So I’ve been grinding Clash Royale for months, and my card levels were all over the place. Felt stuck around 5000 trophies, you know? Kept losing to dudes with maxed cards even when my plays were solid. Finally realized I needed smarter upgrading instead of dumping gold into whatever looked cool.
My Initial Approach (Spoiler: Failed Hard)
First, I just upgraded splash cards like Wizard and Valkyrie cause they wrecked swarms in lower arenas. Wasted so much gold! Hit a wall when every opponent started running Fireball that one-shot my squishy Wizard. Then switched to overleveling my Hog Rider cuz it’s fast and simple to use. Worked okay until everyone ran buildings or Tornadoes. Felt like running in circles.
The Breakdown Phase
Took a week to analyze match history and watch replays. Wrote down:
- What died constantly to enemy spells? (Bye-bye, Musketeer)
- What won me games even underleveled? (Skeletons for cycling, Ice Spirit freezing)
- What cards worked in multiple decks? (Archers fit everywhere, Mega Minion too)
Testing Cheap Staples
Prioritized cards costing 3 elixir or less first. Maxed Skeletons (1 elixir) and Ice Spirit (1 elixir) before anything else. Why? Low risk, high reward. An underleveled Ice Spirit dies to Zap, but at max level? Survives and freezes towers. Skeletons distract Princes and Pekkas for days. Suddenly I could cycle back to win conditions faster.
Win Condition Upgrade Order
After the cycle cards, focused on one win condition. Chose Hog Rider over Balloon cuz:
- Works in bridge spam, cycle decks, even some weird homemade combos
- Gets more tower hits when overleveled
- Less vulnerable to air-targeting troops
Saved gold for two weeks straight to take Hog from 12 to 14. Instant results – started breaking through defenses that used to stop it cold.
Spells Matter Most?
Saved the biggest revelation for last. Ignored upgrading Arrows forever… until I noticed maxed Arrows wiped out minion hordes that escaped my underleveled version. Same with Zap: maxed one-shots Goblins and resets Infernos properly. Spent my next 100k gold maxing Fireball, Zap, and Arrows. Now I consistently win spell trades.
Where I’m at now? Sitting at 6500 trophies by focusing upgrades on:
- Ice Spirit (level 14)
- Skeletons (level 14)
- Zap (max)
- Fireball (max)
- Hog Rider (level 14)
Gold income’s still trash, but at least I win more. Upgrading versatile, level-sensitive cards first? Best damn decision ever.