Top 10 Best Cards in Clash Royale

Especially for new players it’s good to have an idea over which cards in Clash Royale are considered the best, so that you can know which cards to request from your clan. Also, you will often have several cards ready to be upgraded, but not enough gold to upgrade all of them. Then it’s nice to know which cards you should focus on.

I base this ranking on which cards I believe you will have the most use for as you move up through the Clash Royale arenas. I don’t have the legendary cards yet, so they are not included in the list. I will start the with the honourable mentions and go up the list.

UPDATE: I now have an updated to 20 list of the best Clash Royale cards. This list is based on which cards are most popular among top 150 players.

Honourable mentions.

These cards are good and quite popular in the game, but did not make the top 10 list. Please suggest other cards you like that I should add here, or if you believe any of them deserve to be in the top 10. The honourable mentions are in random order.

10. Dark Prince.

This is a new card from the March 2016 update of Clash Royale. He is similar to the Prince in the way he is charging to do extra damage. However, the Prince weakness in dealing with swarms of small troops is where the Dark Prince is strong. That’s why Prince and Dark Prince is a popular combination now. Alone on the tower the Dark Prince is not even close to as strong as the regular Prince, that’s why he is all the way down at 10th place. Read more about the dark prince here.

9. Golem.

The Golem is in my opinion the best high HP troop in the game. What pushes it down all the way to 9th place, is the high elixir cost, and also the fact that it can be easily countered by lots of different troops if you don’t back it up.

If you do support the Golem with other troops however, it is really really strong. Supporting it with weak range troops behind it like Musketeer, Bomber, Archers, Spear Goblins, Wizard and Witch works really well. Then your opponent basically have to kill the supporting troops that are hiding behind the Golem first, and that can be very tricky. The only hard counter to a Golem is the Inferno Tower.

8. Prince.

Prince is one of the best card in this game and is able to take out an enemy tower all on his own. That means you really force your opponent to react when you send a Prince at him. There are many ways to counter the Prince and end up with an elixir advantage, but good players use the Prince when they know their opponent is low on elixir and then get a ton of value out of him. The Prince can also be used in defence against high HP troops. You can learn more about the prince here.

7. Fireball.

This card is used on Barbarians, Minion Horde, Goblin Barrel, Witch, Bomber, Wizard and lots of other cards. Lets say your opponent drops a Giant, he 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.

Fireball is similar to Arrows, the difference being a smaller target area, higher cost and higher damage. In some decks Fireball is best, in some decks Arrows is the way to go.

6. Arrows.

Arrows have a huge radius and gives you so many opportunities to deal with swarms of troops approaching your towers. Arrows also gives you so many way to gain an elixir advantage in the game. Say you take out Goblin Barrel with Arrows, you will gain a 1 elixir advantage. If you take our Minion Horde with Arrows you will gain an instant 2 elixir advantage which is huge. Arrows is in my opinion the best spell in Clash Royale, with Fireball at a close 2nd place.

5. Hog Rider.

The Hog Rider is my favourite tower killing card in Clash Royale. There are just so many advantages to using the Hog Rider instead of the other tower killing troops like the Prince, Balloon, etc. The Hog Rider cheap at only 4 elixir, while it still has a lot of HP and does a ton of damage.

Another great thing with the Hog Rider is that it goes straight for your opponents towers or defensive building, and it can even jump over the river and small troops. It won’t be distracted by enemy troops but will go straight to the buildings with his huge hammer to cause damage. All of this makes the Hog Rider the best offensive card in the game. You can see a great hog rider deck here.

4. Tesla.

With the changes made to the Tesla a couple of weeks back, it is now one of the most powerful cards in the game. For the amount of HP you get, and the fact that it can hide under ground to avoid spell damage, 4 elixir is a really low cost for it. Tesla is not a card that will fit into deck, like my top 3 cards do, but most of my best decks have Tesla in them. Placing the Tesla in the middle of the area in front of your towers enables it to shoot at and distract troops coming from both lanes.

3. Spear Goblins.

Spear Goblins fit well in most decks and will give you great value. Since they only cost 2 elixir, there is no way to kill them with spells and an elixir advantage. When you place the Spear Goblins well they are worth way more than their elixir cost, being able to deal with both air and ground troops. Since there are actually 3 of them, they can be used to distract a Prince or Mini Pekka while your towers deals with it.

In offence this card work great as well, solo the 3 spear goblins will do a few hundred damage to their tower, but it’s when placed behind a tank like a Giant or Baby Dragon that they really shine. Spear Goblins is also a great card to open with, due to the low elixir cost and decent damage they do to towers without backup.

2. Barbarians.

Barbarians are great value and the card is used in almost every Clash Royale deck. This card is just a ton of value, for only 5 elixir you get 4 strong barbarians with 500+ HP and 80+ DPS each from level 7 and up. They just deal so well with a large number of the most dangerous troops your opponent can send at you, like the Giant Skeleton, Pekka, Golem, Prince, Hog Rider, etc. Even when there are air troops approaching your tower, you can use the barbarians to soak up damage while your tower takes them out.

Now we talked about defence, but Barbarians work well on offence as well. If you get 4 barbarians on a tower dealing 80DPS each, it will go down in a matter of seconds. They do walk a little slow, but putting a Prince or Hog Rider behind them work really well. Barbarians are in my opinion the best common card in the game and this lands them on a strong 2nd place.

1. Baby Dragon.

And the winner is…. the Baby Dragon! I have a Baby Dragon in almost all of my decks, and I’m so happy I finally got this card to level 3 just recently. The Baby Dragon is hard to kill and there are no other cards that can counter it well, so it’s a safe card to open the game with.

The Baby Dragon does decent damage 1 vs 1, and great damage as splash hitting both air and ground troops. It’s cheap to play at only 4 elixir, compared to the other cards that do splash damage to air like the Witch and Wizard at 5 elixir. If you leave it alone it will do a lot of damage to enemy towers as well. All of this makes the Baby Dragon the best card in the game.

What do you think?

I’d love to hear what you guys think about my ranking of the top 10 cards in Clash Royale. Are there any cards I should add to the list, any I should remove?

Check out my update list of top Clash Royale cards here.