Hog Lightning Deck For Arena Five

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The hog rider lighting deck is a great combo to use because the lightning can support the hog rider very well.  The lightning spell can destroy an enemy defensive tower fairly easily.  The goblins and spear goblins also help your deck build out by having an opportunity to have a quick defense just in case you are ever really low on elixir.  The baby dragon provides splash damage that can help destroy swarms of troops or just to kill ground troops for free.  The barbarians and minion horde both can do a great job defending as they both do a huge amount of damage to enemy troops and buildings.  Overall, I think this is a very balanced deck and could be very fun to play.  In addition to that, using the lightning spell will give you the element of surprise against your opponent sense the lightning spell is rarely used.  If you like making bold moves and catching your enemy off guard, you will absolutely love this deck.  If you like three star or no star pushes, this is just a little bit off that deck type.  If you like a slow but steady type deck, I do not advise you to use this deck because it has big plays that will get one tower heavy damaged at each push if executed correctly.

BASICS: AVERAGE ELIXIR AND HOW TO USE EACH TROOP EFFICIENTLY 

The average elixir cost for this deck is an even 4.0 and the following cards used are:

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

Hog Rider–  This is the heart and soul of the deck.  The hog rider is part of your trifecta push that includes the hog rider, the valkyrie, and the minions.  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 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.  Failure to recognize which side is the one to do it on can result in an ineffective and useless push.

Baby Dragon-  The baby dragon is a pretty good splash damage troop for arena five.  At the higher arenas, he starts to fall behind on the power curve because there are less common troops he is good at countering.  The baby dragon in arena five still does fairly well against the troops present because he still has a decent amount of health and does a decent amount of splash damage.  The baby dragon can kill the spear goblins, the goblins, and the skeletons in one shot.   The baby dragon can also two shot archers, the three elixir minions, and the minion horde.  The baby dragon can also effectively kill all your enemy barbarians without taking a single hit.  The baby dragon in a sense can kill all melee ground troops without taking damage because it is an air troop.  The baby dragon can also be on the offensive, not just the defensive front.  If you want, you can send the baby dragon a few second before you place down your hog rider.  Your baby dragon will agro your enemy’s arena or crown tower before your hog rider does so your hog rider will be able to last longer and do more damage.  Additionally, the baby dragon may be able to distract any minions your opponent may have placed down in order to react against your push.  This baby dragon will most likely make the minions attack himself so the hog still will not be damaged.  This will increase the time your hog rider is alive and thus allow your hog rider to do more damage to your enemy buildings whether its a spawning hut or their arena or crown towers.  The baby dragon is strong against the small swarm troops listed above but is weak to a few sellect troops.  The wizard will die to the musketeer, due to its lack of point damage; the wizard, due to its inferior damage; and the ice wizard, the baby dragopn becaomes too slow in attacking to do any good damage.

Goblins- The regular goblins are also a great choice for this deck because it is still very cheap.  The regular shank goblins help you lower your average elixir cost of your deck and allowing you to cycle through and spawning your hog rider and lightning spell more often.  These regular goblins can do some major damage to enemy troops, especially if it is behind your hog rider.  The goblins in this deck will mostly be used for defense though.  The regular goblins and the spear goblins can be used to effectively and easily counter the prince.  The regular goblins, the spear goblins, and the minions can be combined to take down the pekka very easily.  The goblins can also counter the golem pretty quickly but will be useless at defending against the golemites because they would have been killed by the golem’s death damage.  The goblins can also easily counter the hog rider and with the support of your zap spell, will make it impossible for the enemy’s hog to get one swing at your tower.  Additionally, since these goblins do so much damage, they can effectively counter an enemy royal giant, although supporting the goblins with the spear goblins and or the minions will make the enemy’s royal giant’s death quicker.  The goblins are strong against troops like the hog rider, the musketeer, the prince, the princess, the spear goblins, and many other troops,  The goblins are weak when fighting against area of effect troops like the Valkyrie, the wizard, and witch, and the bomber.  They are also weak to any air troops like the three elixir minions, the minion horde, and the baby dragon.

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.

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.

Minion Horde- The minion horde is used to defend against most things.   The minion horde contains 5 minions which means that a ton of damage can be put out.  A single minion all ready can do a ton of damage but when five minions are combined to form a single group, they melt anything that they attack.    The minion horde counters any ground unit very hard. They can completely kill a charged prince even after it has crossed your side of the bridge.  The minion horde is also every strong against the barbarians, wiping them in only a few seconds, the golem- killing him before he has a chance to do any damage to the tower, and nearly anything else.  The major weaknesses to the minion horde are spells and grounded splash damage troops that can attack air troops.  Spells like the zap, the fire ball, and the arrows can all either one shot the minion horde or get them very low on health.  If your enemy uses that zap spell, they will gain a three elixir advantage.  If your enemy uses the fire ball, the will get a one elixir advantage.  If your opponent uses the arrows, they will gain a two elixir advantage.  As you can see, if your enemy has any of these spell cards and uses them to counter the minion horde,  you will be behind in elixir compared to him very fast and most likely have a hard time winning. The ground troops that are a major problem to the minion horde is the ice wizard, the regular wizard, and the princess.  The ice wizard, along with the support of the enemy crown or arena tower, can easily kill your minion horde.  This will give your opponent a two elixir advantage.  The wizard can easily solo you minion horde by himself.  Although it is an even elixir trade, he still has a wizard up at full health which means he got a five elixir advantage on you.  This is the same with the princess and the ice wizard counters.  The princess can take out the minion horde as long as she has enough time.  And with her range, she, even at level one, easily has enough time to take out almost any level minion horde.  It only will take two to three shots from a princess to completely annihilate your minion horde.  She only costs three elixir so not only does your enemy get a free princess, but they also gain two more elixir on you.  With all these counters to the minion horde, this card is a real hit or miss.  If your opponent does not have any of these counters or just has a bad cycle timing, you will beat them.  If they, how ever, have direct counters and play them well, you should stop using your minion horde as it will just keep on making a bigger grave for yourself.    If you find yourself being counter far too often for your liking, you can switch the minion horde to the regular three elixir minions.  This will still let you have an anti air=/ full ground troop counter but also let you less likely to suffer from extreme and heavy counters,

TOWERS: HOW TO USE THEM AND WHERE TO PLACE THEM

There are no towers in this deck.  This means you have to use your minion horde and your barbarians for defense as they do high amounts of damage in quick intervals.

SPELLS:  THEIR MAIN USES AND HOW TO MAXIMIZE THEIR POTENTIAL

Lightning-  The lightning spell is mainly used for two things.  The first one is to counter the spawner strategy.  The lightning spell can be a very good counter because it can put heavy damage on 3 targets.  For example, you can hit a goblin hut, a barbarian hut, and the arena or crowns tower with it.  This can help slow their flow of troops quite a bit.  Another way that you can counter the hut spammers is targeting their elixir pumps.  You could do a combo of an elixir pump, a barbarian hut, and their arena or crown tower and get a pretty good elixir advantage.  Another strategy for the lightning spell is to use iyt to destroy their defense if they have one.  The best defense to use the lightning spell on is the inferno tower because the inferno tower poses the biggest threat against the pekka.  By lightning the inferno tower, it will almost destroy it.  And if you wait just like ten seconds before lightning spell the inferno tower, you can pretty much destroy the inferno tower to the point where it will do little to no damage to the mini pekka at all.  If you do not have the lightning spell, the freeze spell if also a good option to use as it can also stop the inferno tower from doing damage to the pekka.  Please take note though that after thawing out, the inferno tower damage will not reset.  The good thing additionally about the freeze spell is that it only costs four elixir instead of the six elixir the lightning spell costs.  Either way, any of those two spell should work just fine.

Zap– I consider the zap spell to be a “fast splash” car because it does do a little splash damage and almost happens in an instant.  The Zap spell is mainly used to support your hog rider.  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 hog rider and make this deck even stronger.  Remember, the longer your hog rider 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 hog rider 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.