Background Information
This deck uses the push of the hog rider, a support troop, and the freeze spell. Another push you can do is a golem plus a few supporting troops. This deck is strong against hog rider decks but weak against hut spamming decks.
BASICS: AVERAGE ELIXIR AND HOW TO USE EACH TROOP EFFICIENTLY
The average elixir cost for this deck is 3.8 elixir and contains the following cards:
TROOPS: USED FOR DEFENSE AND OFFENSE. IMPORTANT TO USE THE RIGHT COUNTER FOR EACH TROOP
Golem– The golem is your main tank and what your deck revolves around. The golem is your only tank in your deck and you should treat him in that way. You should not start any major offensive pushes without him leading your assault. Additionally, to build an even bigger push, it is recommended to have one to two elixir collectors at the minimum. Also, your deck is basically going to be a defensive deck until double elixir hits. Once double elixir hits though, your deck will shine. Another tip when using the golem is to spawn him at the very back of your base. This lets you gain more elixir before the golem crosses the bridge into danger and you are able to get an even bigger push started. In over time or double elixir, you have the possibility of sending out enough golems where there is two golems on the field at once! this makes it very difficult for your opponent because what every the put down to defend will get distracted by your golems while your supporting and high damage troops will kill them quickly. If you do get two golems down in double elixir, it is not unusual to get a three star victor with that push. If you have two golems down, it is almost a guarantees an arena or crown tower destroyed. The golem is very vulnerable to any air troop that targets enemy troops like the minions, the minion horde, and the baby dragon. The golem is also very vulnerable to high damage troops like the barbarians, the prince, the pekka, the wizard, and the mini pekka. The golem is only vulnerable to one defensive tower and that is the inferno tower because of its scaling damage. The golem can’t attack troops and only goes for enemy buildings, structures, or other arena or crown towers.
Hog Rider– This is the heart and soul of the deck. This will be the troop that will do the most damage to the Tower and it will also be your main offensive unit. Because of the Hog Rider’s decent health stats and its 
great damage per shot, it is a great unit to attack with. Additionally, it only targets defensive buildings which make it that much easier to control. There are some standard moves in playing the Hog efficiently. The moves that till be gone over in this article is the Elixir pump rush and pig pushing. If you are above or at arena 6, there is no doubt that you see a lot of Elixir Collectors about. Normal players want to protect their Elixir collector and put it in the back of their map. If it starts in their starting hand, that is going to be played first 90% of the time. If they do place it in the back, take advantage of the five elixir they just used. Try to make a Hog push in the combos of Hog and Spear Goblins, Hog and Minions, or Hog and Barbarians. If you don’t have the Hog in your starting hand, make a small push maybe of just Spear Goblins and see how they react. This move has given me so many wins since I found out that this worked. The Tower will fall if nothing happens to that push. Usually, they send in a panic Fireball and you still get about half their Tower. The second strategy is called pig pushing. It can be hard to master for some so it is recommended to practice with your friends. The basic concept of this is to nudge the Hog a little bit to the outside by spawning troops right next to the hog. The picture to the left shows how to pig push pretty well. It also shows the counter to the pig push in case you run into anyone also using this tactic. The counter to this is pretty ineffective since the movements happen so fast. There is barely any time to react to this strategy. If you do pig push, make sure your are on the side where the defense is further away from your chosen spawn location. Also, a nice compliment of the freeze spell will allow you to get a ton more damage off, usually the freeze spell can stall ong enough or your troops to take down the enemy arena or crown tower if the enemy has very little elixir to make a defensive stance. Failure to recognize which side is the one to do it on can result in an ineffective and useless push. The hog rider is very vulnerable to swarm troops like the barbarians, the skeletons, the skeleton army, the goblins, the spear goblins, and the minions.
Barbarians– The barbarians costs five Elixir. This is best used to counter Princes, P.E.K.K.A, and the Hog Rider. They are also an extremely helpful distraction for smaller troops that can do major damage if left untouched, like the Minions, Spear Goblins and the Goblin combo. Also, the Barbarians can help defend against the dark prince if the situation is desperate, but is not recommended counter since the Dark Prince is a pretty good Barbarian destroyer. The barbarians can also counter a miner. All you have to do is place the barbarians where the miner will pop out and only one of your defending barbarians will get killed, If the Barbarians are set on top of the much feared Sparky, they can easily destroy it, and you will gain a major Elixir advantage. The barbarians in this deck is for defense though. If the enemy spawns in a hog rider, send your barbarians just in front of the contested arena or crown tower. If you do this perfectly, the hog rider will get no damage onto your tower. Usually though, the enemy hog rider will squeeze through and be able to get one shot off. Additionally, if the enemy combines a fireball, zap, or fire spirit and zap combo,l they will be able to get a lot more damage off onto your tower so be very careful about what they have to support the hog rider and make adjustments accordingly. If they send in a prince, the barbarians are a great hard counter to him and will kill the enemy prince with ease. In my opinion, the Barbarians are one of the biggest staple cards in the game. The barbarians are extremely vulnerable to splash damage units like the bomber, the Valkyrie, the witch, the fire spirits, the sparky, and the baby dragon. The barbarians are also very vulnerable to most direct damage spells such as the fire ball and the lightning spell.
Spear Goblins- The spear goblin card is one of the most basic troops in the game. For its early unlock at Arena 1, 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 are extremely vulnerable to splash damage units like the bomber, the Valkyrie, the witch, 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.
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. 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, and the wizard. 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.
Fire Spirits- The fire spirits are your other splash damage card. The reason why they are not your only splash damage card is because they die when they give out damage. This makes it hard for them to support a push all the way through because once they run into a troop, they no longer can support your push. However, their damage is insane for only two elixir. Their damage exceeds 500 and can be put out all withing one second. This lets the kill bunched up thinks very easily like skeletons, spear goblins, and the regular goblins. It can take out equal level spear goblins, skeletons, or regular shank goblins with only one out of the three fire spirits that are present. This means that this one card that only costs two elixir can kill all three of those cards costing a combined total of five elixir. The fire spirits can also nearly take down barbarians to the grave. The fire spirits can make the barbarian’s health points go so low that your arena tower can finish them off with out taking any damage. This gives you a three elixir value and a great quick reaction counter to swarm troops. The fire spirits do not do well against high health singular targets like the pekka, prince, or balloon. They also are countered by the zap spell. It does a so so job against troops that have medium health like the mini pekka, musketeer, and wizard ( as long as they can reach their target without dying).
SPELLS: THEIR MAIN USES AND HOW TO MAXIMIZE THEIR POTENTIAL
Freeze Spell- The freeze spell requires good timing and great placement. Usually, the freeze spell will be used for an offensive support spell for most of the time in your deck. However, the freeze spell can be used on defense if needed to be. A freeze spell along with the goblins and your arena or your crown tower can do amazing work. Those goblins will be able to kill a hog rider and a good portion of oncoming enemy barbarians withing those four seconds of free reign. The most common way to use the freeze spell is on offense though. What you want to do is use a hog rider combo that is not very expensive, lets say you are doing the hog rider goblin combo. What you want to do is send your hog rider in front of your minions so the hog tanks for the goblins. Once the hog ridergets to the tower, do not use your freeze spell just yet. You want to wait until your hog riders at around 25 percent health before deploying your freeze spell. This is to ensure that any troops the enemy will place once they see the hog will easily be destroyed. Obviously though, there are special circumstances where you should freeze earlier. For example, if they send out barbarians very early to counter your hog, you should freeze both the enemy crown or arena tower IN ADDITION to the enemy barbarians. This will allow you hog rider able to get to the tower, do some damage, and then the goblins kill some of the barbarians. This will make there be less barbarians once the freeze spell duration is over and give your enemy a less overall damage out out which makes your hog rider survive longer and do more damage. Another example to freeze earlier is if the send the minions or the minion horde, or any type of air unit for that matter. This is because the minions can target the goblins and if your goblins die, you will lose a lot of potential damage. BY freezing those air troops first, you let your goblins live for an extra few seconds which can equate to 1000 s of damage. It is very important to know when to place the freeze spell during any given situation. In the right hands, it is a night mare and is devastating to go against. If you do not time the freeze spell to a near perfect precision, you will lose 100 s or 1000 s of possible damage and waste four elixir in the process. The freeze spell works on both the ground troops and the air units. They also work on enemy crown or arena towers, enemy king towers, and any enemy buildings or structures like the cannon, the tombstone, the goblin hut, and the barbarian hut. Take note though, that if you freeze the tombstone and the tombstone gets destroyed in the process, the skeletons that come out will not be frozen. They will be treated like regular skeletons that spawned after the freeze spell has been activated.
Zap– The Zap spell is mainly used to support your royal 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 royal giant and make this deck even stronger. Remember, the longer your royal 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 royal 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.
