Frozen Peak Deck

Background Information

This is the next part of the series of arena decks that lead up to the legendary arena.  This deck has just been released and is the reason why this guide came out of order with the rest of the arena decks.  This week we are going over the frozen peak arena deck.  Some of you may know the builder’s workshop arena to be arena six.  There are a few more cards available because frozen peak unlocks important troops.  You may have to wait a little to get all the needed cards.    The new cards include the ice spirit, the bowler, and the lumber jack.  The ice spirit can be a great card for offensive and defensive strikes.  The ice spirit is like the troop version of a zap spell, sort of like how the fire spirits are the troop version of the fireball.  The ice spirit costs one elixir making is cheaper than the zap spell.  Also, the ice spirit can stun for two seconds, doubling the time of the zap spell.  This makes the ice spirit four times as efficient when compared to the zap spell.  However, there is a draw back to the ice spirit when compared to the zap spell.  The ice spirit does do significantly less damage so it is not as good against maybe half health barbarians or the minion horde.  The less amount of damage it gives may only bring down the health of troops, instead of fully killing them like the zap would do.  Also, the ice spirit is a lot more vulnerable to counters than the zap is.   As of right now, the zap has no counter.  It gets an instant and accurate shot every time you use it.  With the ice spirit, there is some mystery as if it will hit its target or now.  The first thing that can happen is that the ice spirit can be zapped, arrowed, or fire balled in a group of troops.  This makes the ice spirit die possible leaving you without a much needed stun.  Also, the ice spirit can be targeted by a musketeer, splash damage troop, or another type of ranged troop and get killed before it can give its payload.  This also leaves you empty without a possible much needed stun.  The final way your ice spirit can become useless is through a distraction.  If you send a hog and ice spirit down a lane, the enemy can easily distract the ice spirit from making a mark on where you want. The can first place the skeleton card down and then follow up with barbarians to counter the hog rider.  The skeletons will get rid of your ice spirit while your hog will get to the tower.  This makes your ice spirits useless in this push.  This is how the ice spirit and zap compare to each other.  The next troop is the bowler.  The bowler costs six elixir which makes it a big investment.  However, it also does a lot of damage to group troops.  It can kill a whole line of archers, goblins, barbarians, and skeletons within a few shots of hit boulder.  The bowler can easily win a match up against the barbarians and he will not take any damage.  However, he is very vulnerable to any type of air troop that targets enemy units.  For example, the minions, the minion horde, and the baby dragon can all counter the bowler and not take any damage.  The bowlers attack is weird.  It attacks in a straight line but also doesn’t stop after it hits a troop.  The boulder he throws keeps going in a straight line for a while and damage any troops in its path.  Additionally, the boulder is so heavy it creates a knock back effect on some enemy troops.  This can help stall for a little bit more so your arena or crown tower and your other supporting troops can get a lot more damage on to the enemy troops being pushed back.  The final troop unlocked in frozen peak is the lumberjack.  The lumber jack has similar stats to the knight but drops an object, similar to the giant skeleton.  Instead though, the lumber jack drops a rage spell.  This can be a very useful troop to escort a damage or tower locking troop like the hog rider, the giant, or the balloon.  The lumber jack can act like a mini tank for a troop and once it dies, provides a huge damage increase for all surrounding troops.  The lumber jack is an extremely good value because at only four elixir, it already makes up for three of that elixir with its rage spell that it droops.  You basically get the knight, a value of three elixir, for the cost on only one elixir.  This concludes the general outline of each troop for the arena and we shall no go to the arena deck.

BASICS: AVERAGE ELIXIR AND HOW TO USE EACH TROOP EFFICIENTLY 

The average elixir cost for this deck is 3.4 elixir and contains the following cards:

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

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 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.  The Spear Goblins, along with most swarm grown troops, can be used to pig push the Hog.  Pig pushing will be explained in the hog section of this article.

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, 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 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.

Bowler-  The bowler is a very strong card.  The bowler can take down a group of barbarians without even getting damaged.  The bowler also can take out other swarm troops with ease like the skeletons, the spear goblins, the archers, and the regular shank goblins.  The bowler is also a great counter to the hut spamming deck.  Because the bowler has a linear area of effect attack, it can destroy the troops that come out of the spawner building fairly easily.  Also, since most people put their spawning buildings in the back of their map, if the bowler locks on to their arena or crown tower, the bowler will also damage the spawner buildings.  This makes the bowler extremely efficient becauuse it not only does moderate damage to the arena or crown tower, but also to a spawner building, most likely a barbarian hut or a goblin hut.  The bowler does cost six elixir so it is a fairly expensive card.  You should try using this in combination with your hog rider and ice spirit because your bowler can knock back and defending barbarians.  This knock back will let the hog rider have a little more time to hit the tower ads much as possible.  In addition, the ice spirits will be able to stun the barbarians for an additional two seconds which will allow the hog rider to get even more hits off.  Both these troops combined will give you a hog rider that will last a lot longer and do more damage to your enemy arena or crown tower.

Ice Spirit-  The ice spirit is a very cheap card and only costs one elixir.  If you find yourself having little success with the ice spirit, maybe because your opponents always have a zap spell or counter it in some way, you can exchange the ice spirits for the zap spell.  The ice spirits however cost one less and stun for twice as long.  If you become skilled with the ice spirit, it can benefit you a lot more by using the ice spirits instead of the zap.  The ice spirit can also be used as an offensive and defensive troop.  On offense, the ice spirit is very good when paired up with your hog rider.  This is because the enemy will most likely either defend with the barbarians, the goblins, the minions, or the minion horde.  The ice spirit will stun most if not all the defending troops for two seconds which gets your hog rider an extra hit or two.  This can rack up to a lot more damage once the match is over.  The way the ice spirit can be used on defense is when a big horde of troops is coming.  If your enemy spawns down a minion horde, you can send out your ice spirit to defend and with the help of your tower, the minion horde will do very little damage to your crown tower.  If the send in barbarians, for example, you can combine your minions and your ice spirit to defend and you will kill the barbarians very easily if you have the help of your arena or crown tower.

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 5 elixir they just used.   Try to make a Hog push in the combos of the Hog rider and the Spear Goblins, the hog rider and the Minions, or the Hog rider and the lumber jack.  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.  Failure to recognize which side is the one to do it on can result in an ineffective and useless push.

Lumber Jack-  The lumberjack should be your main choice when you want to do a hog rider push.  You can use the lumber jack as a semi tank for the hog rider.  By putting the lumber jack in front of the hog rider, it protects the hog rider from heavy damage troops or buildings like the pekka, the prince, and the inferno tower.  Also, it does not matter if your lumber jack dies.  In fact, you want him to die because when he does, he drops a rage spell.  The rage spell that the lumber jack drops can help the hog rider get a ton more shots in, resulting in a lot more damage.  The health from the lumber jack also will help increase the sustainability of your hog rider.  The lumber jack can also be use effectively to kill a horde of ground troops, if you send your lumber jack and minions to defend, you can defend against the barbarians, the regular shank goblins, and the skeletons.  The lumber jack is strong against swarm troops like the skeletons, the spear goblins, the regular shank goblins, and the barbarians.  The lumber jack is very weak to any air troop that targets enemy units like the minions, the minion horde, and the baby dragon.

TOWERS: HOW TO USE THEM AND WHERE TO PLACE THEM

Cannon-  The cannon is a great defensive card because it provides so much value for only three elixir.  The cannon is also the cheapest defensive building in the game.  The cannon is a direct counter to the hog and lets your gain a one elixir advantage.  It also can effectively counter the giant as long as you support the cannon with some more troops.  The cannon cannot counter the royal giant that well but provides a big enough distraction for your minions and or spear goblins to damage the royal giant so he does not get to many shots off on to your arena or crown tower.  The cannon also provides a great distraction for other troops like the balloon or lava hound.  Even though the cannon can’t shoot the balloon or lava hound, it can still be a damage ink.  The cannon can stall the balloon for a bout one shot, which saves your own arena or crown tower from about 800 damage.  It is a lot better for that damage to go on your cannon than on your arena or crown tower.  While the lava hound or balloon are going to your cannon, you can either send in your minions or spear goblins to take them out.  Combined with the help of one of your arena or crown tower, you can easily take the balloon down before it can drop a single bomb on your arena or crown tower.  The cannon also can distract the lava hound for a long enough time to where only the lava pups may get a few shots off on to your tower.  Overall, I think the cannon one of the best if not the best defensive towers now because the inferno tower did receive a major nerf.  The inferno tower nerf was that the zap spell or freeze spell or any other type of stun effect will now reset the damage.  This makes the inferno tower have a lot harder time countering pekkas, golems,. giants,. and royal giants.

SPELLS:  THEIR MAIN USES AND HOW TO MAXIMIZE THEIR POTENTIAL

Fireball– The Fireball in this deck is not to constantly barrage the Crown Towers but to take down mass swarms for Elixir profit.  Combined with the Zap spell, it can take down the Three Musketeers and let you gain an easy 3 Elixir.  The main troops this card counters is the Minion Horde and the Barbarians.  Striking a lone Minion Horde will give a one plus trade.  The Barbarians will also give the one positive Elixir trade.  The Fireball can also be used against the Princess if you can hit the Crown Tower also or if other troops can also be hit.  It is not recommended to shoot a Fireball if it only hits the Princess as it will put you behind in Elixir.  The Fireball can finish off a Tower as long as there is only a few seconds left and the Tower is not over 300 health.  Combined with a Zap, the Fireball can do almost 300 damage.  The fire Ball is very strong against hordes like the barbarians and the minion horde.  They also are strong against multiple building because of the fire ball’s big radius.  The fire ball can easily combo many building when facing a huit spam deck like a barbarian hut, a goblin hut, and the enemy crown or arena tower.  The fireball is weak against high health troops like the pekka, the golem, and the lava hound.  IT is also now a bad counter to the goblin barrel because the most recent update made the goblin barrel cost three elixir instead of four elixir.