BACKGROUND INFORMATION

This deck is centered around the troops you get within your first few chests.  The only problem with this deck may be obtaining the goblin barrel.  If you do not get is as your epic card, just switch it out with the epic card you do get. The prince, the witch, or the baby dragon will still work fine.  If you know the basics about saving elixir for bigger pushes, you should do fine.

BASICS: AVERAGE ELIXIR AND HOW TO USE EACH TROOP EFFICIENTLY 

The average elixir cost for this deck is 3.3 elixir  and the following cards used are:

TROOPS: USED FOR DEFENSE AND OFFENSE.  IMPORTANT TO USE THE RIGHT COUNTER FOR EACH TROOP

Goblins- This troop can is an all star.  It is a jack of all trades in the sense that it can fill a ton of roles.  If you need to defend from barbs, Spear goblins combined with either the fire spirits or spear goblins can take them out as long as the fight happens on your side of the tower.  They can also support your musketeer in a push.  When you do this, the damage is not coming from the goblins and the musketeer.  These goblins may not seem like much, but over a few seconds they can whittle a tower down to half health with the help of the musketeer.  Also, the goblins can defend from enemy  princes, and mini pekkas.  Another use for them is that combined with the arrow, it can take down a swarm of troops easy.  Just make sure you use arrows first to weaken them.

Goblin Barrel-  The goblin barrel because it only costs only three elixir, it can be used at almost any time.  When your opponent counters this, they probably will use a fire ball and it will become a become a bad elixir trade for your opponent while arrows stop being a good elixir trade for your opponent and are now an even elixir trade.  Now, the only good elixir trades for your opponent is the zap spell and the fire spirits.  And your opponent does not have access to these cards.  The goblin barrel can be very effective and can through your opponent off guard.  The goblin barrel is mostly if not always used to be thrown at your enemy’s arena or crowns tower.  Once the goblin barrel breaks, three goblins pop out and start to attack the tower.  After each of these guys take a swing, about three hundred hit points gets taken off at a time.  This lets you get some quick burst damage onto your enemy crown or arena tower if you surprised your opponent or if they do not have a counter in their hand.  The goblin barrel, if needed to be, can be used as a quick defense.  If you has an enemy prince coming by and you have no good troops to defend against the enemy prince, you can shoot your goblin barrel down right in front of the prince.  However, the goblin barrel is mostly an offensive card.  Another offensive push you can do with the goblin barrel is the goblin barrel and zap spell push.  This push makes it so that your goblins gets a few extra hits because your enemy tower is stunned for one second.  Because of this stun, your goblins are able to get a few hundred more hit points then they would without the zap spell.  the goblin barrel costing three elixir is what I think is a great card that usually gets some damage on to your enemy towers and has few elixir advantageous counters for your opponent. You can also throw your goblin barrel to the corner of the map and make your opponent miss their sell card that counters the goblin barrel.

Musketeer-  The musketeer is the main damage dealer besides your three musketeers.  The musketeer is your long range, anti air damage dealer so it makes her a little more special.  She is very good behind a Valkyrie because her high ranged damage lets her take down recently deployed troops very quickly.  If your opponent decides to spawn in spear goblins to counter the ice Valkyrie and musketeer push, those spear goblins will die before they even get one spear thrown because of how good the Valkyrie is good at splash damage.  The musketeer is fairly weak in terms of health points which make sense because her damage is very high.  This can result in a same level fireball killing her though.  Be careful because if you send a lot of your troops out because all your damage can be taken out with a single fireball, giving your opponent a huge elixir advantage.   The fireball can kill most of your whole deck.  Its defensive abilities are very good too because it can hide behind your crown tower or arena tower while doing a lot of damage to the attacking troops.  The musketeer will be able to kill a whole army of small troops without taking much damage and also the musketeer will not let the arena or crown tower take much damage.  Later on, there is a card called the three musketeers which basically spawns three of these single musketeers.  They have the same stats per level as this card does so they can be taken out just as easily.  The three musketeers do cost five more elixir but that card does come out with two more musketeers than this one.  This single musketeer card is a very good option to have in a new, beginner deck because of its high damage, long range, ability to hit air troops, and how versatile it is in many situations.  The musketeer is very vulnerable to point damage troops like the mini pekka, the pekka, and the prince.  It is also vulnerable to direct damage spells like the fire ball, the arrows, and the lightning spell.

Valkyrie-  The Valkyrie, even though it has a slow movement speed but makes up for it in raw damage.  The Valkyrie also only costs four elixir which is fairly cheap.   Also, if you put her in front of your furnace, your opponent will have a very hard time pushing into your base.  Instead of their usual barbarians, skeletons, spear goblins, or regular shank goblins, they have to think of some other way to  push into your base.  This is because your Valkyrie, now acting as a splash damage tank for your weaker troops and will kill any of those counters extremely quick.  If they place a high health troop down, you can easily kite them with all your small troops.  The fire spirits would not only help clear any skeletons, spear goblins, barbarians, archers, or regular shank goblins even faster by help supporting the Valkyrie, but the fire spirits can also counter any air troops.  Without fire spirits in your push, our assault can be easily taken out by the minion horde or be somewhat countered by the three elixir minions.  With the fire spirits, the three elixir minions will be reduced to nothing and the minion horde will be reduced to a single, half health minion.  Having these two troops to defend will make your base extremely strong and very hard to push into.  The valkyrie is extremely durable against most troops because she has high damage and a good amount of health.  The Valkyrie can tear through the barbarians, the goblins, the spear goblins, the skeletons, the archers, and hut spam strategies.  However, the Valkyrie only attacks group troops so she will be extremely weak against the three elixir minions, the minion horde, and the baby dragon.

Mini Pekka- The mini pekka is very versatile on defense and can be a treat if put on offense.  The mini pekka is considered a glass cannon, where it deals a lot of damage but have little health in comparison.   The mini pekka is great at countering high health tanks.  The mini pekka can kill an enemy hog rider in two hits and only lets the hog rider get off one shot on your tower.  Of course the mini pekka may only need one shot if you have some supporting troops defending with the mini pekka.  This will also make the enemy hog rider not even get one shot off on to your tower.  The mini pekka also kills the royal giant very efficiently.  The mini pekka, since it does so much damage, will kill the enemy royal giant in just a few hits.  This makes it hard for the royal giant to get much damage off on to your tower.  With only the mini pekka defending your tower, the royal giant may get around 500 damage off of your tower.  However, you most likely will have other troops, most likely the musketeer or the spear goblins, supporting your mini pekka which will make the enemy royal giant drop even faster.  The mini pekka also kills the regular giant very easily and it can solo defend good enough.  You do not need to worry about supporting your mini pekka with anything else.   The mini pekka works great against single targeting troops like the musketeer, the wizard, the Valkyrie, the prince, and the troops previously mentioned above.  What makes the mini pekka strong against the prince is that your mini pekka can easily survive the charge from the enemy prince, letting your mini pekka take in lots of damage while also dishing it out.  The mini pekka is weak against swarm troops like the spear goblins, the skeletons, the regular shank goblins, and the barbarians.  The mini pekka is also weak against some air troops like the minions and the minion horde.

Spear Goblins-  The spear goblin card is one of the most basic troops in the game.  For being one of the first cards to be unlocked in the game, it is surprising how well they perform.  The Spear Goblins not only can defend against goblins, enemy Spear Goblins, and Minions in a one verse one with the help of your Tower, but it can also be used at the very beginning.  If the Spear Goblins are used right at the start, you force your opponent to either react to them by placing a much more expensive troop, leaving an option to have a hard counter ready, or make them just watch those Spear Goblins chip 300 damage off their tower.  300 may not seem like a whole bunch, but do that 2 or three times in a match, and you got yourself 1000 free chip damage.  The Spear Goblins can also kill a Princess that is on the bridge very quickly as long as the princess is distracted.  If the princess is not distracted and you deploy the spear goblins, they will die before they can kill the princess, making you basically waste three elixir.  On a very good note however, you can do an advanced move with these spear goblins.  the spear goblins, just like your minions, are one of your only air targeting units.  You should save your spear goblins just to counter any balloons or lava hounds they may have.  If you see that their deck does not have any of those cards, you can use the spear goblins like you normally would.The spear goblins are extremely vulnerable to splash damage units like the bomber, the Valkyrie, the witch, the bowler, the fire spirits, and the baby dragon.  The spear goblins are also very vulnerable to any direct damage spells such as the fire ball, the arrows, and the lightning spell for this deck.    Additionally, the goblins may be able to distract any minions your opponent may have placed down in order to react against your push.

SPELLS:  THEIR MAIN USES AND HOW TO MAXIMIZE THEIR POTENTIAL

Fireball- The fireball is an important card in your deck.  In a desperate situation, you can destroy spear goblins, minions, or goblins or a minion horde very quickly.  Since the ice wizard can do this job for a better elixir value, you should only use the fireball on those troops if you need them dead in an instant, i.e. they are right next to your tower.  Also, if you have level nine arrows and your opponent has a level three or four princess, your arrows won’t take her out.  If this situation happens to you, your fireball will always to the job.  The fireball is also the best option to take out the triple musketeers.  Combined with arrows, this combo can completely destroy high level triple musketeers.  Also, because of the May 3rd update, making the elixir collector lose 20% health, and the May 18th update, causing the elixir collector to lose 9% more health, the fireball can now actually counter the elixir collector very well.  You can basically may an even trade elixir wise and do a medium amount of chip damage to the tower.  A good combo in addition to the elixir collector and tower is that if you hit other troops with that same fireball, you will come out ahead in terms of elixir.

Arrows-  The arrows is a great starting card to start learning about direct damage spells.  It has a very large radius which can help you learn about timing.  Arrows are also a very good card because at training arena and arena one, most of your enemy’s troops are very weak so the arrows with its splash damage can help you with crowd control.  If the arrows are used in the right situation and timed well, you can get a massive elixir advantage on your opponent.  Arrows can also do a little damage to the crown or arena towers but it is not recommended to hit their arena or crown towers alone.  If you do shoot at their towers, make sure the arrows also hit other troops or that the arrows will destroy the tower.  Also, do not hit the king’s tower with arrows or your will make it a lot harder for yourself to get the first tower down.  Remember that arrows do less damage to crown or arena towers when compared to the troop damage so keep an eye on the stats of your card.