Following the success of Clash of Clans is Clash Royale, but don’t call it a sequel! Clash Royale is completely different from Clash of Clans, and only similar in that it uses the same characters, the same aesthetic, and the same overarching goal.
Today, Appamatix has a list of our 10 best Clash Royale secrets, tips and tricks (though, we’re going to advise using any of the internet’s frequently promised “hacks.”) If you’re a newbie that’s struggling to learn the ropes of the game or a Clash Royale veteran that’s looking for a few new tried-and-true techniques to implement, keep reading to see what top Clash Royale players are doing to ensure victory!
If you’ve never played a “card battler,” you’re in for a treat. Rather than the real-time strategy approach that Clash of Clans took, Clash Royale is all about executing abilities and using your characters against your opponent’s tribe with the use of a deck of customized cards. The concept may be new to some, but it’s been around and popular for decades and has only just recently been popularized in digital gaming rather than, you know, a deck of cards that you carry around on your person.
The strategy is still the core of the game, though, and if you were a fan of Clash of Clans, there’s a good chance that you’re going to enjoy Clash Royale as well, even if it’s an entirely different type of game. Your goal–overwhelming and defeating your opponent–is still exactly the same, and all of the structures, units, and weapons that you became familiar with in Clash of Clans are going to reappear here. Even the same basic ideas that you used for strategies in Clash of Clans can be applied in Clash Royale, but that’s where the similarities end.
Practice Makes Perfect
First things first: when you’re learning your way around a new game that revolves around building and executing a winning strategy, you’re going to need to spend some time getting a feel both for the game itself and the way that people play it. Failure to skip this critical–and sometimes time-consuming–step can result in the feeling that you’re spinning your wheels, not getting anywhere and never earning yourself a proper victory.
If you’re not good at Clash Royale right when you start out, don’t give up! It can be useful to receive a good clobbering or two, but only if you use those experiences to learn. Watch what your opponents are doing, what cards they’re using, and pay particular attention to strategies and moves that appeal to you. There’s no such thing as “theft” in strategy games, so take the tactics that you enjoy and work on incorporating them into your own plans.
Patience When Learning
It can be tempting to commit to a 100% offensive style of play when you’re first starting out, because who doesn’t want to kick ass right out of the gate? I did, but the thing is, it hugely slowed down my progress in learning how to play the game. The only things that I picked up on were the particular strengths of each individual card, but rarely did I learn the benefits of holding onto certain cards or playing more slowly when I had a bad hand.
You should also apply patience when you’re taking your turns. Don’t wait out the timers like Rip Van Winkle, but pay attention to the cards in your hand, what you can do with them, and don’t make a play just for the sake of making a play.
Know Your Cards
This is easy to say, hard to put into use, but you should always be paying attention to what the cards in your hand (and your deck) are capable of. A winning strategy is going to consist of knowing the various opportunities that certain cards and card pairings can give you.
There’s more to building a good deck than just stacking powerful cards together, and it’s all about synergy. If all of your cards have a high elixir cost, you’re going to be so slow out of the gate that your opponents will have the upper hand before you even make a decent play. Similarly, if you don’t have a strategy in place to take advantage of your deck’s strongest cards, there’s a chance that they could fall flat against some of your opponent’s most economic maneuvers.
Commit to Strategy
Many games on mobile app stores are designed to be instantly gratifying. You can pick them up, play for a few minutes, and already be on your way to a successful winning streak after the most subtle learning curve. Clash Royale doesn’t work this way, and the card battler genre is instead designed to rewards persistence, learning, and a bit more time spent than your average mobile game might require.
When I say, “it’s important to have a strategy,” that doesn’t mean that yours is going to be easy to find. It takes a certain level of mastery to know what each of the cards is going to do and how they work together, and that mastery is only going to come with time. However, it’s easy to undermine your own progress by forgoing certain strategies just because they don’t reward you with immediate victories. If you’re trying a throughput defensive strategy and your opponent still manages to pummel you, don’t give up on it! Pay attention to what cards they’re using, and work on finding ways to defend against that.
Giving up on a particular strategy is tantamount to going back to square one.
Elixir is Life
No matter how good your cards are, your current amount of elixir is going to control how quickly you can put them into play during a match. Therefore, just as much as you need to know your cards and have a good idea of your deck’s synergy, you need to know that they’ll work well with the building amounts of elixir while you’re playing.
Similarly, the elixir is one of the only ways that you can get a “read” on your opponent since it’s a good measure of what they’ll be able to do during a given turn. While knowing your cards is more important overall, always keep an eye on elixir, for every turn of a game.
Onto the Killing Floor
Think about this–where, on the map, can you do the absolute most damage to your opponent? Where your mobile units and your defensive structures can both reach, right?
The “killing floor” is the small area of the map that’s on your half, but still as close to the overall middle of the map as you can get. In this stretch, enemy units are still kept away from your structures, but you can hammer them with cheap ground units and your defenses.
It’s a pseudo-offensive maneuver that, when practiced constantly, can provide you with a defense that appears practically impenetrable.
Gem Wisely
Since Clash Royale is a free-to-play game with monetization options in the app, you can guess that your gameplay progress is going to be gated by some type of purchase that can be made in the app’s shop. As was the case with Clash of Clans, that progress gate is gems.
You can gain gems through normal gameplay, but you’ll never gain them at a rate that they become a currency you can stop caring about. They’ll always be at the front of your mind, and that’s where they’re supposed to be. After all, you’re supposed to want to buy some, right?
The best way to get around this constant temptation is to hang onto your gems when you earn them, and only spend them when you absolutely have to. Typically, the game will frontload you with gems in an attempt to get you accustomed to spending them. As soon as you’re out, though, and the rate that you earn gems slows to a trickle (similar to the way it does with coins), it’s going to be tempting to buy them.
In addition to saving yourself a bit of money, playing the game at the pace permitted by gems will allow you to grow and implement your strategies at a natural pace. If you attempt to “buy” your way into success, your attempts are going to pale in the face of opponents who have spent more time learning the game.
Don’t Be Hasty
There are a few reasons that people rush when they don’t have to, especially in real-time games. Sometimes, you feel supremely comfortable with a particular move or set of cards. Other times, you feel rushed and pressured by the ticking clock.
Either way, being overly hasty is a mighty good way to end up getting your butt kicked when you’re matched against an opponent that’s taking the right amount of time to study your moves and strategy. Among the best habits that you can get into is using your time–usually measured by elixir–wisely. Check and double-check each card you put down, each attack you make against your opponent. If nothing else, you’ll make them nervous as they watch you taking your time.
Playing the Weak Hand
Let’s face it: sometimes, you’re going to get a weak hand. Sometimes, it’ll feel like all that you’re getting is a series of weak hands, but part of being a frequent winner is knowing how to best put those weak hands to good use. Yes, it’s possible. Here’s how.
The key is playing defensively when you know that you can’t form up a strong offensive. After all, a half-assed offensive won’t prove anything, so use weak hands as an opportunity to make sure that your defensive structures are fine.
Use Your Strategy to Upgrade
In most resource-based strategy games, I always advise new players to be balanced in their upgrading. In Clash Royale, I advise much of the same, with the sole exception that you should focus on upgrading your cards based on the frequency with what you use them.
When you start to develop a favored strategy after playing the game for a while, you’ll probably notice that you start to gravitate towards certain cards. Even though I suggest that you upgrade across the entire spread, you should begin your upgrades, every time, with the cards that you know you’re going to use.
And therein are our 10 basic tenets for succeeding in Clash Royale! It’s likely that you can find a host of differing information from other Clash veterans, but whether you’re new to the game or someone that’s been playing since day one, we feel that these “best practices” will help you to consistently up your game. Still have questions about Clash Royale, or tips, tricks and techniques (no hacks, please) to recommend? Let us know in the comments below!
