Every card has its strengths and weaknesses. A good strategy is all about finding the balance and synergy between ever-increasing amounts of cards.

Units in Clash Royale function much like units in Clash of Clans: a player drops a unit card on the arena, which initiates the deployment timer (Clash of Clans doesn’t have deployment timers). Once the deployment timer runs out, the placed unit will start moving along the lane towards the opponent’s tower. Depending on the unit, it will target either buildings or the closest ground target. Some units can also target airborne units. The simple two-lane battlefield eliminates all path-making issues that tend to plague build & battle genre. You know, the ones where your units are attacking something meaningless, like a piece of wall, while getting destroyed by a defensive tower next to them.

Timing and the precise placing of cards are the keys to victory in a battle.

Attacking in Royale has to be measured and calculated. For example, the first player drops a tanking unit with a lot of health to absorb the damage from a defensive tower. As soon as the tank unit gets close to the enemy tower, the opponent will likely drop units to defend it. At this point, you can attack defenders with splash damage spells such as Arrows or Fireballs. Another option is to drop ranged units behind the tank and take defenders out as they concentrate their attack on the tanking unit in front. But as an attacker, you don’t want to drop all units down too quickly as they face the risk of being countered with a splash damage-dealing spell from the opponent.

A defending player has an advantage in Royale. Firstly, the defending player has the Tower, which shoots at all attacking units. But most importantly, the defender has the advantage because the attacker has to reveal his cards first -allowing the defender to counter those cards. If the defender consumes less Elixir on defending units, he will have the advantage in a counter attack. Also, if the defender is able to destroy the attacking force without losing his defenders, he will automatically counter attacks the attacker with the survived defenders.

An attacking player is often at an disadvantage in Clash Royale.

Despite being extremely addictive, fun and well balanced, the battle in Royale is still not perfect. One clear issue in my mind is the fact that defenders have such a strong advantage. For example, as the battle starts neither of the players is incentivized to place a card. It’s simply too risky to spend Elixir in the beginning without knowing anything about the opponent’s hand while the Elixir generation is at a regular speed.

I hope Supercell addresses this in future updates. A possible solution is adding more cheap Elixir units, which the player that’s first to attack can place to cause a reaction from the defender without ending up at disadvantage for spending too much Elixir on an attack. Another option is to follow the Hearthstone/Advanced Wars model, where players choose a hero character for their deck/army. For example, choosing the Barbarian King as the Hero character would give a small boost to ground melee units. Seeing the opponent’s hero would narrow down the possible cards the opponent may be holding in his hand and allows more measured attacks from the start of the match.

Meta-Game

Royale’s meta-game is all about building a balanced deck of 8 cards. Instead of focusing on specific powerful cards, a player needs to build his/her deck based on synergy. The goal is to make every card work with all the other ones as it allows that perfect flow of attacks, defenses and counter attacks. What makes the deck building so interesting is the fact that the cards are so well balanced, which ensures that pretty much every opponent you face will have a different hand. The meta-game of building decks is also never static. As players rack up Trophies and move through arenas they unlock new cards along with opponents who are using these cards in their decks.