BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The hog miner deck is a very fun deck to play. It is fun because with such cheap main offensive troops with a quick cycle deck, you will always have the momentum. Your opponent will always be on their heels and not be able to start a single offensive push. Also, this deck is not prone to nerf as the miner was just biffed and the hog is very balanced compared to the royal giant right now. This deck also uses the hog which is unlocked at a low level arena which means you probably have many cards to upgrade him with. However, this deck is not that friendly for free to play players because it does use the legendary card, the miner. The miner is also the other main offensive card in this deck and cannot be substituted. If you substitute this card, it this deck become a hog cycle deck, not a hog miner deck. If, however, you are lucky and got the miner in a chest of some sort, you can use this deck because the miner only needs to be a level one miner. This deck is very quick and fast pace so most of you guys would love to play this deck. If you don’t like quick and small pushes that do high amounts of chip damage and would rather build up one push that takes one tower right away like a hit or miss type of deck this deck may not be for you. Let us get started.
BASICS: AVERAGE ELIXIR AND HOW TO USE EACH TROOP EFFICIENTLY
The average elixir cost for this deck is 3.1 and contains the following cards:
TROOPS: USED FOR DEFENSE AND OFFENSE. IMPORTANT TO USE THE RIGHT COUNTER FOR EACH TROOP
Bomber- The bomber makes its debut in my strategy posts. I chose the bomber because it is cheaper than the fire ball and is extremely well against barbarians. When facing higher level people, 90% of those people will use barbarians in their deck. Why? Because it is such a very good card. Having a strong, hard counter to a common card will help make your deck a lot better. The bomber, only costing you three elixir, helps you gain a 2 elixir profit along with a free bomber. Also, it is not worth it for your enemy launching a fire ball at it because they would make themselves have a one elixir disadvantage. You may also be wondering why I chose bomber over the wizards because the wizard does target air and ground and kills barbarians almost as effectively. The reason is that the bomber is two elixir cheaper than the wizard is. This makes the bomber a lot better choice when cycling cards because it will let you get through your deck quite a bit faster. Additionally, you do not need to cover air because your arrows already do the job well. Also, just in case you do not have your arrows on hand, you always have a zap in your deck to take care of any swarm air unit like the minion horde. I feel like the wizard or fire ball is not needed in this deck because the bomber, arrows, and possibly zap take care of everything for a cheaper elixir average.
Miner- The miner is another big offensive card in your deck. It can be very annoying because your opponent has to predict where it will land. Also, just because you see people just launching their miner to the outside wall of your crown tower, does not make it the best way. Sending it to the same spot over and over becomes very predictable. When I face miners and my opponents keep sending the miner to one side over and over, I start knowing where to place my barbarians and get an easy hard counter off. This will lead you to waste about three elixir every time you send out your miner because it basically does nothing. If you want to just send your miner to their tower, make it unpredictable. Better yet, put them on opposite sides. Lets say the first time you place it on the outside wall, your opponent with think you will do that the second time. Instead of being predictable, send your miner to the inside side , facing the center of their map, and they will surely be surprised. When they place their barbarians on the outside wall of their tower, they will be surprised to see the barbarians stop nothing and see the miner on the exact opposite side. Now, you just guaranteed your miner to do a little more damage. The barbarians now have to walk around their own tower, wasting a few seconds. This will make your opponent hate you more, confused, and a little panicked. All these feelings and emotions will make their game play and strategy deteriorate just a little bit. Also, the miner does not only have to target the arena or crown tower. You can make it hit the enemy’s elixir collector and stop his production. This will really surprise him because 99% of miner users do not do this. I find it very surprising because it will slow their momentum and make them very confused. In keeping with not just aiming towards the crown tower, you can spawn the miner in front of any huts they have, although I have not tried this and I do not know if this is a very good trade or not. But I do know a another very good trade for the miner. If you have an enemy princess behind a tank unit and have no way of killing her through spells, you can send in a miner, go under the toes of the tank, pop out of the ground next to the princess, and kill her. This leaves you with a nearly full health miner along with a dead enemy princess.
Spear Goblins- 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. Just like with most ground swarm troops, they can pig push a hog rider. Pig pushing will be explained in the hog rider section of this article.
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 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 Fire ball 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.
Barbarians- This card costs 5 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. The Barbarians can also help defend against the Dark Prince if the situation is desperate, but is not recommended counter since the Dark Prince is a pretty very good Barbarian destroyer. 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. These four mighty men are also your biggest tanks. If you do want to launch a major offensive push, it is best to use them as the meat shield, or tanks of your push. If they do get to the tower unnoticed they can easily destroy it. In my opinion, the Barbarians are one of the biggest staple cards in the game. Just like with most ground swarm troops, they can pig push a hog rider. Pig pushing will be explained in the hog rider section of this article.
Minions- The minions is one of your only anti air troop so it is very important to use at the right time. If you know your opponent has a balloon in his or her deck, make sure to only use the minions on that because they counter the balloon very well. If they don’t have a balloon, you can use them on troops like Valkyries or knights to gain a huge elixir profit. As you can tell, 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 can also kill a Princess that is on the bridge.
TOWERS: HOW TO USE THEM AND WHERE TO PLACE THEM
This deck uses no towers. If you really need to play with a tower switch the spear goblins for a cannon. This is not recommended though as it will make you very limited on anti air troops.
SPELLS: THEIR MAIN USES AND HOW TO MAXIMIZE THEIR POTENTIAL
Arrows- You may know me as an extreme fire ball user and you may be wondering why arrows is here and not the fire ball card. The reason is because the arrows is one elixir cheaper and that means a lot in a cycle deck. Also, the fire ball was used to counter the enemy’s barbarians but in this deck we already have a counter, the bomber. Because the bomber hard counters the barbarians and any other small swarm troop for that matter, we do not need to have another counter for that card. The fire ball was in other decks because it was the only focused counter the the barbarians. I still believe that the fire bell is a very good card, it just does not have synergy like the arrows do. So let us talk about the strategy behind the arrows first. You want to use the arrows for a few things. The most important thing is to counter the princess as the arrow card is the only spell counter to her that does not give a negative elixir trade. Another thing you may want to use arrows on is the minion horde, giving you a three elixir advantage, or the goblin barrel, which can do about 700 health points worth of damage if none of your crown towers are down yet.
Zap- The zap spell can support both of your main offensive damage dealers. For example, if you send in a miner and they always counter with skeleton, spear goblins, or medium level shank goblins, you can zap the tower and this troops. This will lead to your miner being hassle free from opposing troops and additionally stun the tower for a whole second. This lets your miner get a few more shots in and it also preserves your miner’s health for a little bit longer. The Zap spell can also used to support your Hog Rider. A well placed Zap can stun the troops that are suppose to counter the Hog and it would also stun the Tower. A well placed stun will allow your Hog to get about two more shots off which will produce about 500 extra damage. Additionally, the Zap can help counter small troops like Minions, Spear Goblins, Goblins, and even the Minion Horde. The Zap could also stop a Prince from charging which will reduce his damage immensely. The Zap, if high enough Level, can also help counter pesky Goblin Barrels the fly across the map and onto your Tower producing a plus two Elixir advantage. The Zap can also stop an oncoming Hog attack, preventing one to two swings resulting in 500 health points being saved. The Zap is a very versatile card and I only recently found out its potential.
