Trophy Pushing Guide

by Wuxia Tigerpaw

Once a month the clan King Jeffrey has a trophy push. To help people prepare and to do their best we have put together a guide. The guide is mainly aimed at getting near masters when you are fairly low level, but can of course be helpful for everyone.

A quick summary of things to remember:

Max (or near max) your gold storage before you begin

Gain more trophies than you lose per day Only play in sessions. Assume you’ll lose 60 trophies from revenge You will be attacked within minutes at crystal or above

Don’t risk attacking tough towns. If unsure you hit next. Always!

Snipe gold if the townhall has some near the edge.

Purpose of a trophy push

The purpose of a trophy push is to try to get as high up in the clan rankings as possible. To do this the whole clan need to work together and do their best.

If you check ”top clans” and scroll right to the bottom you can see your clan ranking. The ranking is decided on the total trophies of a clan when you add together a certain percentage of everyones trophies. The top 10 members in the clan contribute 50% of their trophies to the clan trophy count, 11-20 contribute 25%, 21-30 contribute 12%, 31-40 contribute 10% and 41-50 contributes 3% of the total clan trophy total.

This means that the higher a member is ranked, the more important is their trophy count. It also means that you can achieve a very good result even if a few people do not push.

Basics

You get trophies from winning attacks or defences. How many trophies you can win from each attack is depending on how many trophies your opponent have (you can read more about it here: http://forum.supercell.net/showthread.php/97-Trophies-Matchmaking-explained!). In short you get pitched against an opponent with around the same amount of trophies you have, that means the more trophies you get the tougher opponents you get.

To win an attack you need at least one star of a total three stars. You get stars from taking out town hall, getting 50% of the buildings and getting 100%. For each star you get one third of the available trophies.

Defending can be a good way of getting trophies in lower leagues or if you are very high level, but when trophy pushing you aim at getting higher than your comfort zone which make defence difficult.

If you lose an attack you lose trophies and the amount depends on the amount of trophies your attacker has, if they get one, two or three stars and if its a regular attack or a revenge (you can get more trophies revenging). If you lose a defence you get a shield for 12-16 hours, depending on how much of your base was destroyed. If you win a defence but lose 40% of your base, you will also get a shield.

Plan for the push

The push is one week long, but that doesn’t mean you should push all week. The important thing is to have your highest trophy count on the last day on the push, if everyone does that it will help the clan ranking the most.

Its up to you if you want to pace yourself and slowly move up during week or go full on mad push during a few days. You also have to remember that it might be really hard to get resources higher up, especially gold, so if you peak too soon you might not be able to stay up. Be sure to snipe as much gold as you from towns with exposed town halls while slowly but surely moving up in trophy count.

For a lot of players the best thing might be to not start the push until Wednesday in order to be at top for Sunday. Monday to Wednesday you can move up slowly by farming and then start sniping midweek.

Preparing for a trophy push

Before a trophy push it is good to have stocked up on resources, especially gold. It is also good to get your builders busy doing projects that take most of week so you do not need to start new things or go too long with sleeping builders. If you plan to start push properly mid-week its good to have builders free the day before so you can set them to work and then stock up on gold.

Sniping

Sniping means that you aim at getting one star by taking out exposed town halls. A lot of people that are farming leave their town hall unprotected so that people will attack that and give them a shield instead of taking their resources. When you are trophy pushing those are the ideal bases to attack.

Sniping is the most effective way of getting trophies because you only attack bases you are sure to be able to take. It also works all the way up to masters since you are avoiding the defences.

Bases to look for when sniping

When sniping it doesn’t matter what level town hall it is or how high level base it is as long as the town hall is exposed. The ideal bases have the town hall right in the corner, this way the only possible defence could be hidden teslas, traps and bombs.

This is perfect to attack, just put a few archers right at the edge of the screen.

This is a trickier one, but also one I would attack. The archer tower will reach you and there are probably hidden teslas. To get this one I would deploy most of my troops as soon as I’ve tested for bombs and teslas to be sure to get the win. Trying to save troops is rarely a good idea. Don’t take an unecessary risk just to save 5 minutes worth of troops.

Don’t attack a base looking like this. Town hall is behind a wall and protected by two X bows, two wizard towers and an inferno tower as well as cannons and possible teslas. Might look tempting after an hour of nexting but it would be a massacre. Always press next if you are unsure.

Another nono. Might look like you could get 50%, but its a trick and you can’t. If it looks too good to be true it always is at this level and never underestimate those high level defences.

Play in sessions using your shield

Once you get to a bit higher level, like crystal, you can basically count on being attacked as soon as you log off and that you will lose every defence. This is something you will need to accept and do your best to minimize the trophy loss. Every time you lose an attack you will get a free shield so you need to make sure to use it.

Best way is to, when you play, make sure to play in a session of a few hours so that you make more trophies than you will lose in the defence. Stay online as much as possible to avoid getting attacked and to be able to continue to attack. Once you have to go offline, try to use the shield to do everything you need to while being offline (sleep, school, work, shower and so on). For example, you can play one session as soon as you get up in morning for a few hours, then go school/work and get shield, and then another session in evening.

The example below is what it can look like near masters. When you are lower down you will of course have more room to make mistakes and you will get more trophies.

For example:

6 – 8 session 1 +26 trophies

8.00 defence -33 trophies

8 – 16 work/school shield

16 – 18 food etc shield

18 – 22 session 2 +64 trophies

22.00 defence -47 trophies (revenge)

22 – 6 sleep shield

Total: +10 trophies

Its just an example, but important thing is to make more trophies than you lose each day and preferably only have two shields (ie lose trophies twice a day). The more trophies you go plus each day, the quicker you move up. Days you are not revenged you will gain more but this way you will never lose trophies over a day. Its also important to point out what a big disaster a lost attack would be on a day like this, since you would lose maybe 30 trophies and not get shield.

What you dont want is it to look like:

6 – 6.30 session 1 +10 trophies

6.30 defence -22 trophies

9 – 10 session 2 +20 trophies

10.00 defence -27 trophies

12 – 13 session 3 +15 trophies

13.00 defence -31 trophies

16 – 18 session 4 +25 trophies

18.00 defence -18 trophies

20 – 22 session 5 +20 trophies

22.00 defence -22 trophies

Total: – 30 trophies

In this second example you gain as many trophies as in the first, but because you have short sessions and keep breaking shield you overall lose trophies. If you don’t have time to play for long its usually better not to break shield.

Nexting

For a successful push you need to get real friendly with the next-button. You only want to attack bases you are 100% sure you can take. Patience is key to a successful push so if you are the least bit hesitant, press next.

In gold you will find exposed town halls within minutes and usually also in crystal III. When you get up to crystal II and I you need to be prepared for very long search times before you find exposed town halls.

As a reference, at town hall 8 it costs 580 gold to press next. The most I have ever spent pressing next without finding an exposed town hall is 700k gold. That means pressing next around 1200 times and it took a few hours. Often you have to spend around 200k to find a suitable place to attack near masters so you better have a good tv-program on in the background.

Of course spending so long looking for places to attack only to gain maybe 4 trophies per attack, makes it very easy to attack a town hall that is a bit too well defended. Never ever attack unless you are sure of the win. This is the main reason for failing at a trophy push together with bad shield management. The lost attacks will cost you so much it is never worth it, rather miss out on a few trophies than take chances.

A good rule of thumb is to never click ’end battle’ before you have found a base to attack unless you really want a break from nexting. Along with that, ALWAYS have your next army fully queued in your barracks before finding a battle. Even though you can only have 1 troop prebuilt, while you’re pressing next you can potentially have your entire army prebuilt since the que clock keeps moving as long as you don’t press ’end battle.’ This is a must for quick farming too.

Resources

Its easy to assume that you will run low on elixir when pushing due to troop costs but truth is that you use few and cheap troops and gain more in reward for every won attack so you should never struggle for elixir. Gold on the other hand is a whole other matter. Every time you press next you spend gold and the cost is set and nothing you can do about. When getting closer to masters you will spend a fair bit more gold finding a place to attack than what you make from rewards. Therefor you will want to make sure you stock up on as much gold as you can before you start to push and that you plan it so you don’t need to spend it on builders during push week. If you do find any gettable gold while sniping you should make sure to get it after you have taken out the town hall.It can be of paramount importance to snipe resources along the way.

Troops for sniping

The main troops for sniping is archers. They are cheap and can shoot from a distance which means that fewer defences reach them. On a perfect snipe you use 4-5 archers only to take out the town hall.

However, it is best to come prepared which is why you probably also want to bring a few barbarians (to draw fire away from archers), a few giants (as tanks or taking out defences if needed), a few wall breakers and a few minions (they don’t get targeted by mortars or cannons and fly over walls so can on occasion make a big difference.

I have 200 troop spaces and bring around 112 archers, 30 barbarians, 6 giants, 4 wallbreakers, 10 minions. The exact composition can vary a bit though.

Also when it comes to spells you will probably get most use from rage and lightning spells, healing spells doesn’t do much for barbs and archers anyway. Lightning spell can take out clan castle troops or finish of a town hall in a desperate situation whereas the rage spell greatly increase speed when your troops take out the town hall.

Attack tactics

Once you have found a good base to attack you want to start by dropping 1-2 archers and check for traps, bombs and defences. Remember that as soon as first troop is deployed you are committed and need to go for it no matter what. If nothing pops up you drop a couple of more archers and wait till they are done. If more defences pop up be prepared to drop all your troops. Always drop too many troops rather than too few. If there are teslas or other defences that reach your archers you want to drop barbs and giants to take the fire and then more archers so that they finish the town hall as quickly as possible.

Times to snipe

It seems that some times are easier to find places to attack than others. Probably due to people logging off and doesn’t have a shield yet. Best times to snipe seems to be 10 pm-4am EST and worst times seems to be 1-5 pm EST. But it can of course vary a lot. Also those times are only true weekdays, it varies a lot more on weekends.

Defences to look out for

Hidden teslas – always assume there are hidden teslas in the worst possible places. You find them less often if the town hall is right in the corner, but sometimes even then. Archers are good since they sometimes can reach a town hall without triggering teslas. However you might want to drop a few giants or barbarians as distraction if there are a few teslas.

Clan castle troops – Varies a lot whether people have them or not. Assume they do and if possible lure them out and take them out separately. Archers often can take an exposed town hall without triggering clan castle though.

Barbarian king/archer queen – The heroes are not such a big problem on their own but can be together with other defences and the troops move away from town hall to target heroes which can be a problem. Barbs and archers do fine to take them out.

Mortars – High level mortars can be a massive problem since they do splash damage. Against mortars you want to spread out your troops and send them in few at a time. If mortars however are combined with defences that makes you want to spam big groups of troops to get past, you are better off pressing next. Mortars do not attack minions so keep that in mind.

X bows – xbows target one troop at the time but with very rapid fire. Best way to take town hall guarded by an xbow is to spam loads of troops at once. Sometimes xbows are not loaded and therefore will not fire. Unloaded xbows do not have a bowstring or a box of bolts on top.

Unloaded

Loaded

Inferno towers – If there is an inferno tower that protects the town hall, press next. However, if you are braver than me you can see if it is set to attack single target or multi-target. If its set to single target you can spam loads of troops and get town hall before inferno tower kills you off.

Single Target has one flame on the top

Multi target has 3 flames

Inactive ones have no flame

Going for the 50% instead of the snipe

Another way of getting trophies is to aim at getting 50% of all building in a base. This strategy works best at silver/gold or if you are fairly high level. The good thing about it is that apart from trophies you do get a lot of resources as well and you might not have to spend so much time finding a base. The downside is that you use all your troops so longe time to wait for them to build and can sometimes be hard to know if you will be able to get 50% or not.

Best strategy for this is barching (barbarians and archers). Use maybe 2/3 archers and 1/3 barbarians (but any sort of setup works from all archers to 50/50). First deploy barbarians by spreading them out in a circle around the base and then straight after do the same with the archers. Most important thing is to make sure they are spread out so that defences can’t target them all at once.

Alternative push

If you do not have much time to trophy push, do not like to push or just feel its a bit too hardcore, you can still help the clan. Try to farm at an as high level as possible, try to not lose trophies and when you can take town hall or go for 50%. Every little bit helps!

Thanks to Dossier and Mendicus for input and pictures!

Below is a video that Mendicus put together where he got some trophies. First there are two where he gets the win by getting 50% of the base. First using only archers and then using barbarians and archers. After that you get one example of an easy snipe, then one that looks easy but gets a little bit trickier due to barb king and teslas. Notice how the archers doesn’t set off the teslas at the start. Last there is an example of a tough but still gettable base where you need to use almost all your troops.