Crazy P.E.K.K.A Hound Hybrid Deck

Hello CRA (and hopefully Stormies(my clan)!), I am ReaperofSouls, but everyone just calls me Reaper. I generally chill around 4k trophies (Low Challenger I), but that’s mostly because I spend a lot of time experimenting with new deck ideas and avoiding the meta.

I think a lot about the ideas of Clash Royale. I wrote section, soon to become a post of its own, about understanding beatdown. If you play Beatdown, this section will help you. If you play against Beatdown, this section will help you. Hell, if you play Clash Royale, this section will help you. So, please read it. It is the 3rd section if you don’t care about the deck.

I play a lot of Lava Hound beatdown, but I also play a lot of control (primarily Miner/P.E.K.K.A/Rocket, which I will probably turn into a guide at some point).

If you just cringed at the average Elixir… 4.5. I know, it’s ugly, but the deck is alright and I’m used to high average Elixir.

Use the P.E.K.K.A on defense to kill tanks or high damage things, then try to milk as much Elixir from it as you can.

For example, if they send in a Giant, play your P.E.K.K.A and a Mega Minion/Knight/Bats for the support (for the sake of example, let’s say they sent in Wiz and you countered with Knight).

Now you spend 10 to counter their 10… but wait… you now have a high health P.E.K.K.A that cost effectively nothing. It’s up to you whether you want to support it or not.

Generally support it if they can kill it with small troops. Don’t support it if they need to stop with big ones.

Let’s say you know they are playing spell bait, and know they will either use Skeleton Army or Goblin Gang. Send in the Bats, if they have Zap you just cycled your deck. If not, Bats will kill the Goblin Gang and make your opponent spend more Elixir to stop the push. If they use Skeleton Army, the P.E.K.K.A will live low on health. The Bats proceed to deal high damage to the Tower, and to top all that off you will gain an Elixir advantage, time, and remove a piece of spell bait without using a spell.

Never cast a P.E.K.K.A to attack. A P.E.K.K.A that cost 7 elixir is easy to stop without losing elixir. A P.E.K.K.A that cost 2 or 3 is so much harder.

Waste as much time as you can in the first two minutes. Make them play first.

If you spend two whole minutes playing chicken (it happens a lot), wait a second during double elixir, if they play something then counter it. If not, play a Hound in the back or cycle.

Only commit to a big push in single elixir if you know their decks, you are safe from rush, and you are up by 4 or more elixir. Feel free to do chip pushed with the Balloon to use all the elixir advantage you gain on defense. I will have more on what to do with elixir advantage in the conclusion.

Once you hit double elixir, proceed to use Lavaloon, Balloon, and P.E.K.K.A counterpushes to kill the Tower. Don’t underestimate Balloon/Lightning chip, it can help if they have too many counters for your hound.

Understanding Beatdown

This is the section that will help everyone one, even if you don’t play Beatdown.

I’m planning on making a post of the the idea behind every deck. If you’re interested in this, feel free to comment belo! If you think I got anything wrong, please do the same. Lastly, if you have ideas for playing other archetypes (for example, I have never played a Hog deck and have no idea how to make a guide on it), please tell me about how you think it should be played!

First, understand the win condition. I blame Youtubers for brainwashing everyone into the idea that a win condition is a card or a combination. It’s not!

A wincondition is how you win, not what cards lead you to winning.

For Beatdown, your win condition is having such a massive elixir advantage you can make a huge push while they have nothing. Because this is rare in single elixir time, the idea of most Beatdown decks is to poke in the first two minutes and go ham in the third (and hopefully fourth). This means that overtime is strictly in your favor (assuming it’s not a Beatdown vs Beatdown matchup), so survival is important.

That is why this deck plays like a control. But instead of poking over time, it gains elixir and smashes them in one big push.

As you can see, elixir is important.

There are some things to make yourself a better Beatdown player (or not be beetendown).

First, try to keep track of the elixir spent on both sides during each fight. Just count how much everyone spends.

If you have more, make a plan of what to do so you will not be thinking while you are at full elixir. If they have more, plan how to make cheap counters to what you think they will have.

After each fight, once a player drops a card, count the elixir until the other player plays a card. Count the starting elixir into the calculation.

Most important, it is okay to trade Tower HP for elixir! If you are down, feel free to take some damage in order to even it up.

Also, let go of towers! Spending an extra 5 elixir to to save a Tower at 400 isn’t always worth it. If they have a big spell (like Fireball, Poison, Rocket or Lightning) it’s not worth it unless you are playing a one crown deck.

For example, while playing Miner chip, you will rarely get more than one Tower. This means that spending a lot to save a Tower is okay. While playing Lava Hound, a lot of players spend a ton of elixir to save a Tower. I don’t care. I’ll take the 5 elixir you gave me to take your other Tower, then come back to the one you saved later.

Of course there are different kinds of Beatdown.

This section is more applicable to the heavy beetdowns generally based off of Golem or Hound, although Giant can also work.

True Beatdown, however, can be achieved by anything. An example of Beatdown is just throwing down cards faster than your opponent can and just wipe them with that.

I’ve seen Hog Beatdown decks, although any deck (maybe not control) can go Beatdown.

Matchups

I sort of skimped on specifics so far, which I plan to remedy in this section.

Here are some common decks, and what to do about them, as well as what to do with elixir advantage and the true conclusion (a note to whatever poor sucker had to read and edit this guide: if you think this section should be split, go ahead. I just didn’t want the guide to be too fragmented).

Ebarb Rush (please put Ebarb rush in a light green) (three common variants: Ebarb Rage, Ebarb Hog, Ebarb Ram):

For Ebarb Rage, counter with P.E.K.K.A. It’ll be critically injured, but you gain an Elixir and waste time.

For Ebarb Hog, you have several counters. For Elite Barbarians, you have P.E.K.K.A and Knight + Mega Minion/Bats. For Hog you have P.E.K.K.A, Bats (risky!), Mega Minion, and Knight in a pinch. Note: by themselves, none of these “counters” can stop the Hog from landing a hit. If you can’t spare the HP, feel free to do two of these. More on how to stop a Hog in the Hog section.

For the Ebarb Ram, do same as Ebarb Hog, with the exception of two not being necessary for the Ram to not connect. If they try to send in Elite Barbarians when you drop Hound, wait for a P.E.K.K.A. You’ll get it before the Elite Barbarians hit the Tower in double elixir.

Hog Rider: As I mentioned above, to stop a Hog from landing a hit, you have to expend a lot of resources. Your best bet is to take a hit from the Hog and try to out keep your Tower as high as possible in minutes one and two, then stop them from attacking in minutes three and four. P.E.K.K.A is great, as it effectively costs 3 for a full health P.E.K.K.A to against a Hog. Now they have to stop a P.E.K.K.A for 3, if you are up enough send a Balloon too. Verdict: challenging, but you should win if you play well.

Golem: Pretty easy.

P.E.K.K.A destroys Golem for a +1 elixir trade, plus the cost of stopping an almost full HP P.E.K.K.A. Use your waterfall of purple juice to crush them!

Spell Bait

• Without Horde, use Arrows to kill the Princess, Bat/Knight to kill Skeleton Army, Barrel and Gang.
• With Horde, have Arrows selected and be ready to instantly Arrow to kill the Horde before your Balloon take too much damage.

Try to Lightning Princess and something else. With her on the field, your pups are effectively useless. If they plant Princess in the back, Balloon at the river will go in, make them spend elixir, and its death bomb will kill the Princess.

Giant: Pretty much the same as Golem except you have less Elixir gain and more chip.

Royal Giant: In this matchup, you will take a lot of chip. Accept that and kill their Tower with all your elixir from economically countering RG.

3Ms: Cry… It’s hard to gain elixir with their Pump, try to get a money Lightning. Play solid D, P.E.K.K.A is your best friend. He’s tanky enough to eat a lot of musket shots, and strong enough to kill the tanks or whatever. A tie isn’t super hard to achieve, but don’t get your heart set on a win.

Graveyard: Go get a glass of water. Really. You’ll play better in your next match not being really frustrated from playing a rigged game.

The Origins of the Deck

If you want to jump the deck, skip to the next section.

This is on how the deck came to be, which is important for understanding the idea of the deck and making substitutions.

Now, my original Miner deck looked something like this: Miner, Rocket, P.E.K.K.A, Ice Wizard, Executioner, Log, Tornado, Ice Spirit. My Hound deck looked something like this: Lava Hound, Balloon, Arrows, Ice Spirit, Lightning, Mega Minion, Bowler, and Mini-P.E.K.K.A

The Bowler was for Elite Barbarians (which I swear are in like so many decks on ladder right now) and swarms. The Mini-P was for Hog and tankbusting.

What if you use the P.E.K.K.A to counter Elite Barbarians, Hog, tanks, and what ever random shit you want? Now they have to respond with a counter to P.E.K.K.A, and probably loose some Elixir. Now, you have an Elixir advantage, more time, and they lost a counter to P.E.K.K.A (sometimes it’s a swarm, or a Inferno/ranged DPS), which is sometimes a counter to the hound too.

Now think about this for a second: Buying time, gaining Elixir, and making them lose a Lava Hound counter or a rush card. That sounds pretty good. And the swarms aren’t a problem with Bats, a card you’ll see in my new hybrid.

Conclusion

This is a very fun deck, with a couple of weaknesses. Because your main defense costs 7, if you are down you’ll most likely have a hard time getting up.

You can stop a lot of common decks, and its two greatest weaknesses both got nerfed (3ms, indirectly and Graveyard, although now you’re still dead, but just a little less so).

I hope you enjoy playing it, and the dnderstanding Beatdown portion of the guide was useful.

In case you have forgotten, my name is Reaper and I hope you will help me make my master “Understanding Clash Royale” guide. If that sounds sick, reply in the comment sectio!

If you are a Stormie, I hope you’ll ask me for tips directly in clan chat.

I hope you all have a great day!