YMMV / Clash Royale

• Accidental Innuendo: The commercial for The Log. “It’s big! It’s solid! It’s wood!”
• Broken Base: Legendary cards. Are they a good addition to the game that should be powerful, or are they annoying and unnecessary for being rare and locking free to play players from some of the most powerful decks in the game?
• Demonic Spiders:
  • The Royal Giant in ladder games. Before the June update, he was often considered one of, if not THE worst card in the game. After the June update provided a range buff to him, he became one of the most powerful cards in the game. His range (which is described to give him the magic ability to avoid damage from towers), damage and health makes him a very formidable enemy. Even worse is that you can't bait his targeting to target something like a barbarian or skeleton, as he only targets buildings, meaning he is pretty much guaranteed to get at least a couple shots in on your tower. Even worse still is after a tower is destroyed, the opponent can place the Royal Giant near the other tower while also avoiding damage from the King tower, meaning what's normally supposed to make getting two crowns harder is completely absent, and getting the second tower is even easier than normal. Needless to say, many players react accordingly when one is placed down. What's even worse is that since he is at Common rarity, he is very easy to obtain and level up meaning that you can easily encounter a maxed 13-level RG in virtually all your Legend runs. In the October 2018 balance update, his damage was buffed and his deploy time is now 1 sec (instead of 2 sec), making him even more of a threat even with the range nerf in the same update. Averted with Tournament play however as due to their rules, you can only level him up to level 9, making him much easier to be dealt with.
  • Another despised tank card is the Golem. Its sheer amount of health greatly makes up for its sluggish pace, since if the card is dropped at the bridge at the beginning of the game and the opponent has no counters, the Golem will effortlessly destroy one of the Princess Towers and move on to take down the King Tower. It's extremely expensive at 8 Elixir, but double time and sudden death make this a non-issue, and the Golem is just as effective at defensive due to its spawns and death damage (the golem and its golemites each cause death damage. If you destroy it once it connects with your tower, you're still going to take massive damage). The Golem itself also has deceptively high damage per second, since its health lets it easily get away with more than 4 hits if it connects with most of its hitpoints. Oh, and nothing's stopping your opponent from bringing support cards.
  • Elite Barbarians, also in ladder games (A Common card, which makes them easy to overlevel and extremely likely to encounter). For 6 Elixir, you can spawn 2 extremely fast Barbarians with high HP and attack stats. They have enough health to survive and kill off most defensive options, and still have enough to latch onto a tower. Combine that with their extremely high offensive stats and you have a pair of Lightning Bruisers that can cut tanks to shreds and single-handedly take down towers. Things got worse after balance changes in 2021 that reduce the amount of time it takes for the Elite Barbarians to launch their first attack, similarly to the Balloon.
  • Among defensive cards, the Inferno Tower deals damage which increases as it continues to hit the same target. Most tanks are incinerated by it.
  • Royal Recruits have become extremely dangerous in the beginning of 2021. They were already problematic when they first released; the recruits were a swarm of 6 tanky, high DPS units that are deployed in a horizontal line, creating an instant dual-lane push. The real issue was their shields, since they prevented the recruits from simply being spelled down. They are spread out too far for spells to hit all the recruits at once without them being pulled, but the Bomb Tower was good at its job until 2021, in which Supercell severely nerfed its damage. Also, they work well with a lot of fireball vulnerable troops (Zappies, Flying Machine, Mother Witch...) so the opponent can only fireball one side, while the other side of recruits wreck havoc.
  • Most legendary cards can be this, if you don't have the right cards to counter them.
    • The Lava Hound is a very tanky flying troop. Unlike ground-bound tanks like the Giant and the Golem, it cannot be body-blocked by Zerg Rushes, making it very hard to slow down without a building to distract it. And also unlike ground-bound tanks, which can be whittled down with troops like Barbarians or Skeleton horde, only two cards do a good job at dealing good damage to it, those being Musketeer and Minion Horde (The latter being a Glass Cannon and easily taken out by arrows and zap). And once you do take it out, it splits into six smaller Lava Hounds (Lava pups, to be exact), which while not nearly as tanky as it, have much higher DPS.
    • On the surface, the Ice Wizard might not have great stats, having average hit-points with a weak splash damage. Until you examine a bit further on why he is at a Legendary rarity and is among the best card in Clash Royale. For starters, he has a slow effect that slows down troops and buildings that can easily aid in either slowing down a push, do a mini siege by himself, or even wipe out swarms by himself. His hit points are also high enough that he can easily tank a Fireball^note He can be instantly killed by either Rocket or Lightning, but you will have a tremendous Elixir disadvantage doing so. and makes him difficult to counter. All this versatility with the cost of 3 Elixir meaning that it is very easy to create an Elixir advantage with this card.
    • The Miner by himself is okay, being a more squishy Knight of sorts... Aside from the fact that you can place him anywhere on the map, even on areas that'd normally be restricted to everything else. This makes him a dangerous target to people who use Elixir Collectors, as even if you place them behind towers, your opponent can place their Miner onto it, where he will chip it away and waste the 6 elixir you spent on it.
    • The Log. It's similar to the Arrows, as it excels at damaging Zerg Rushes, but also has the added effect of pushing all troops back^note This also includes the Giant, Sparky and PEKKA, whom normally can't be knocked back.. This allows for even the strongest pushes to be slowed down and stopped.
    • The Princess. She has a really large range and a really good splash attack. This allows for any Zerg Rush to be completely destroyed. And her long range allows her to attack a tower far enough away that it won't damage her. So you can't even just ignore it and let everything else take her out. This, however, can work against her, as you can let her attack the tower, then place a cheap troop like Skeletons near her, so they can take her out unharmed and with little damage to your tower. She's also extremely vulnerable to arrows and zap, even moreso than Minion Horde.
    • The Lumberjack makes for a scary pushing troop. He's a fast-moving and attacking troop that can quickly whittle down towers against unprepared players and drops a rage spell upon death. He has low HP, but this works to his advantage, as he dies and drops his rage faster, allowing for pushes to overwhelm the foe more quickly. His benefit over just using a rage spell is that he can soak up damage as your main push troops head for the tower, allowing your push to last longer. He's at his worst when he's paired up with other dangerous cards, like the Elite Barbarians and Balloons.
    • The Electro Wizard in general. For a fairly cheap price of 4 Elixir, you can summon an Electro Wizard that has decent damage and health. That would be fine...except that he can attack 2 targets at once, and every attack stuns their targets momentarily. He has just enough HP to tank spells like Fireball, and his stunning attacks mean that he can easily shut down pushes when used as a support. Oh, and he also deals damage in a radius around him when deployed, which can deal with swarm troops sent to counter your damage-dealer or tank.
    • The Graveyard allows the player to summon an army of Skeletons from anywhere in the arena including your opponents side of the field. This means that you can have the spell summon them into an opposing Crown tower and deal a lot of damage if left ignored. But then you back them up with a high hit-point unit such as a Giant and Bowler and they will easily destroy your tower unless you have an answer to them both. The only downside to this is that if they are not properly placed, you could end up pre-emptively activate the King's tower and they could easily dispatch your skeletons with little damage done to the building.
    • The Mega Knight is a titanic tank that deals area damage upon being deployed and before he approaches the target, he jumps on them (which absolutely cannot be stopped, not even Zap or being frozen), dealing another area damage which makes swarm cards such as Goblin Gang and Skeleton Army completely ineffective in stopping him. Even his normal attack deals area damage which makes him rather difficult to stop unless you have an anti-tank or flying card such as Inferno Tower or Minion Horde. This doesn't even matter on ladder, since at max level he hits nearly as hard as a P.E.K.K.A while being a splash card.
    • Inferno Dragon is by far the most common tank buster, due to many seeing it as a direct upgrade from the Inferno Tower in every way besides dps (Even then, Inferno Dragon's max dps is only slightly lower than the tower's) and health. It's cheaper at 4 elixir, flys, which eliminates many counters, and can also counter push effectively due to having the highest dps in the game, though it takes a few seconds for the damage to ramp up.
    • The Royal Ghost can only be visible if he attacks a valid target. This makes flying troops ineffective in dealing with him, since he doesn't attack them, which means they'll completely ignore each other. His attack is an AOE so he is somewhat effective against swarms and if players do not know how to deal with him, he can quickly approach your tower unopposed and deal a good amount of damage against it. And since he only cost 3 Elixir, this means that gaining an Elixir advantage against him is impossible since none of the 2 or less Elixir cards are even effective in stopping him.
• Game-Breaker:
  • The Royal Giant was widely considered to be one of the worst cards when it was released. A ranged tank seemed like a good idea on paper, but the card was terrible at protecting supporting troops due to stopping to target buildings from afar. Eventually, Supercell buffed the Royal Giant in the May update by increasing his range by 1 tile. Suddenly, Royal Giant went from being one of the worst cards in the game to a highly offensive card capable of soloing towers. The increased range meant he could no longer be targeted by arena towers, and could manage at least 1-2 shots if placed at the bridge with no supporting cards. The Royal Giant's reign of terror persisted for 2 months, until Supercell finally nerfed him.... by reducing his damage by 4%. The card went unhindered until the August update, where in his hit speed was increased to 1.7 seconds, considerably lowering his damage per second and pushing the card back into neutral territory.
  • The infamous Giant Poison combo. The basic idea was to drop down the Giant and proceed to drop Poison on the defending troops. The most common counter there was to the Giant was to overwhelm him with swarm troops, which could all be instantly killed by Poison. Poison also lasts ten seconds, meaning you could not place down swarm troops to kill the giant until the duration was up. Even troops with a fair amount of health had trouble killing the Giant because of Poison slowing down their attack speed. Even the Inferno Tower, every tank's hard counter, could be zapped and poisoned itself, rendering it useless. Things went from bad to worse when Bowler was thrown into the mix to ensure that nothing would survive. After hundreds of complaints and the TV Royal being full of Giant Poison decks, both cards were nerfed in the October Update. Giant had his health decreased, and Poison was stripped of its slowing capabilities, ending the effectiveness of the combo once and for all.
  • After receiving a huge buff in December 2016, the Elite Barbarians turned from one of the worst cards in the game into the most overpowered card in the entire Clash Royale meta. At the cost of 6 elixir, you can spawn a pair of extremely fast Barbarians with very high damage output and moderately high hitpoints. Their hitpoints enabled them to tank several spell cards while their great damage output allowed them to kill any tanks that came across them before they even put a dent in the tower. Their very fast speed also enables them to quickly decimates your own tower if left unopposed, but since they're quick you need to have a fast reaction time or it's bye bye to your trophies. They're so prevalent that they single-handedly made many decks (Golem, Lava Hound, Royal Giant, and siege decks) useless and forced many players to carry multiple anti-Elite Barbarian cards (Skeleton Army, Minion Horde, Tombstone, Barbarians and opposing Elite Barbarians and even then they're probably gonna carry cards to counter them) just to deal with them, which severely limits deck building. Adding insult to injury, since they have a common rarity, it's incredibly easy to overlevel them in ladder games and you will probably encounter them in one out of the two games you will play.
  • The community-dubbed "Lavaloon" tactic is this. For those lucky enough to have the Legendary Lava Hound, pairing it up with a Balloon turned out to be one of the most devastating combos in the game. The Lava Hound would absorb damage from the Tower and defending units while the Balloon would deal incredible damage to their towers. It's extremely hard to stop, as the two can easily shut down Inferno Towers and other buildings, and the Balloon's death damage can kill off Minion Hordes sent to target it. Targeting the Hound first would result in the Balloon destroying your tower, and targeting the Balloon first would blow up your defending troops, leaving you open for another push. And the icing on the cake is that the remaining cards in Lavaloon decks are generally spells to kill off defending troops or Clone/Rage to make the push even more unstoppable. Nowadays, people pair up the Balloon with the Lumberjack (Lumberloon) and it is just as, or possibly even more dangerous. Killing the Lumberjack will boost the Balloon with its Rage spell, boosting pass defenses and dealing absurb amounts of Tower damage. Kill the Balloon, and you still have a high DPS mini tank to deal with, who will buff the next troops your opponent sends. Combined with a Freeze spell, it almost guarantees you lose a tower, or even your King! And there is nothing stopping your opponent from starting the game with those three particular cards, so if you don't have a counter in your starting deck, you will lose a Princess Tower in the first few seconds of the game.
  • Beatdown decks are similar, but the main difference is that you place your tank (Usually a Golem or Electro Giant) behind the King Tower, so you can build up a massive 10+ Elixir push. It can be shut down with the right cards, but if your opponent starts with his main Beatdown cards, you will easily get 3 crowned. Clever players typically support the Golem with spell-resistant splash troops to make an almost impossible to defend against push without buildings or defensive cards.
  • The Executioner was this upon his release. Along with having enough hitpoints to survive Lightning, the Executioner was an extreme case of Power Creep, completely overshadowing the Wizard and the Bowler for the same elixir cost. The Executioner was also literally broken. His axe was affected by a bug that caused troops hit by it to experience a "mini-stun", similar to that of being hit by a spell such as Fireball. This caused significant hit delay in some cards, allowing him to survive encounters he should not have been able to. His axe was also affected by Hitbox Dissonance, allowing him to hit certain troops in impossible positions, such as those behind him. His bugs were eventually fixed in an update nerfing his range and damage, pushing him into neutral territory.
  • The Night Witch was very unbalanced on release. She summoned bats far too often, which in most cases completely overwhelmed the opponent when behind any tank. Players were not safe upon the Night Witch's death either, as she released four bats which could continue to terrorize their enemy. Not to mention that she did substantial damage on her own, allowing her to take on many troops with the help of her bats. A Night Witch behind a tank paired with either clone or rage was basically unstoppable as she released hordes of bats. This persisted for a few weeks until her Nerf in the June Update, which reduced her bats spawned on death from four to three. She eventually received a second, much more significant nerf that hurt her enough to only be viable in certain decks.
  • Cycle Decks are almost cancerous in the meta. The idea is to put 1 medium cost troop and mix it in with a bunch of cheap cards, so the deck will quickly cycle back to the desired troop. This is very, very infamous with cards like the Wall Breakers or Hog Rider, because you can essentially send out the cards again once your opponent kills them, almost ensuring they connect and deal massive damage to the Crown Towers.
  • While it's not possible for a clanmate to request cards that they can't unlock yet, they're allowed to trade with people who do offer said higher arena cards, potentially resulting in scenarios such as having an Electro Giant in Frozen Peak.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The game is still very popular in Italy, mostly thanks to popular and incredibly memetic youtuber CiccioGamer89.
• Goddamned Bats:
  • Spawner cards (such as Tombstone, Goblin Hut, Barbarian Hut and Furnace) are quite infamous for this. While they are up, they continuously spawn troops until their health is depleted. While one or two isn't that hard to deal with, heavy usage of spawners can very quickly overwhelm the opponent.
    • Furnace in particular is one. It's a very popular card due to it's relatively low cost of 4 Elixir, and it spawns pairs of Fire Spirits every so often. While it originally was designed as an offensive support, which it is due to the Spirits dealing heavy damage to the towers if given protection, it's also extremely potent on defense, as the Fire Spirits' area damage allowed them to severely damage or destroy any push the enemy sent. Not too many cards can kill the Fire Spirits before they attack, so a Furnace can easily shut down a push and make a lane unassailable for its duration. A rework in the Summer 2021 further boosted its office capibilities; it spawns one Fire Spirit, but with buffed stats that causes even more tower damage.
  • Wall Breakers became nearly as obnoxious as Hog Riders after their cost was lowed to 2 elixir. They are high speed, frail anti-building units that explode shortly after connecting. The thing is, they can connect if left alone because they spawn in pairs, forcing your opponent to defend. But since they are so cheap, there is next to no cards that can counter the Wall Breakers and positively trade. Even though they are easily stopped, Wall Breakers will burn through your opponents elixir supply fast.
  • Even though it was in a few challenges, the Royal Recruits quickly became infamous. For 6 elixir, 6 shielded, mildly sturdy troops are deployed across a line. The recruits could take down pretty much anything in on lane, while three full health recruits would march on the undefended lane. And the troops weren't so shabby with dealing with multi lane pushes, too. Eventually, the cost was raised to 8, then was later lowered down to 7.
  • Zappies. They are the most expensive swarm card, and while they do little damage and move slowly, there are three of them and they have the health of every swarm card. Their hit speed is also somewhat fast and they stun. What makes things worse is that they spawn in a triangular position, so it's very easy to accidentally disrupt one and make them hit with perfect timing so that your troops literally cannot move.
  • The Goblin Drill is seen as almost a direct upgrade to the Goblin Barrel (Which is already a fairly obnoxious card) since it costs just 1 more Elixir. It's a tanky building that can be placed anywhere similar to a Miner, but unlike the Miner it spawns Goblins at a fast rate while spawning 3 more after it is destroyed, allowing it to easily demolish a tower if left ignored. Spells don't work well because the Goblin spawns are staggered, and while splash units can shut it down well, if you don't predict its location correctly you will take scratch damage or even severe damage depending on the case. It even deals spawn damage to ensure that the Drill causes at least some tower damage each time it is deployed. Because of these reasons, the Goblin Drill became one of the few cards in the history of Clash Royale to receive an emergency nerf.
• High-Tier Scrappy:
  • The Giant. A troop with high health, high damage, and never stops to attack your silly little Goblins. He's the general go-to tank troop due to his versatility, and his cheapness of 5 elixir (For reference, the only cheaper tank, Knight, isn't as useful for similar stratgies due to having low health and not targeting buildings). This has gained him infamy because of how many strategies he fits into.
  • The Lumberjack. While he is a legendary card and is encountered in the semi-final arena, he earned his legendary status. He's as fast as a Hog Rider, attacks as fast as a Witch, and has decent HP and high damage. He can rip apart Guards, Valkyrie and Witch with ease and can still have enough HP to latch onto a tower. The rage he drops after death is merely an added bonus compared to these. The cost for all of this? Four elixir, just as cheap as the Hog Rider and Valkyrie, and only one more than the Knight. The sight of one of these woodchopping beast can make even the most seasoned clasher groan or panic.
  • DID SOMEONE SAY HOG RIDER? Yet another versatile troop that latches onto towers and is fast. Generally the go-to push card, and one of the most annoying ones to boot. The Royal Hogs are a variant that can be even more dangerous since they come in 4's, so strategies that would work on a Hog Rider wouldn't work on the Royal Hogs.
  • The Ice-Bow deck archetype is by far one of the most dangerous decks in the game. While it racks the raw offensive power of other decks, even pros agree that it can be next to impossible to break through because of all the defensive cards involved, such as X-Bow, Ice Wizard, and Tornado. And while you are struggling to land a single hit on their towers, they can chip your towers with spells like Earthquake or Rocket. This would've ended a match in a tie, but an update added a tiebreaker in which the side with Crown Tower with the least amount of hp automatically loses, which further encourages players to turtle up with such decks.
• Low-Tier Letdown:
  • Before the November balance update, Skeleton Army was the go-to answer for bad cards. It unleashed 21 skeletons for 4 Elixir. Sounds good, but skeletons are frail, and even some of the weakest attacks shattered them. There were a large amount of ways to counter it and get a positive or neutral elixir trade, such as Arrows, Zap, and Valkyrie. It was virtually unusable on offense unless you know your opponent does not have a counter in rotation. After the update, it had only 5 skeletons deducted and dropped to 3 Elixir, turning it into one of the most used cards in the game.
  • The Giant Skeleton. It's a tank troop that explodes for a huge amount of damage on death. This sounds incredibly useful, but there's one crippling problem: It can target troops too. This means that you can use some small troops to lure it away from your towers and waste the bomb entirely. This makes it considered one of the worst tanks in the game. However, it was a monster on defense since most troops are not fast enough to escape from the death damage, which oneshots nearly anything and cripples anything that survives.
  • Downplayed with Arrows. While it's not a bad card per se, it is an extreme case of Overshadowed by Awesome to cards such as Zap and Log whom in addition of damaging other troops can also stun and knock back the target respectively. They are also cheaper, giving them significantly more versatility in what decks they are used in.
• Memetic Mutation: Most of these come from the subreddit in Reddit dedicated to the game.
  • Doot Doot/Spook Warning. ^Explanation Doot Doot and Spook were already memes. But in the Clash Royale fandom, the skeletons are referred to as "doots" very often, and images and videos containing skeleton troops are given joke "spook warnings".
  • EVOKING STRONG EMOTIONS ^Explanation Supercell's reason for not providing a mute option for taunts at first. It was used sarcastically, until it stopped being used when a mute option was finally added in September.
  • These are the rules of the duel. ^Explanation Originally an ad campaign for the game, the fandom caught on almost instantly and started using this for complaints (example: "These are the rules of the duel: Your opponent always has a Royal Giant two levels above your crown tower" to complain about the bad matchmaking).
  • Lobavilis in stsschestvuyuschy ^Explanation Derived from a certain Translation Trainwreck post on the subreddit, which was seemingly a question about legendary and epic chest spawn rates. This line caught on instantly, and jokes about the seemingly mysterious lobavilis which lived in stsschestvuyuschy appeared like crazy for a short period of time.
  • Positive Elixir Trade. ^Explanation Popular YouTuber Orange Juice Gaming's Catchphrase. Once he started to gain attention, this joke appeared like crazy all around the subreddit.
  • HEHEHEHA ^Explanation The "laughing King" emote is often used by certain players as Unsportsmanlike Gloating after winning, or even during a match just to annoy the other player. The emote has gained a considerable amount of traction in memes, often being associated with toxic players.
  • "OOH! 300 BLACK MEN, FOR ONLY 2 POUNDS? YES SIR!"^Explanation  A clip from YouTuber Crusher 21's video "I Beat Clash Royale Only Using Win Conditions", in reference to a special offer of 300 Hog Riders for only 2 pounds.
    • "TWENTY BLACK MEN FOR FIVE POUNDS? Man, back in the day they were cheaper!"^Explanation A variation on the above quote from another of Crusher 21's videos in which he references the joke.
  • "Nerf Miner"
• Most Wonderful Sound: The jingle for pulling out an epic card from a chest. The jingle for pulling out a legendary is even better.
• Viewer Gender Confusion:
  • Some refer to Sparky as a male. However, the description uses "her" pronouns, meaning Sparky is female.
  • Minor one for those with the Bilingual Bonus of being Finns: Pekka is a Finnish male name, but P.E.K.K.A. is also a "she".

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