Clash Royale December Balance Changes Update

Actually hog is always balanced

I dont consider hog being too meta.

What does ver6 means?

I’m pretty sure he meant rare, my first lvl 8 rare was musketeer

:DDDDDDDDDDDD

Do you hate hog this much?

Well then if you dont like hog probably because you suck playing against it

If you hate hog almost always get a hit on your tower,start using buildings then.Dont go crying in your room just because a hog rider whacked youre tower once.

Too much value for 4 elixir?I dont think so.And in fact i do use my brain,dont go overboard of saying that just because you freakin hate hog rider.

Well you couldve just reply more nicely

Dont play clash royale if you want hog rider be removed

Hog was never meta,he maybe common but what you dont get is the easy synergy he gets.

Hog rider needed a nerf but not damage nerf but deploy time nerf..cz hogs damage is everything…it rarely gets more than two hits rip

What do you define as balanced? If something is widely overused on not just ladder, but also challenges and the competitive scene (note how often it was used in CCGS), I consider that leaning on the side of too strong more than balanced. Balanced is a card like miner, which as a win condition can be very good with a good level of skill but also can be difficult to win with because it’s a one crown deck and one defensive mistake can mean it’s all over. Hog has 40% more HP than miner, almost double the damage per hit and is almost as easy to get hits on the tower as a miner. You can DPS a tower down quicker with Hog and switch lanes far easier with hog if it suits you. Hog is also far more dangerous as a punish tool even by itself. You touched on bridge spam with the prince… hog is the original bridge spam. The more low skill players lean on the pure strength and effectiveness of hog + spell, the worse they will be at the game using other decks. For high skill players, this change doesn’t affect TOO much because despite the lower DPS, they will still be able to get value out of hogs, they will still be able to get hits in. The only difference is that hog now has more of an element of risk just like other win conditions have (miner, giant, battle ram, etc all have weaknesses that were – and still are – bigger than hog’s weaknesses). The nerf is justified because all strong cards that are overused have received nerfs to make other options more attractive, just like how they buff underused cards to make them usable.

Knight is what metaminion used to be. A defensive powerhouse that exceeds all expectations in giving defensive value each time you use it. Strong at defending such a wide variety of cards that it’s almost criminal. It’s overused as much as it is because it’s so strong and that justifies this nerf – it’s been hard meta for nearly a solid year now. Think about it, if in any deck there is a need for a mini tank, 99.99% of the time it’s a choice between knight and ice golem. That puts cards like Valkyrie and Dark prince in the closet only used for off meta decks. There needs to be a tradeoff. Ice golem is lowest elixir cost but counters X, whereas Valk is 4 elixir but counters Y and Z so I should use Valk in this deck. The old knight did virtually everything you need from Valk for 1 less elixir so that shut her out completely. Knight was too effective at everything before and now hopefully will be more balanced, while allowing other cards to have a chance.

Prince is dangerous but there are millions of counters which will form the meta. Tombstone, Guards, Barbarians, Skeletons, etc plenty to work with to stop Prince being too massive a threat. Battle ram was like a prince that targetted towers before its deserved nerf so you couldn’t distract it, while bandit’s dashes were broken and now fixed – I don’t think prince will be anywhere near the problem that the old Vietnam bridge spam was.

Spell cycle was creeping back into the game. There was a time early on in clash royale where the most efficient strategy was to hurl spells at eachother’s towers, and whoever got there quicker won the game. They nerfed that damage the first time to make the game more about troops than just spell damage, and they are doing it again to encourage more actual playing than spell cycling. Which is the dullest form of winning a match in the game.

Ice golem is still massive value for 2 elixir and losing 1 second of slowdown time definitely doesn’t kill it. It hurts it, I’ll give you that, but most of the uses of ice golem aren’t affected by that nerf much. (1) Cheapest tank in the game makes it great for cycle decks – Unaffected by nerf. (2) Best kiter in the game – unaffected by nerf. (3) Frost nova kills bats and skeletons to win value for the ice golem – unaffected by nerf. (4) Frost nova +zap/ice spirit/ewiz makes short work of minions – unaffected by nerf. (5) Only 2 elixir or lower card in the game that can tank multiple hits on defence from support cards like Executioner, musketeer, ewiz, etc which makes it a great distraction tool while you DPS down their push with other cards – unaffected by nerf, although the slowdown would’ve added more value. As mentioned above with the knight, the nerfs to knight and ice golem are a way to balance the game out overall by allowing other cards to get some love. Ice golem offered too much value and still overs great value. If they left ice golem untouched, then everyone would drop knight and jump ship over to ice golem. Nerfing both allows balance.

Pump is still great spell bait for 3 musketeer decks. Heavy golem decks have taken a hit, but with or without pump you can still make them work, just look at surgical goblin’s 20 win golem deck without pump. I’ve seen several others that have been successful, each of them having relatively cheaper cards in the deck to lessen the blow of no collector. Hybrid golem decks are more of an option and I’ve already seen a triple spell golem deck in GC which actually looked good. Pump needed to be nerfed because too often a game was won on the opening hand, which was killing the game. If it turns out to be overkill, they will probably buff pump later on.