BACKGROUND INFORMATION

This deck is leaning towards the pricey side of decks because it is above that 3.3 elixir threshold.  This is your standard deck with a tank, damage per second unit, a few supporting cards, and some supporting spell cards.

BASICS: AVERAGE ELIXIR AND HOW TO USE EACH TROOP EFFICIENTLY 

The average elixir cost for this deck is an even 3.6 and the following cards used are:

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

9k=Giant-  The giant is the first tank you unlock in the game.  It has a rarer brother called the royal giant.  However, the giant has a melee range unlike his brother.  Also, the giant is a lot stronger health point wise.  The main strategy with the giant in this deck is to spawn him in the very back of your side of the map.  This will let you regenerate some more elixir before your push gets to the enemy’s side of the bridge.  The best way to deal with a defending minion horde is to use your musketeer and the spells on them.  The zap will help you bring down the minion horde’s minions down to very little health and allow the musketeer to one shot each minion, making it a very fast killer. The best things to support your push with is with the musketeer and the mini pekka or the Valkyrie.  This will let you be able to counter the minion horde, the baby dragon, or the regular three elixir minions because the musketeer can attack them.  Also, you have the ability to counter the barbarians very well because the Valkyrie does ground splash damage.  It will only take a few swings from the Valkyrie to kill the whole group of defending barbarians.  If the Valkyrie or the musketeer get to the tower, you will deal out some heavy damage.

imgresWizard- 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.

ValkyrieCardValkyrie-  The Valkyrie, even though it has a slow movement speed, can be quickened.  If she is put in front of your fire spirits, she will move at the same speed as your fire spirits.  This element of additional speed is why I consider her to be viable when compared to the dark prince.  The Valkyrie also only costs four elixir which is fairly cheap.   Also, if you put her in front of your hog rider, your opponent will have a very hard time countering your push.  Instead of their usual barbarians, skeletons, spear goblins, or regular shank goblins, they have to think of some other way to counter your push.  This is because your Valkyrie, now acting as a splash damage tank for your hog, will kill any of those counters extremely quick.  If they place an inferno tower down, you can easily time a zap spell to reset its damage and you can plow straight to their arena or crown tower.  Another good troop to pair up with the hog rider Valkyrie combination would be the fire spirits.  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 support your hog rider will make your push extremely strong and very hard to defend.  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.

FireSpiritsCardFire 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 fire spirits easily kill bunched up troops 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 can also help strengthen your anti air defense against any minions or minion hordes.  However, they do not do well against higher health air troops like the lava hound or the balloon because they lack sustained damage.  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.

SpearGoblinSpear 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.

BarbariansCardBarbarians– 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.

TOWERS: HOW TO USE THEM AND WHERE TO PLACE THEM

2Q==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

Arrows-CardArrows- The arrows are a great cheap way to counter a mass amount of troops.  The arrows can help support your pushes that contain your giant by killing off any minion horde that will do a lot of damage.  The arrows are also great at countering hut spam decks because you can easily kit two or three buildings, the crown or arena tower, and any enemy troops spawned or walking near the arrow radius.  Arrows can also be used to finish off towers if they are at a very low health value.  t only will do around 80 to 100 damage to your crown tower so plan accordingly before sending it at your enemy’s crown or arena tower.   Combined with the zap spell, you can get about 150 damage off of your enemies tower, which can help a lot if your are in over time and just need a little more damage.  The arrows are a great counter to the skeletons, the spear goblins, the archers, the regular shank goblins, the goblin barrel, the three elixir minions, the lava pups that come out of the lava hound and the minion horde.  They can help defend against enemy barbarians if they have a bout a quarter of their life left.  The arrows are weak against high health troops like the golem, the pekka, the lava hound, the balloon, and other troops like those.  The arrows are a nice and cheap three elixir so you can use them at almost any point during the battle for an easy defense against a lot of small units.