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 double wizard push. 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 3.0 elixir and contains the following cards:
TROOPS: USED FOR DEFENSE AND OFFENSE. IMPORTANT TO USE THE RIGHT COUNTER FOR EACH TROOP
Wizard- The wizard is your support for your pekka in this trifecta deck be adding lots of splash damage to enemy ground and air units. The wizard is an overall great card to have in your deck because it is the most effective card that does splash damage to both air and ground troop. Its fast fire rate compliments the pekka’s sluggish moves. Additionally, the wizard helps counter what the pekka is weak against, small critters. The wizard can one shot many small troops like the skeletons, the spear goblins, the regular goblins, the three elixir minions, and the archers. The wizard can also make quick work of swarms of troops killing the barbarians in three shots, the minion horde also in three shots, and the skeleton army in a few more shots. The wizard however is pretty weak when being attacked. The wizard can be easily killed by an enemy lightning spell or rocket. The wizard can also be killed by a relatively high level fire ball. The wizard is actually pretty good on defense. It can kill oncoming enemy barbarians by itself. It is also the best troop to use when countering the minion horde because your wizard can one shot the minions making quick work of the minion horde. However, the wizard is not so great at countering high health troops like the prince, the pekka, the golem, and the lava hound. he prince and pekka do too much damage to even let the wizard have a chance and the golem and the lava hound have too much hit points for the wizards relatively weak fire balls to do any noticeable damage. However, an extremely well timed wizard can completely kill all the lava pups that spawn from a lava hound with one fire ball. This also is the same with the goblin barrel. An extremely well timed wizard can kill the goblins from the goblin barrel all in one go. The wizard costs five elixir which is one of your higher costing cards. I recommend saving your wizard only for your trifecta push because this is a key troop for it. Only use your wizard for something else if it is the only option from saving your arena or crown tower.
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 mini pekka 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. An example of the ice wizard working his magic is against the royal giant. With only the mini pekka defending 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 mini pekka 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 mini pekka that causes all the damage. The ice wizard is probably your best card in supporting
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.
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.
before they charge again . This allows the zap to be used in some tight defenses when a prince is right next to your tower.
TOWERS: HOW TO USE THEM AND WHERE TO PLACE THEM
Bomb Tower-This card is what I would call your foundation defense. If its in your hand, play it once you get max Elixir. This card provides big value on defense and can help intimidate your opponent from an aggressive assault. This card also works magic against any hut spammers, the barbarians, the hog rider and any goblin pushes. Against the barbarians, the bomb tower can unleash enough bombs to be able to kill all four of the barbarians without even being swung at. Against the hog rider, the bomb tower will easily destroy the enemy hog rider but be careful that you do not do this trade that often. Your opponents hog rider costs only four elixir while your bomb tower costs a whopping five elixir. This gives you a negative elixir trade and that is why I would recommend you to use your tombstone when countering an enemy hog rider. The bomb tower is better suited at countering the royal giant because its extremely high health can provide a huge distraction while other troops can damage and kill the enemy’s royal giant. You can also wait until the royal giant crosses the bridge and then place your bomb tower down so it is within range of the royal giant. This will make the bomb tower have multiple purposes as being the damage sponge for your arena or crown tower and also help damage the enemy royal giant. Also, if your opponent supported their push with goblins, barbarians, or some other ground troops, the bomb tower can also kill those troops while killing the royal giant. The bomb tower can work well in this deck and is perfect because it has a skeleton on top of this tower. The bomb tower costs five elixir and stays with the theme of an all skeleton deck.The opponent may also send out a minion horde to destroy the bomb tower. Sending your own arrows to kill the Minion Horde will not only protect the precious tower, but also let you gain an Elixir advantage. Since no Elixir Collector is present, this card, when on the field, will give you a little Elixir defense bonus. This also works well as a tank since its health points are very high, like any building after the May Third update, you should be weary if the opponent has a Royal Giant as it can out range most defensive buildings.
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
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.
