Best Beginner Deck (Arena 1 to 5)

After the global launch I’ve put together lots of different decks with Training Camp and Goblin Stadium cards, and this is the best deck I have come up with.

I remember how hard it was to decide on a deck starting out with the game, and hopefully this guide will be useful to new players.

I’ve used the same format as my Arena 4 – 6 guide, take a look at that if you’re pushing arena 5, 6 or 7.

This deck is built up around countering and taking advantage of your opponent’s mistake. From arena 1 all the way up to arena 5, most players make lots of mistakes.

The most common mistake I saw as I was testing out decks, was opponents playing too offensively. 

This deck has lots of good defensive troops to stop your opponents push and then take out crown their tower in a nice counter-attack. It’s also a low elixir cost deck at 3.6, a good thing for new players as well.

The cards.

Lightning and baby dragon are the only two epic cards in this deck. The rest of the cards are mostly lower level cards, so they are not that hard to get. Most cards can also be replaced while without affecting the deck too much.

Archers.
Archers are one of the most underrated cards in Clash Royale. They are great in defense dealing good damage to both air and ground troops. They don’t die to arrows or the same level and will deal a lot of damage to enemy crown towers if protected.

Prince.
Prince is and has always been an awesome card. It’s the first real tower killing card most players get access to, and you can use this card all the way up to Legendary Arena. What is nice with the Prince is that you can even defend with it in emergencies. Usually you’ll use it to kill one of their crown towers when they are low on elixir however.

Baby Dragon.
The Baby Dragon is one of my favorite cards and is an important part of this deck as well. The reason this card is awesome is because it is both flying and deals splash damage, which makes it awesome at taking out enemy barbarians and minion hordes. It can also do decent damage hitting the enemy tower solo.

Valkyrie.
Valkyrie is not a card that is used a lot, but especially for beginning players she is a very good card to have in your deck. Bomber would be a good alternative, but the Bomber is much harder to play. Valkyrie is really hard to misplay, just use her to counter enemy ground troops and you will do fine. She can also be used to tank while your archers and spear goblins are hiding behind her.

Fireball.
This deck doesn’t use arrows, so a fireball is really needed then. You use this to take out Minion Horde, Barbarians Goblin Barrel and other annoying cards. Lets say they drop a giant, they will often follow up with a Witch, Bomber and Archers. Your fireball will take out all the troops behind the Giant and they are the ones that cause the most damage.

Skeleton Army.
Skeleton Army is in here to deal with Prince and Hog Rider mainly. However, it can also be used to swarm other troops like Pekka, Mini Pekka and the Golem.

Knight.
The Knight is in the deck for defending primarily. It will take out a Wizard, Musketeer and Witch one on one and still survive, which will give you a nice elixir advantage. The Wizard and Witch costs 5 elixir to the Knights 3 elixir, a 2 elixir advantage! The Knight can also distract a Baby Dragon while your tower takes it out, and will even take out a Giant Skeleton.

Spear Goblins.
These guys are also in most of my decks. They are cheap and decent at taking out enemy flying units. I also often use them to distract enemy tower killing troops until I can deal with them.

Card replacements.

Here are my suggestions for replacements. Most new players don’t have all the cards yet, so as long as you don’t replace more than 2-3 cards the rest of the guide and play style should be quite similar. I’ve also used cards from higher arenas in the replacements, as I’m sure many player reading this guide are higher than arena 1 already.

• Archers can be replaced with Minions.
• Prince can be replaced by Hog Rider or Giant.
• Baby Dragon can be replaced by Witch or Wizard.
• Skeleton Army can be replaced by Tombstone or Tesla.
• Spear Goblins can be replaced by Minions.
• Fireball can be replaced by Arrows or Zap.
• Knight can be replaced by Minions.
• Valkyrie has a great replacement in the Bomber.

Opening. (0:00 – 0:30)

My preferred option is to open with Spear Goblins behind one of my towers. Spear Goblins are cheap at only two elixir, and I will have almost all my elixir left to react to whatever my opponent is opening with. I place them behind my towers so that I can place tank units, like Knight, Valkyrie or Baby Dragon, in fromt of them before they reach the bridge.

If I don’t have Spear Goblins in my opening hand I will go for the Baby Dragon. The Baby Dragon is moving slowly and does well on it’s own even without support. It is very hard to counter the baby dragon and come out on top. If there are no other threats to deal with I will often place Archers or Spear Goblins behind it once i reaches the bridge.

My third choice of opening would be the Knight. The knight does well against most troops alone and can also do some damage to the enemy crown tower if he is not stopped. The combo with Archers or Spear Goblins behind him work really well.

The last choice of opening would be archers, they don’t do too well against enemy towers alone, but if I can get a Knight, Baby Dragon or Valkyrie in front of them before they reach the bridge they are great. Versus most troops the Archers also do well alone, it’s hard to kill them efficiently and gain an elixir advantage.

Midgame. (00:30 – 2:00)

This decks is built around defending efficiently, and then use your elixir advantage to counter-attack. When you play, be patient and don’t overcommit on an attacks. That is what your opponent is going to do, and you are going to sit back and kill his troops in front of your towers. Then, once you have your opponent at an elixir disadvantage, attack!

The Prince with Archers behind him works really well. The Archers can both do good damage to the towers and take out any defensive troops your opponent might place. In this situation he placed Minions to defend, and my Archers took them out.

Especially in lower arenas players keep attacking and attacking without letting their elixir reset. Don’t do this, it’s a big mistake. Anyways, this means that you often will have enough elixir to counter-attack in the other lane while still holding back your opponent’s attack.

In the screenshot above you can see such a counter attack. I don’t need all my elixir to defend so I can counter-attack in the other lane while my opponent is out of elixir and is unable to defend it. This Prince can easily take out the rest of the tower as my opponent will spent too long time waiting for elixir before he can defend.

Endgame. (2:00 – 3:00)

How the endgame goes depends on how much damage you have managed to cause in the midgame. Hopefully you have brought one of the enemy towers down to 600 hp or lower. If you have, you should focus almost all of your effort in defending at this point, that means no pushing with the Prince unless you’re 100% sure your opponent is out of elixir and unable to defend.

Whenever you’ve successfully repelled an enemy attack, try to get the enemy tower down to where your fireball or lightning can kill it in one hit. Then you can just keep defending and launch a fireball or lighting at the last second of normal time to take out the tower.

If you on the other hand have a lot of hit points left on the enemy tower, or even worse, he has killed one of yours already, your gameplan changes a lot. In this case you have to take more risks. Elixir is increasing at double speed so players get more stressed and often miss defending the lane they are not currently focusing on, if you’re lucky your Prince can take out a crown tower solo without your opponent noticing.

A general rule is that more behind you are in the game, the bigger risks you should take. In same cases you will ignore defending your tower or castle completely if you believe there is a chance you can take out the enemy tower before your tower is dead. This is especially true during overtime, the first one to kill a tower wins the game then after all.

Offense tactics.

Here I will discuss some common situation where this deck really shines and gives you a nice elixir advantage if you play correctly.

Counter attack.

Here my Archers first take out the enemy Hog Rider in defense. If you use Archers to defend against Hog Rider it will only be able to hit the tower two times.

Once the Archers reach the bridge I place my Knight in front of them. I also place my Prince behind the Knight so it will push the Knight forward to tank the damage for everyone else. The Valkyrie also joins in for the big push.

My opponent tries defending with Minions and Archers, but the tower is still taken out with one of my Archers surviving. My opponent was too low on elixir to defend the push and also misplaced his Tesla.

Fireball to kill Swarms.

If your opponent plays Minion Horde, Barbarians or any combination of weaker troops together Fireball gives you a real nice elixir advantage. Both Minion Horde and Barbarians cost 5 elixir to play, and taking them of with Fireball will give you a one elixir advantage. Barbarians might still survive depending on level, but it will leave them low enough for your tower to take them out without taking damage.

If you kill two cards worth of troops with your Fireball you can get an even larger elixir advantage. Often I’m able to kill 8 elixir worth of troops like Witch and Archers with one Fireball. This is huge, a 4 elixir advantage like this enables you to do tons of damage to their towers.

Defense tactics.

Here I’ll describe some common situations you will face with this deck, and how to defend them. Please let me know by leaving a comment if there are any other situations you’d like me to discuss.

Defending the Giant push.

I noticed that pushing with Giant in front is really popular in the lower arenas. I guess that is because most players really struggle stopping this push. The Giant push is placing a Giant at the far back of your towers and place weaker DPS troops behind it once it gets to the bridge. Then the Giant will tank the damage while the DPS troops will deal the damage.

It can be hard to stop this push if you don’t know how to do it, as you will often end up in a situation where all your troops are hitting the Giant while the enemy troops are shooting at your troops without taking damage.

What you ideally want to do is to take out the troops behind the Giant first, and then deal with the Giant. Fireball is a great spell for this, it will often take out all the troops behind the Giant. Lightning is another option of they use troops like Witch or Wizard behind the Giant.

If you don’t have spells ready or the right situation for them, you have to use regular troops. Depending on what troops they use behind their Giant you want some or all of your troops behind the Giant to deal with them. In the image above you see that the Knight and Baby Dragon is placed behind the enemy Giant to deal with the troops there. Here I also had Fireball ready, but I had to use that to deal with the Goblin Barrel.

Defending against Prince and Hog Rider.

Hog Rider is not common at lower levels, but you often have to deal with the Prince. If you don’t stop the Prince he will deal a ton of damage to your tower. The main card for dealing with Prince and Hog Rider is Skeleton Army. Playing this as soon as you see the Hog Rider approaching will take him out without any hits landing on your tower. Dealing with the Prince you can play it even later, as long as it lands before he hits your tower the skeletons will swarm around him and take him out.

If you don’t have Skeleton Army ready you are in a bit of trouble. Spear Goblins or Archers can do the job though, Archers will take out a Hog Rider before it can land more than two hits to your tower.

Comeback.

If you do some errors and get behind from the start of the game, don’t give up. This deck gives you a good chance at a comeback if your opponent makes errors, and he will for sure. Players makes error all the time, and the winner is usually the player who makes the least amount of errors.

Conclusion.

This is a very active and fun deck to play, and from my experience it does really well against all other decks. I did not find any specific deck type I had a big problem with.

It is also a great deck to learn the game with in my opinion. You learn which troops counter which and how to use your elixir advantage to as much damage as possible to the enemy towers.

Please let me know how you’re doing if you’re using this decks. Also if you have any suggestions on how to improve the decks I’d love to hear that as well, thanks!

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