen any usage other than X-bow decks (which reminds me, RIP X-bow).
eSpirit might need a small damage buff to make it a bit more viable, but I feel it is still a pretty great card. In fact, he is an amazing card in 2v2. In normal 1v1 battles, rarely does a situation arrive when all of the 9 chain attacks are used, meaning the eSpirit can never reach its full potential, unless of course it is used against swarms. However, in 2v2 since there are twice the number of cards on the arena, the eSpirit can use its chain attack to it full potential and can provide a lot of value.
The best decks to use the eSpirit are cheap cycle decks and decks which aren’t quit affected by a King Tower activation (say GY or Miner). It can really be good in Siege decks as opponents defend your buildings at the bridge and usually with small units which the eSpirit can quickly clear off and can also make the other units retarget and attack a tank instead of the building due to the stun effect.
Even though the Royal Giant is not a Siege card it works in a very similar way as it can attack far from the tower, nearer to the bridge. Here again the eSpirit can be quickly used to help the RG stay alive longer and get an extra hit.
Giant Skeleton:
Giant Skeleton is a tank which drops a devastating bomb when it dies. The major mistake people make is that they consider him as a win-condition which is wrong. The GiantSkel is not a win-condition like the other tanks in the game, instead he is a threat card similar to the role of say a Mega Knight or PEKKA. You want the GiantSkel to tank for your win-condition and when it dies have the death-bomb take care of the enemy troops.
GiantSkel is also amazing on defence. His bomb can kill almost all troops in the game bar some mini-tanks and tanks. Plop him in middle of enemy push and when he dies pull everything in with the Tornado. He is also one of the best cards to use with Clone (two bombs = infinite damage).
The best win-conditions to use him would be Hog Rider, Balloon and Skeleton Barrel. With the Hog Rider and Loon, the GiantSkel does a great job of soaking up the damage from buildings while with SkelBarrel, he works well with the Clone Spell. In the CRL World Finals, GiantSkel found lot of unprecedented success in an RG EQ deck which I believe was created by Hajime, and was later used by a lot of players.
Goblin Hut:
Goblin Hut is a building that spawns a Spear Goblin every few seconds and when destroyed spawns 3 Spear Goblins. Before the recent balance changes, Barbarian Hut was a dominant card in the meta and hence got a well deserved nerf. I feel like the BarbHut really overshadowed the GobHut and the GobHut actually has a lot of potential.
It can keep applying pressure with the waves of Spear gobs, but unlike the barb hut the spear goblins don’t pose much of a threat like 2 barbarians, which means opponent is more likely ignore the spear gobs, so they’ll actually end up dealing more damage than the barbarians.
The best decks to use the Gob Hut is along with zap/fireball bait or chip cycle decks. You can also use it with tanks like PEKKA or GiantSkel as the spear goblins can quickly snowball behind them and provide decent air support as well. It might also be used in place of Barb Hut in the GY/RG decks and do a pretty decent job and bring down the cost of the deck as well.
Guards:
Guards have always been one of my favourite cards ever since they were released in 2016 along with Fire Spirits, Furnace, Sparky, Lava Hound and Miner. That’s how old this card is, and yet the only time it was really meta was during the Goison meta which honestly was ages ago.
Supercell finally decided to rework the card and I feel that it’s a really underrated card right now. Earlier they were just skeletons with shield, now they are Skeletons (like the 1 elixir card) with the shield. Thus, they provide the same DPS as the Skeletons and have immunity to spells bar two.
The only spells that can kill them are Arrows and Poison. In the case of Arrows, even though its kinda instant, it takes 2 waves to kill them so you can drop them kinda late and they’ll be able to survive the arrows. In the case of Poison, it takes 4 ticks to kill them so the each of the Guards can get 4 hits in which is 804 dmg (67 dmg * 3 Guards * 4 seconds/ticks) at Tournament standard which is a lot of damage before they die. Thus, they can provide a lot of value.
Now, the Guards like the Skeletons are really versatile cards and thus can be used in a variety of decks. Their main use in on defence where they can be used to kill either the support troops or the win-conditions depending on the situation. They can also be used to defend against heavy hitters like PEKKA, Mini PEKKA, Prince and Elite Barbarians. They are also a decent counter to GY as they can survive the Poison for some time and can take care of a good number of skeletons, they also work well in GY decks as they can tank for the GY.
That’s all folks! Hope you guys enjoyed reading the guide and found it to be helpful! Have fun and Clash On!!
Sayonara,
Blaze Stone
