BACKGROUND INFORMATION

This deck is good against other high cost pushing decks and is weaker against decks that have area of effect troops like the wizard.  Overall, I think this deck is fun and practical because of all the in expensive pushes you need.  It doesn’t fit into the meta as well as other decks but that doe not mean it will not work. It could still work but it would not work as efficiently as other decks.  Regardless, I think this is a fun deck to try out and may even be fun to mess up your friends 1v1’s with.  This deck is extremely fun to play and has some amazing synergy with the tornado, the sparky, and the log.

BASICS: AVERAGE ELIXIR AND HOW TO USE EACH TROOP EFFICIENTLY 

The average elixir cost for this deck is 3.0 elixir  and the following cards used are:

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

Musketeer-  The musketeer is the main damage dealer .  The musketeer is your long range, anti air damage dealer so it makes her a little more special.  She is very good behind a ice golem 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 golem and musketeer push, one or two of those spear goblins will die before they even get one spear thrown because of how big the musketeers range is and because of how high the musketeer’s damage per bullet is.  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 the ice wizard, the ice spirit, and the musketeer.  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.

Ice Wizard-  The ice wizard will help you a lot in this deck.  It is great at defense against the hog because if you have the musketeer and ice wizard defending, good placement of both troops will make it impossible for your enemy to get a shot off the tower.  The ice wizard’s slowing stat also allows him to counter high damage per second troops by slowing their fire rate.  Another example of the ice wizard working his magic is against the royal giant.  With only the musketeerdefending against the royal giant, a moderate amount of damage will be done to your tower.   If you add the ice wizard onto your defense, the royal giant will get a lot less damage off during his life time..  The ice wizard is also very good on offense as it can help slow defending units or the crown tower.  The combination of the ice wizard and musketeer can work extremely well if left uncontested because the ice wizard has a moderate amount of health and does splash damage while slowing the tower down a lot.  This makes him act as a very good support troop for the musketeer that causes all the damage.  The ice wizard is probably your best card in supporting offensive pushes and supporting your musketeer during a defense.

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.  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 allowing the enemy’s arrows or fireball to miss, wasting their elixir and allowing you to keep your goblins alive.

Minions– This deck uses the Minions instead of the Minion Horde.  The Minions are preferred in this deck over the Minion Horde because you want to keep the cost of troops low.  With the giant and sparky already costing a lot, you want some cheap cards in your deck. By keeping the cost low, you will be able to cycle through your cards faster.  The Minions also do well enough against air troops like the Balloon or Baby Dragon, although for the Baby Dragon needs to target your Crown Tower first.  Minions also can take out the Barbarians with the help of the Spear Goblins.  This leaves you with a major counter push at the ready.  Also, these blue little monsters can help destroy Prince rushes with the help of some ground troops.  Even if your enemy uses Arrows, you are not at a Elixir disadvantage, unlike the Minion Horde.  The Minions could also kill a Sparky before it can take its aim at the Tower.  The minions are very vulnerable to anything that attacks air troops like the baby dragon, the witch, the spear goblins, the musketeer, the fire spirits and the wizard.  They are also weak to the ice spirits because they can be stunned long enough so the enemy tower can finish them off.  The minions are also one of your only air targeting units so you should be careful and know when the right time to use them is.  If you are seen having to defend against a lava hound or balloon without your minions or spear goblins, you will have a pretty hard time defending.  Because of this, if you see your opponent has one or two of these cards, you should save your minions or spear goblins just to counter the enemies air troops.  The minions are also weak to direct damage spells like the zap spell and the arrows.  Both of these direct damage spells will give your opponent an equal or an advantageous elixir trade.  It is strong against group troops that have a medium or low amount of health.  The are strong against the mini pekka, the musketeer, the barbarians, the pekka, and the princes.

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 on 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.

TOWERS: HOW TO USE THEM AND WHERE TO PLACE THEM

Cannon-  The cannon is your main defense against building targeting troops like the giant, the hog rider, the balloon, the royal giant, and the golem.  Make sure you have good placement with your cannon because its five and a half tile range is very short.  Also, you should never pre place a cannon.  If you do, your enemy can send any air troop, like the three elixir minions or the baby dragon, and destroy it without taking any damage.  You enemy can also just place a single musketeer and out range the cannon.  This can make you basically waste your defense and make you lose three elixir.  Also, you cannon is out of your hand which makes it a lot harder to defend from the defense targeting troops like the giant, balloon, and hog rider.  If your opponent doesn’t have those troops or they just used it and you have the cannon in your hand, you can use the combination of the ice wizard and cannon to defend from hordes of small group troops.  A cannon and ice wizard combo can defend from barbarians.  The cannon is very cheap which makes it have synergy with the rest of your deck.  Since you have two very expensive cards in your deck, having the cheapest defense in the game will help you on defense when you are on low elixir.  The cannon is strong against weak ground troops like the skeletons, the archers, the spear goblins, and the regular shank goblins.  The cannon, if provided with some sort of distraction, can be good against the prince, the the mini pekka, the barbarians, and the valkyrie.  The cannon, being only able to attack ground troops, is very weak against the three elixir minions, the minion horde, the baby dragon, the lava hound, and the balloon.

SPELLS:  THEIR MAIN USES AND HOW TO MAXIMIZE THEIR POTENTIAL

Log– The log is here because your opponent would not be expecting you to play this card.  The reason why your log is here and not your arrows or your fire ball is for a few reasons.  The log does quite a bit more damage when compared to your arrows.  In exchange for this damage, though, you cannot target enemy air troops with the log card.  In this deck,I think the log is a better choice than the arrows because you already have the furnace and the zap spell.  Both of those cards combined should let you kill any swarm air troops like the minion horde or the regular three elixir minions.  Also, the log is better than the fire ball in this deck because it is cheaper than the fire ball.  The once elixir difference can be the difference in having enough elixir to defend an enemy counter push and to have one of your crown or arena towers completely wiped out.  The log also can hit your enemy towers which can help you finish them off if they have low health.  Also, just like the fire ball, the log can help support your hog rider in your main push.  If you put the log right behind your hog rider, you will be able to use the log to push away and damage any defending barbarians.  This push back is similar to the knock back the fire ball does to any defending enemy barbarians.  The log will also sort of clear the way for your hog rider to get to the enemy arena or crown tower very easily.  The log can also be used fairly well for defensive purposes.  If the enemy is bring a strong push to your arena or crown tower, you can send in your log to not only damage the oncoming troops, but to also push them back and away from your arena or crown tower.  This push back can help you stall for another second which can really change the tide of the battle.  With that one second stall your log provides you, you may be able to reduce the damage done to your tower by hundreds of hit points. I think for three elixir, the log is a pretty good card that can help you in some situations.  I see the log more of a utility card than a damage card but it still can easily counter hut spam decks.  The log card is great in some decks while lacking in others.  The trick is to fnd the deck that works well with the log and you can have the element of surprise held against your enemy.

Zap– The zap spell does do a little splash damage and almost happens in an instant.  The Zap spell is mainly used to support your sparky and giant.  The best way to use the zap is to either severely injure a minion horde and let your spear goblins or your minions finish them off.  The other major use for zap in this deck is to stun any inferno towers.  With the most recent update,. the zap will now reset the inferno tower’s damage.  This will greatly increase the life time of your sparky and giant and make this deck even stronger.  Remember, the longer your sparky and giant stays alive, the longer your high damage per second troops stay alive, and the more damage you can put onto enemy building, arena or crown towers, and on their troops.  The zap will be your best friend because since it resets the inferno towers damage, it is better than the freeze spell.  As a bonus when compared to the freeze spell, the zap spell only costs two elixir while the freeze spell costs four elixir.  This lets you put two more elixir into your push that would have been spent on freezing the inferno tower.  I recommend you zapping the inferno tower when the inferno tower’s beam is on the second stage.   This will allow the sparky and giant to receive little damage and by the time the inferno tower resets, locks back onto the royal giant, and charges back up, the tower should be destroyed by your royal giant and the other supporting troops behind him.    With this zap your pushes should be able to hit harder and last longer, a great support spell when trying to take down an enemy arena or crown tower.  The zap spell hard counters small troops like the spear goblins, the regular shank goblins, the skeletons, the minions, and the minion horde.  The zap also counters the goblin barrel spell quite well.  It has a hard time when trying to kill high health point troops like the golem, the pekka, the barbarians, any type of prince, the balloon, and other troops like that.  The zap can also stop the princes charges and make them start walking before they charge again .  This allows the zap to be used in some tight defenses when a prince is right next to your tower.