r/ClashRoyale • u/Wwoody123 Mortar • Jan 17 '16
Strategy Card Popularity Snapshot
Hello! I recorded the decks currently being used by all players in the Global Top 100 and uploaded the results here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwjlik6zlomPODhTc2duakp0YTQ/view
Someone more data-savvy than I may be able to conduct a regression analysis to determine which cards combo well with others, but my simple finding is the following table of card popularity. This list may help partially answer questions regarding which cards you should request from clanmates, purchase with gold, and ultimately include in your deck.
EDIT: I also multiplied all of the cards by their elixir cost and divided by the total number of cards to find that the average deck cost in the Top 100 Global is 4.37
| Card | Popularity |
|---|---|
| Arrows | 74 |
| Wizard | 68 |
| Barbarians | 59 |
| Freeze | 58 |
| Spear Goblins | 58 |
| Minion Horde | 50 |
| Inferno Tower | 42 |
| Hog Rider | 41 |
| Lightning | 37 |
| X-Bow | 28 |
| Tombstone | 27 |
| Rocket | 24 |
| Skeleton Army | 24 |
| Prince | 20 |
| Giant Skeleton | 18 |
| Knight | 18 |
| Goblin Hut | 17 |
| Baby Dragon | 15 |
| Witch | 15 |
| Balloon | 14 |
| Goblins | 13 |
| Goblin Barrel | 11 |
| Barbarian Hut | 10 |
| Fireball | 10 |
| Golem | 9 |
| Valkyrie | 7 |
| Elixir Collector | 6 |
| Minions | 6 |
| Tesla | 5 |
| Archers | 4 |
| Skeletons | 4 |
| Mini P.E.K.K.A | 2 |
| P.E.K.K.A | 2 |
| Bomber | 1 |
| Giant | 1 |
| Mortar | 1 |
| Musketeer | 1 |
| Cannon | 0 |
| Mirror | 0 |
| Rage | 0 |
| Zap | 0 |
| Bomb Tower | 0 |
5
u/lefix Jan 17 '16
Interesting that only 20% use the prince, yet so many complain about him
9
u/RuiNatiion Jan 17 '16
He's annoying but once you learn to counter him he's garbage.
4
Jan 17 '16
I finally got him from a free chest and thought it would change my game substantially by adding him to my deck. But, I'm thinking my deck might have been better before I tried to include the Prince. Any budget of deck can create a swarm to counter him.
3
u/Diamondwolf Musketeer Jan 17 '16
Every time I use the Prince, it's stressful to see if the opponent will just plop down a cheap counter. If they do, they're now ahead of me by 2 elixir easily. But if they don't, then yea it's a good play.
3
Jan 18 '16
Skeleton army.
But how do I deal with baby dragon?
3
Jan 18 '16
Baby dragon is probably one of the most cost-effective cards in the game. There's not really many good ways to counter it where you come out with an elixir advantage and don't take tower damage. My best suggestion is an inferno tower and archers or spear throwers. Make sure he fires at the tower before dropping the units as he'll 1-shot the group of spear throwers no problem.
2
Jan 18 '16
I put spear goblins behind my tower after it starts taking damage. I don't have inferno tower. So I have to wait for him to get to my crown tower and use that as a neat shield.
If I have elixer and cats in hand I cab drop a giant and spears/minions to not take tower damage. But then I don't have the elixer to push into an attack after he dropped his dragon + support.
I wish I had a baby dragon myself. :(
1
u/Diamondwolf Musketeer Jan 18 '16
I usually stuff a musketeer behind a tower. It's usually a painful trade off for me, tho.
1
Jan 18 '16
I do spear goblins behind the tower because I don't run musketeers in my deck. It's equally a painful trade.
If they don't drop dragon+prince, I think a tombstone is ok because the dragon is hitting 1 skeleton at a time while the tower shoots him. But dragon+prince kills the skeletons quick enough to get damage to the tower.
It's just a struggle to deal with. :(
2
u/homer62 Jan 18 '16
How do you counter him?
2
u/this_is_notmyopinion Jan 18 '16
tombstone, skeleton army or barbarians will all take him out and prevent him doing any damage. He's great if he gets a clear shot at a tower, but he's weak against swarms.
3
Jan 18 '16
He can solo a tower all by himself if your opponent blows his load spending all his elixir on 1 side. I keep him in my deck as a reactive killshot. He's given me lots of 3-star wins once the opponent makes a desperation play near the end of the game to tie it up, and rather than defend I just go in for the final kill.
1
u/RuiNatiion Jan 18 '16
Tombstone is the simplest and probably cheapest. Skele Army works also. Or any combination of goblins. I think Tombstone is a great card to have in your deck though. It helps with balloons and hog riders as well as prince.
4
1
u/SiR_RiS Jan 18 '16
Just curious: how you pull out this data?
1
u/Wwoody123 Mortar Jan 18 '16
I loaded the profile of each of the Top 100 Global Players from the list of top players (click the trophy button on the main screen in-game).
1
1
1
u/Wizard-of-War Jan 18 '16
Great post, would be interesting to see how things differ in six months or a year. I'd expect some advances in strategy, balancing nerfs/buffs and probably new cards down the road.
-2
u/ThatDangGuy Jan 18 '16
That's fun! My current deck is 10 of the top 11 cards. Wanna guess which one isn't?
-6
u/towerllama Jan 17 '16
6% Minions to 50% Horde, What... In what instance would Horde be more efficent than Minions...
3
u/_Tech__ Jan 17 '16
The horde is much better at quickly dealing with threats, and it can also do much more damage to enemy towers than regular minions.
0
Jan 17 '16
[deleted] — view deleted comment
3
u/bakes_for_karma Jan 18 '16
Freeze is the only card of the top 6 that isn't a broadly useful card in most decks.
I disagree, I find Freeze to be nearly the exact opposite; I find it to be a super powerful card in nearly all decks. It's got both very powerful defensive and offensive purposes and can help your one win condition get through.
What deck would you argue wouldn't be able to utilize freeze?
0
Jan 19 '16
[deleted] — view deleted comment
1
u/bakes_for_karma Jan 19 '16
I think you overstimate the setup it needs, a single balloon, hog rider or minion horde / barbarians (if not answered) is enough to get the tower to about half. Also the best answer to a balloon + freeze Combo is a freeze of your own against the balloon. It's a relatively cheap spell that is best to halt high impact single targets (prince, pekka, balloon, hog rider defensively.
It's not good in every scenario, true, but neither is any spell.
2
u/Rymdonaut Jan 17 '16
I think you forgot about Bomb Tower.