Clash Royale is a mobile game that is taking the youth by storm, including myself. In Clash Royale you make your own decks with many different cards the game has to offer and play against other players and their own decks. The two biggest achievements in Clash Royale are getting to 15K trophies or getting to Ultimate Champion. 

If you’re a player who is stuck in lower arenas and with lower trophies, expand their knowledge and game understanding  from an Ultimate Champion and 15K trophy players perspective by providing looks into the new meta decks and opinions from other clash royale players on the new evolutions for the month.

Before you go for any trophies or status, you need to understand the different archetypes used in the game: control, bridge spam, siege, beatdown, bait, and cycle.

Control: The first archetype is control. The way to play control is to play insanely defensive while occasionally going for chip damage, hence controlling the game and keeping map control. The most common deck is miner control or graveyard which have been heavily used in the past months in top ladder. 

Bridge Spam: The second archetype is bridge spam; the most popular bridge spam deck is pekka bridge spam. Bridge spam decks will almost always have a battle ram in it. The strategy to play bridge spam is defend until double elixir and when double elixir comes you constantly pressure your opponent till your offensive overwhelms them and you win

Siege: The third archetype, which I use myself, is a siege deck, which will have either xbow or mortar in it. One thing about the two cards is that xbow decks tend to be more defensive with a few exceptions, while mortar decks tend to have more of a spam play style with a lot of swarm cards. 

Beat down: The fourth archetype is beat down; the most common deck is Golem beat down. This deck archetype has to be one of the most no skill archetypes because the way you play allows your opponent to get a lot of damage on your tower. Wait for double elixir and build an unstoppable and gigantic push in the back while sacrificing their towers most of the time.

Bait: The fifth deck archetype is called bait; this is another deck. That is very self explanatory: the main decks that are considered bait are called log bait or fireball bait.The main goal of these decks is to bait out a certain spell and then punish your opponent for using that spell often getting tons of damage after.

Cycle: Last but not least is cycle. Cycle decks often have low elixir cost and punish you if you let them get deep into triple elixir, because their cycle is so quick. To play this deck, you constantly pressure opponents, not allowing them to build a push.

With each archetype in mind I interviewed two clash players to see their archetypes:

Charlie Brady is in the class of 2027 and attends Salisbury. Brady has peaked at 15k trophies and hit the rank of master.  

“My favorite deck archetype is beat down,” said Brady.

This is one of the main 6 archetypes, but he doesn’t play a traditional beat-down deck. He plays a giant, evo witch and his win condition in the deck is evo skeleton barrel. 

When asked about how he approaches games and his play style,  he said, “I mostly try and defend as much as I can until  double elixir without over spending. Right before double elixir, I like to build my push. But if I’m able to get a really good elixir trade in a single elixir, I will create a counter push and many times I win the game in that push.”

I wanted to get an insight of his opinion on what is too overpowered in the eyes of a beat down player, so players can understand what may be usable to push trophies or be ranked in a beat down META.

Brady said, “Evo executioner is very annoying and I always find berserker to be a cheap counter to me and almost every deck I play has vines which is really annoying and disassembles my whole push.”

Another player, Elijah Richardson, who is the class of 2027 and attends Park Slope Collegiate, has peaked at 7.7k trophies. He never played ranked, and his main win condition is goblin barrel. 

Richardson said, “My deck doesn’t have a specific archetype but is more homemade.” 

A vast majority of people have homemade decks and don’t have much structure with their decks but I wanted to hear what his opinion on the most over powered cards are towards his deck. 

Richardson said, “Boss bandit regardless of the nerf, prince is very annoying and the last one has to go to goblin giant.”

Download Clash Royale: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/clash-royale/id1053012308