Top 20+ Tips To Win Any Draft Challenge!
Quick Tips for Draft Challenge
Pick a Win Condition: This is very simple!
Picking a win condition is the most important move in draft matches. This will decide how easy it is to take down the opponent’s towers.
Always pick at least one win condition If you have the chance (Giant, Miner, Hog Rider, Graveyard, Goblin Barren, Lava Hound, Golem, 3 Musketeers etc).
The best win conditions in Draft Challenge:
Hog Rider and Giant are always the best viable win conditions. Goblin Barrel and Graveyard require specific cards to be countered.
Pick card that counter the other: Another straight-forward tip!
For example, If you have the Minion Horde & Arrows Draft, go for Arrows.
Pay attention to what you are giving away: A bit more advanced tip!
Sometimes, the better choice is about making your opponent’s deck worse, not making your deck better.
For example, If you get the choice between Spear Goblins and Rage, go with Spear Goblins. Spear Goblins can’t make your deck better but Rage is definitely one of the worst cards in Draft Challenge.
Cards which are bad in the meta could be OP in the Draft Challenge:
For example, the Witch.
In the normal meta games, people can easily counter Witch with meta cards such as Bowler, Executioner, Knight, Lightning, Baby Dragon etc. However, in Draft Challenges, having those cards is not guaranteed.
Try to pick cards which require specific counters:
Here are some of those cards:
For example, Sparky!
If you have Sparky in your hand while the opponent doesn’t have any Zap effect or swarm card, he will find it extremely hard to deal with the Sparky. This is even worse If you have a good Sparky combo such as Giant Sparky.
Don’t forget spell!
Always pick one of these: Rocket, Lightning, Fireball and Poison.
In case you don’t have any win condition, or your win condition gets countered, you still have something to deal damage.
Last but not least, getting positive Elixir trade with spells is not hard!
Ensure your deck makes sense
Example:
- First pick: Graveyard vs Mega Minion
- Second pick: Baby Dragon vs Musketeer
Although Musketeer can solo kill Baby Dragon, pick Baby Dragon because it is a hard counter to your Graveyard. Also, If you are lucky, you can combo it with Tornado + Graveyard later on.
A More Advanced Draft Guide
by darchangels13
Draft is all about luck…
WRONG!
But luck will matter a little and it’s definitely possible to just plain get a bad challenge.
It takes me between 1 and 3 tries to get a 12-win legendary challenge done. On a bad run it takes as many as 5 tries.
What does this tell you?
- Yes, sometimes you lose a draft because bad luck happens
- Players who are good at drafting can win with consistency despite the randomness.
- You can get better at drafting.
- If you’re free to play, getting good at drafts and saving up gems is an awesome way to get legendary cards.
F2P Tip: I have multiple accounts but I save my F2P’s gems exclusively for big prize challenges, preferably legendary releases. When you’re free to play, you probably won’t have a lot of gems. But the big releases are big prizes. Bank gems in preparation so you can give it a few tries.
Draft is Different
DUH!?
So in your average challenge you construct a deck (or for many of you, copy one) and that deck is ready-made to counter the popular cards/decks right now.
It has well defined attack strategies and counter-moves, and with YouTube, Twitch, or Reddit you can learn how to combine attacks and defend against other decks that are popular.
You can’t do that in draft. You don’t get the full card selection.
You have cards you don’t really know. And, you definitely didn’t get that sweet combo you love. Sometimes you don’t even know what your attack combinations are going to be until you get into the game.
Imperfect Knowledge
In the normal game when he plays a Baby Dragon or a Night Witch, you can make a lot of assumptions.
The first few plays, a player makes immediately telegraph his deck to you, and you know what to start saving for defense.
You can start organizing your rotation around surviving/defeating Golem/Night Witch 2 cards into the match.
In draft you both need to learn on the fly, what combinations you can use, and what combinations he might have and how you can stop them.
Play Slower:
You know 4 cards in his deck, but there are 4 cards you don’t know and any play he makes won’t tell you the rest of his hand.
Each play tells you only one card he has.
PLAY SLOWER
Your attack combinations are probably different than ones you’re used to, and so are his.
You’ll want to see a few troop exchanges before you really go all in on any attacks.
Draft is Leaky
In most cases your defenses will be less than perfect.
You didn’t get to choose your defenses and some of your opponent’s attacks will deal damage.
Depending on the deck you received, your attacks might even need cards crucial to defense. You and your opponent are both likely to leak damage far more often than in a normal game. Be ready to set up a 2 or 3 crown win every game, because odds are decent you’ll lose one tower.
For the same reason, you want to avoid taking chip damage on the healthy tower, just in case you need to prevent him from stealing a 2 crown reversal.
You can’t say whether he has a weak 3 crown deck until more than halfway through the challenge when he shows you his 8th card.
My Drafting Tips
Every pick you make should be influenced by other picks you’ve made. This means you need to consider cards you’ve taken or given.
Ask yourself:
- Did I give him an easy counter to this?
- If I let him have this card, am I gonna die?
- Can I make his deck weaker or my deck stronger by this choice?
- Can I make him weak?
- Can I make myself strong?
- Can I counter this?
- Did I give him a counter
Can I make him weak?
Example: Giving him 3 spells and a building will mean it almost doesn’t matter what you end up with as long as you have troop cards.
Same goes for making his deck just insanely expensive. But you can also give him cards you already have good counters to. Especially if you have multiple ways to counter those cards.
A Minion Horde is not that scary if you already took Fire Spirits. It’s just a good way for him to fail at attacking.
Can I make myself strong?
Example: You already have a Golem. Inferno Tower comes up as a choice.
Was the alternative card a nuclear weapon? No? TAKE THE DARN INFERNO! STOP THINKING ABOUT IT.
Only one of you can have an Inferno Tower. Now it is not him. Suddenly the Golem is lookin’ pretty freakin’ suuuuweeeeeeeeet.
Can I counter this?
Minion Horde is an incredibly strong card.
If your only air defense is a Musketeer, you probably don’t want to risk him having it, even if the other choice seems very good.
If you have Arrows, or Princess or Wizard, then hey, who cares if he has Minion Horde. At that point you can give him a Minion Horde because you can hard counter it.
Though you could still choose it if it makes your deck better.
Did I give him a counter?
Example, it’s same thing in reverse.
If he has Fire Spirits, well, Minion Horde isn’t very strong for you now so picking it might be a mistake, but you still may want to keep it out of his hand if you don’t have your own way to deal with it.
You only Pick Half A Deck
With only half the deck to pick you’re not going to get everything you want.
Don’t set yourself up for failure by hoping he gives you something you already know you need.
Remember he has to give you 4 cards, so if you’re forced to give away a card you want because you need to take a counter it’s okay.
And he gets the same deal, he might have already taken a card that counters the stuff you took, but avoid giving him one!
Cards Get Better
In Draft, the limited selections will improve certain cards, and degrade others.
Generally if a card has multiple uses, or if it can be combined with other cards easily it’s a good draft card.
Usually these are cards you find in multiple meta decks because they pair well with multiple things.
Cards Get Weaker
Certain cards aren’t that good in draft mode.
They rely heavily on combinations to work well, and since you can’t guarantee you’ll have all of the pieces to those combinations, you can’t guarantee you’ll be picking a good card.
Generally if a card is only ever found in one of the meta decks then you should think hard about whether it’s going to work with the cards you’ve already got, because it probably doesn’t play that nicely with others.
Goblin Barrel
Goblin Barrel decks usually rely on heavy defense, and baiting out all of the good counters so you can chip chip chip.
While your opponent probably doesn’t have good counters, you’re probably not going to be able to play defensively.
Which means cards that excel at 1 crown wins aren’t as good.
Skeletons
This is a card that can be an amazing value on defense.
Unfortunately you’re very likely to end up in a situation with a mediocre offense, and this card will be completely useless in your attacks.
Unless you already have a Hog Rider, or other good cycle-attack, this cycle-card is a bit too risky to choose.
Heal and Clone
Normally two fairly “bad” cards, but a lot of times you need certain cards to make these useful at all so unless you picked those cards this is probably a dead card
Lava Hound
Big beefy tank to distract the Tower? Great!
But this really only does the job of tanking for air troops, and how many of those will you have?
If you can’t answer that question, then you probably shouldn’t pick the Lava Hound.
Which cards are good?
Some cards are exceptionally strong in draft. I break them into 3 classes.
Win Condition Cards
Most of the time win conditions are building targeting. Don’t get hung up on that in Draft though. The fact that your opponent’s deck is almost always sub-par allows a lot of cards that to act as win conditions when they normally would be medium/bad choices.
Golem: I really, really hate Golem, but it is hands down, my favorite draft card.
Golem is extremely difficult to counter when you can’t pick an Inferno Tower, or a P.E.K.K.A.
P.E.K.K.A: If he has a tank, or has no swarm troops then the P.E.K.K.A can be very good as a win condition, serving as both tank killer and as a tank.
If you already have a P.E.K.K.A (or Infernos), is basically the only time I’d “give away” the Golem.
If you took a Golem, you probably want to take the P.E.K.K.A, and just accept that it’s a card you’ll have to accept a dead card to choose Either/Or.
3 Musketeer
There’s no guarantee he’ll have any heavy spell or other good counter to this deadly card.
Balloon
Many draft decks are light on air defense, and if you saw 4 of his cards, you can ensure it.
On the other hand if you have perfect Balloon defense with your choices, give him the Balloon, so he can waste 5 Elixir.
Versatility Cards
Most draft decks aren’t complete well rounded decks.
Versatile cards can do multiple things very well that utility can keep you from being stuck without an answer to Minion Horde, or a way to kill tanks.
This is my list of “good to haves” but any card that can be used to solve multiple, different problems is “versatile” in my book, and that makes it good to have.
Electro Wizard
Medium ranged damage, slow, and a splash effect on spawn.
He can counter swarms with his splash, defend tanks, and act as Inferno/Sparky stoppers. All while acting as a damage support card.
Hunter
In normal play he can be underwhelming, but remember, your deck is probably not a complete deck.
Hunter can act as a swarm counter at range, or a Tank Killer up close, plus he has medium HP and can survive a hit from most things.
Mega Knight
Swarm kill, huge tank, and support card counter, he does it all, for the low-low price of 7 Elixir…
Okay it’s not that low, but he does a lot of different things.
Magic Archer
Our newbie is very good at swarm control and at scoring chip damage in spite of a good defense.
In Draft, forcing damage on the Tower is an amazing thing.
Guards
Medium-strong damage, with the ability to survive at least 6 hits from even the hardest hitters.
Rocket, Lightning, Poison, or Fireball
Support card killers, Pump counters, swarm defense and of course guaranteed chip damage.
With a heavy spell you can probably get at least 1 really good Elixir trade in, plus they can be a great way to end a close game.
You want one of these, but typically not more than one of these.
Tornado
If you’ve got any splash card, this can be a powerful offensive/defensive tool.
Plus it’s effective at killing small swarms, activating the king Tower, countering certain win conditions and just plain moving things around.
Witch
A ranged splash damage dealer who births distraction troops.
She’s an excellent card for draft.
Battle Ram is normally one of my favorite cards, but in a world where he’s got crappy defense, it’s an amazing card.
It can act as solo win condition, as a tank for supporting troops, as a kite for troops like Mini P.E.K.K.A, and on defense as a mini tank filled with 2 Barbarians.
Miner
A useful chip card who can kill spawners and pumps, an emergency defensive medium tank, and of course tank for the counter-attack after whatever defense you slapped together?
Yes please.
Defenders
Some cards are insanely useful on defense in Draft.
Inferno Dragon
4 Elixir is a pretty good trade for most medium sized/tanky units, and since so many of them are ground troops, you get a free Inferno Dragon out of it.
Plus he’ll give you a definite answer to Giants, Golems and Pekkas.
He’s also a medium tank, in a pinch.
Dart Goblin
High DPS, and excellent at swarm control, plus there is a pretty decent chance your opponent doesn’t have a Log or Arrows.
And he can provide amazing air defense.
Sparky
Without a Zap, Sparky can be very hard to defeat on defense.
Barbarians
Are so good at killing many of things that he really wants to use to target your crown towers, like graveyards, Giants, Golems, Prince, Royal Giants, Hogs, basically all manner of win conditions are pretty hard countered by the Barbarians
Skeleton Army
With a chance he has no Zap or Log, the Skeleton Army is the “counter basically everything card”
Minion Horde
Another card whose risk often outweighs its value, but in draft sometimes your opponent has no good answer!
If you gave him 4 cards that don’t help him kill Minion Hordes, then take the Minion Horde, it’s an amazing defense.
1st
nice pic XD
i changed my picture
First reply no one claimed.
lol that pic
ikr, hilarious
A profile pic fit only for Supreme Leader.
2nd
hihihihihihi
do not spam please
lol do u play cr? seems like u r spamming..
maybe 3rd
4th
5th
new poll ; what common card do you think is the most level-independent? I think it’s skellies.
I say the Ice Spirit.
it’s a little level dependent
E barbs
levels do not matter elite barbs are strong when over leveled
imma say skeletons since if a ice spirit is high level it can make it to the enemy tower for free chip damage
the Log, princess, sparky
they are legendaries :v
haha yeah
Log can be level dependent against Princess.
not much, log can kill princess 1 level higher
I’m mostly referencing those in 4k trophies against spellbait decks with level 3 princess and they are using alevel 1 log.
thats me
There’s a common misconception that level independent cards don’t need to be leveled up. There are two types of level independent cards;
– Truly level independent cards where the level doesn’t matter
– Cards where the level doesn’t matter too much, but a level helps the card a lot
Perhaps the best example of the first type of level independent card is Skeletons, while the second type fits Archers and Knight perfectly.
Didn’t OJ say that in one of this videos (the two types of level independent cards)?
I don’t think he has.
I’m going to say spear goblins. By the way, I love your polls!
Ice Spirit, definitely
Nope, not Ice spirit! You want it to hit their tower!
I think it’s a half half depending on preference. Ice Spirit is great as something that slows down the battle in your favor.
True, but u still won’t deny the free damage if u have the option tho
Well i mean there were those series of spell users in Arena 1 that got opponents down to 1 hp to get onto tv royale 😉
True dat
Nah, maybe you’re right 😛
skeletons for life
Skeletons
I would say arrows, but then again I only just upgraded my arrows to a high enough level to kill those pesky max minion hordes. I would say skellies, unless you are facing ice golem I guess.
arrows are quite lvl dependent especially once you hit that 3500 mark (which i havent gotten to yet) as you will probably face a lot of lvl 11-13 minion hordes
Agree Arrows are very level dependent up to level 11 (to 1 shot minion horde)
mine are lvl 10…
Rip agianst those level 13 Minion Hordes
Speaking of levels, did you know that a max log will one-shot level 1 musketeers, barbarians, and wizards? Not that that will ever be useful…
RG, it’s annoying at ALL levels
Oh no! Late!
Picking a win condition is simple IF you get the chance to pick
not always like do i want golem or hog i can either run something beatdown or hog could give you a cycle or control deck
Well I would prefer Hog if you’re good enough at kiting and playing against Golem decks.
so im 1 win away from hog mountain. i use my x-bow deck, i click battle, next thing i know i went up against 4 over lvled e barb users and their minion hordes DONT DIE TO MY ARROWS then i loose 4 times ina row cause e barbs hard counter the deck i htae my lif
overleveled ebarbs are always something you have to deal with if you are at A10
yea i noticed
Siege decks are the hardest to play especially you as a low lever player cannot fully understand how to play i suggest you to study morr the game and focus on how siege decks function (also just an advice. A knight in the middle and tanking and skelies or goblins dealing damage on e barbs can kill them )
yh like 99% of dex r like ebarb valk or ebarb rage it’s annoying to deal with
or even ebarbs + fire spirits or something
which would be legit 1 in 3 matches
Play bowler, it helps against ebarbs
I feel you : I lost 300 tr because i allmost allways was facing Eb …
i feel you, i once dropped 600 trophies cuz of ebarbs
I dropped 400 trophies coz of those idiotic ebarbs
I dropped a lot until I realized that Tombstone is like the best building in the game and also Goblin Gang as well as more stuffs.
EBARBS AND RG NEED TO BE EPICS
no what i think should happen is an arena cap so that overleveling isnt too big of a problem (no joke, i once lost against someone with maxed ebarbs, lvl 12 goblin gang, and all this crazy crap that was higher than my cards and i was like WTF IM 99.9% SURE THIS GUY IS P2W)
great tips! i will use these
oh and where is cannons dream? fan ficiton
yeah ikr i’m still waiting for that …
she plays alot less now
How I win: Freestyle!
What does that mean
pick whatever and git guud enough to deal with anything
That I can’t teach drafting, but I win anyway.
Or you chose Dart Goblin!
Still a big fan of that Dart Goblin I see!
Lol i had a perfect deck+perfect match in poison challenge, i got double poison, giant, golem AND sparky and bowler, he just ignored a 75% health sparky and it fully 3crowned him xD
Double poison?…
yup i had that too! OP
how does that happen? :
Poison + mirror I guess? I actually don’t lnow
He drafted a poison, and his opponent also gave him a poison
onetime i got to pick two poisons, it was weird and i lost that game
icic…thx
probably got poison and mirror, or that he somehow ended up with 2 poisons
yeah in the musketeer challenge, i once got 2 musketeers and 2 3-musketeers in one match, 8 musketeers ftw, won cause he didn’t pick fireball
Both he and the opponent has a choice to pick poison.
yea got 2 poisons in 1 deck
Hey where’d the ‘Challengers of the Month’ thing go??
will removed it, he said it slows down the site a lot
with the big update with quests, i am 90% sure that there will be balance changes as well, here are my ideas (and reasoning)
Knight: HP -7.1%: Knight is definitely too strong for 3 elixir, so a health reduction so that he dies to 1 sparky blast should minimize his utility by a little
Goblins: HP -6%: Ever since zap got its damage reduced so that it doesn’t 1-shot goblins, goblins spiked in usage. Nerfing their HP so that Knight, Barbarians, Miner, and Bandit can all 1-shot equal-leveled goblins to minimize their utility and allow skeletons and guards to become interesting alternatives
Zap: Damage -2%: This change is just to keep the interaction with goblins the same
E-Wiz: Spawn Damage -2%: This change is to keep it consistent with the zap change above
Arrows: Damage +5%: With zap and the log overshadowing arrows, the damage should be increased so that it can kill equal-leveled archers
Goblin Hut: Duration to 50 sec (from 1 min), Elixir Cost to 4 (from 5): Currently overshadowed almost completely by furnace, the cost should be reduced to rival it more
Ice Wizard: HP +5%: With the electro wizard still overshadowing it, the ice wizard’s HP should be buffed so that he can survive 1 swing from an equal-leveled P.E.K.K.A
I agree with every single change, except maybe Knight! Yes, it it too OP for 3 elixir, but isn’t -7.1% a bit too much???
its so that he dies to a sparky blast, i did the math
Oh nice! How old r u?
look at my biography…
14! Nice! I’m 13!
turning 14 tomorow
Happy birthday (for tomorrow)!
danks
MP
huuugh … more problems …
Happy birthday.
Maybe instead of the knight -7.1% hp nerf, increase sparky damage by enough to take it out, then slightly decrease the knight hp?
other interactions change as well, pekka would then kill knight in 2 swings instead of 3 and night witch would then kill knight in 5 attacks instead of 6
Huh. That might be too harsh of a nerf tho
well knight is clearly op for 3 elixir, so…
nah
I respectfully disagree with the goblins nerf, but I hope that they will make skeletons have 4 again.
Also, wont buffing arrows enough to kill archers also allow it to kill bomber? Bit too op?
bomber has 311 HP at tournament standards, while archers have 254 HP
I think it would be dumb if arrows could kill archers. Like, how unfair would that be? Arrows can kill princess because she has the super long range, so has the less health. But if you could just arrow archers, that would screw mortars so hard.
I disagree with the buff to arrows.
No ice wiz buff lol, there are so many cards that need to be change, but Ice wizard is perfectly balanced now
like i said, still overshadowed by ewiz, i thought about it and realized if he could survive 1 pekka swing, then its an indirect nerf to pekka, which is meta right now
Knight: I disagree with the knight nerf since he has nearly no offensive power or counterpush potential. He is only useful really on defense so why not just leave him good at what he does?There is just one strong deck on the leaderboard that uses Care to share why he is TOO strong?
Arrows: Making arrows kill archers makes archers obsolete. Why would anyone choose archers when minions die to the same spells and have more dps?
Ice Wiz: The Electro Wizard will always overshadow the Ice wizard unless they nerf the E-Wiz to the ground. I’m not sure buffing the health is the right change. Surviving a PEKKA hit isn’t going to make the card a whole lot better. Also, there are no significant reasons for making this change. Why not give the card more to offer rather than adding a specific change that will give it an advantage in one interaction…which almost never happens?
Goblin Hut: May or may not create spawner meta. If not, Would be good for the card but I’d keep it at five elixir to preserve the uniqueness of being the only 5 elixir spawner.
I really like the goblins and zap changes. Those could actually be a good change that is beneficial to the meta overall.
Answer: no. With these changes, Zap’s gonna die. Only arrows. Also, keep the Knight as it is. It’s only used in hog exenado and spell bait these days.
why would zap die?
dont try to kill zap with those changes, but i 100% agree with the knight nerf.
also the ice wiz change… it already has too much HP to only die to a fireball 2 levels higher
also the gob hut buff would create a crazy spawner meta and then supercell would nerf it to the death
Lol that was 6 months ago
well the reposts are triggerworthy
XD
GG. Should have read this earlier.
whoa haven’t seen you like in months
EDIT: just saw that this is from 6 months ago.. ooohhh
lol
Goddammit I kept dropping cuz of overleveled crap, now stuck at 3.6-3.7k area so I’m back in electro valley
rip. Consider trying a new deck
Try using a tank killer, like pekka, (maybe a mini pekka) or inferno dragon/tower, or maybe tesla. A good deck to use would be log bait with the inferno tower or tesla, or maybe that super annoying pekka gob hut zappies deck.
My zappies are only lvl 6
valk really shines in overleveled arenas
Mine is only lvl 8
use her now
if the mega knight annoys you, use it! (aka be me with my deck unless u dont have mega knight or ID, but if u don’t have them, the shop is an amazing place for arenas 10+)
1. I don’t have it
2. It’s probably my new cursed card
well u need 40000 gold and mega knight in the shop and some friends to trigger
I have 43k gold
well wait for mega knight then (and then after that trophy push with mega knight with… no need to say the deck its me saying this… but might as well say it
mega knight
hog
inferno dragon
my profile pic
minion horde
zap
arrows
fireball
who misses the “a cannons dream”?
Somewhat me
Not familiar, got a link?
Just search it
me, did the author quit CRA? it used to be pretty fun reading it
me
Is Scarlett gone? I miss the series too
Hi guys! I’m back! Somebody miss me?!!
Welcome Back!
Thanks!
meeeeeee
I know you, but you don’t know me
I do know you! You’re Ornstein!
#exposed
Yooo
Nice one. Flawless!
This one got 4-3 in this last challenge
1st after repost