X-Bow Giant Skeleton Hybrid for F2Ps! Want To Try Something New?
By Hey, what is going on, it’s ya boi, SparkynadoMeisterBro, here with my first guide! Let’s hop in to this deck, shall we?
Pros:
- Full push almost unstoppable
- Functions as 2 different decks
- If lead is kept, beats any deck
- Epics are decently level-independant, so a good choice for F2Ps
Cons:
- 4.1 average Elixir
- Hard to keep a lead
- Only 1 easily-stopped swarm card, but replaceable
The Giant Skeleton X-Bow Deck
X-Bow: The main win condition.
This baby is a beast on any level. He can also be a key defensive unit against bait, and a rocket bait as well.
You can play it when he wastes rocket on the tower as well.
Giant Skeleton: The secondary win condition and prime X-Bow defender
This big doot is hard to take seriously in a push.
With the support cards in this deck, you can make pushes with him as a tank.
Otherwise, he is a beast and key defender of X-Bow.
His death bomb is great at cleaning up any group of troops. In this case, the death bomb clears the way for X-Bow to start sniping the tower!
Tesla – Main Hog defense and X-Bow’s secondary tank and support.
Don’t underestimate this card.
With a decent tank in front, it can do a LOT. He does pretty good against tanks and clears minion hordes with ease, and if it is lower leveled, you always have ice spirit to make up.
Executioner
Key swarm destroyer and overall a decent push stopper.
With his ability to survive fireball and to one-throw Minion Hordes of many levels, he is hard to stop, even without Tornado helping him.
Skeleton Army
Pretty self-explanatory.
Helps counter annoying pushes (especially Prince), but watch for spells, as this deck is fairly expensive with a mediocre cycle.
Ice Spirit
Buys you priceless time.
This card damages swarms for Zap or Tesla to finish, resets Infernos and helps safely stop bridge spam.
Fireball
For pumps, 3M, and your usual.
Again, be careful with this: mistakes with this card are hard to make up. Go for the positive trades or Elixir collectors.
Lumberjack
With the recent buff he is basically a Knight on steroids!
He is pretty versatile in this deck: He can clear swarms on defense, defend Tesla and X-Bow from tanks while raging them as well, protect Giant Skeleton, kill Hogs, etc. Use him cautiously, however.
Replacements
Replacements are not recommended too much, but here are some anyway:
Nearly unstoppable push
X-Bow with Tesla, Giant Skeleton, Lumberjack tanking and Executioner clearing swarms.
TIP: Do not do this push if they have Rocket in hand, wait for them to waste it, using the Hybrid push below in the meantime, and then punish when he uses it.
I don’t recommend doing this push if you lost a Tower on the same side.
General Gameplan
Single Elixir
Place Executioner/Giant Skeleton in the very back.
If a punish push is coming at you when you place something in the back, defend the best you can because you can’t afford to lose a Tower, and avoid placing X-Bow afterwards unless you still have enough Elixir to place it in front of the Executioner/near the Giant Skeleton.
Then, place X-Bow a tile back and to the left or right of the bridge, and add extra support if needed.
Allow the Giant Skeleton’s bomb to kill the defenses by himself for better trades, but if some are escaping it place a Lumberjack or Skeleton Army to keep them from fleeing out.
If you managed to take a Tower, feel free to defend or try another Tower until:
Double Elixir
Repeat single Elixir, and apply pressure, not giving them a chance to attack. Throw in the Tesla to tank for X-Bow if you don’t need it on defense, and not even a P.E.K.K.A can stop the push by herself.
By the time the push is over you should be making another one: one on the other side if there is leftover troops on the enemy side or you took a Tower, or one on the same side if all the defenses are cleaned up.
You usually end up taking the second Tower if you took the first one in single Elixir, but otherwise time usually runs out for me before a second Tower is taken.
Hybrid push: Giant Skeleton tanking for Lumberjack and Executioner. This push is if you are waiting for a Rocket to come out or you both lost a Tower on opposite sides.
How to attack and defend
Single Elixir
Try countering 6 Elixir melee-ranged pushes with Giant Skeleton and have him go for a counterpush, putting Executioner in first and then Lumberjack.
If it is not worth it, start with an Executioner or Giant Skeleton in the back, and build the push as necessary, adding in Ice Spirit to cycle and get value, and a Fireball ONLY if necessary.
Place Tesla in the normal defensive position if Fireball is not needed to cycle to another Giant Skeleton/Executioner.
Double Elixir
Rinse and repeat, the cycle is decently fast if you keep starting them in the back or next to a crown Tower. Stack Teslas on defense and he will never get to your Tower.
Double Pressure – How to defend:
Tesla is your MVP here.
Paired with Ice Spirit he can take out most lone swarms and rush pushes with ease.
He is also your main tank killer, but you need a troop supporting it for it to gain maximum effect, e.g. Lumberjack tanking a MK so Tesla and Lumberjack both do work on the tank, effectively killing it.
Fireball any support threatening your defenses for even or positive trades only, unless Elite Barbarians are on your Tower the last few seconds and Skeleton Army is dead.
Carefully use Skeleton Army to halt rush pushes for Tesla, and try to dodge logs.
If you want to stop a huge push, try placing Giant Skeleton to wipe the push for large positive trades and have Tesla clean the mess up, and again, try keeping them in the bomb radius.
Matchups
Beatdown – Easy to Medium matchup.
Defend for single Elixir and do the hybrid push only unless their tank is out of cycle or he doesn’t have enough Elixir for it. Giant Skeleton or Fireball the support while Tesla and/or Lumberjack works on the tank.
Pressure hard, you don’t want them making pushes, trust me.
Double Prince – Medium to Hard matchup.
Difficult to stop but Giant Skeleton should do some defensive work.
Try to break Dark Prince’s shield with the Giant Skeleton so he doesn’t survive the explosion, allowing a Skeleton Army to do work on the Prince and maybe the Dark Prince if he is still distracted by the big doot, while Tesla tries his best to take out the tank.
Try going for a tie if you can’t get a push started.
If he uses Golem, punish with X-Bow, and if there is a Knight or Dark Prince to stop it, place a Lumberjack, and if there is a swarm, Executioner, and if there is a Prince, Skeleton Army. Play it right, you can add one crown to your total. Defend his Golem without Skeleton Army, as he might still have a Prince or 2 in hand you need to defend. Purely defend after that, and don’t use X-Bow unless you have a huge lead on him.
If he uses Giant, watch for split pushes carefully. If it is all on the same side, place Giant Skeleton on the Dark Prince to take out the shield, Skeleton Army for finishing the Prince, and Tesla for the tank. If it is split, Giant Skeleton on the Dark Prince while Tesla does some work on the Giant, and possibly a Lumberjack on the Giant as well. Don’t let the Princes’ hit the Tesla! That is fatal!
Lavaloon – Hard to Impossible Matchup.
Place Tesla in the middle and line up Executioner with both the Lava Hound and the Balloon.
Ice Spirit is key here, stalls long enough for the splash to kill the Balloon.
Fireball if necessary. Defend and hope they don’t have a strong Lightning or else GG, send an occasional Giant Skeleton and Lumberjack at the bridge to try to catch him off-guard at 0 Elixir to take a Tower ONLY if you have a decent lead, but don’t get caught off-guard yourself as that is a big commitment!
Bait – Easy to Medium matchup.
If they have Rocket, send an occasional hybrid push until he wastes Rocket on the Tower, then punish with X-Bow.
If he has Inferno Tower, make sure Giant Skeleton tanks while X-Bow snipes the Inferno Tower down, and defend swarms with Lumberjack.
If he has both, it gets a little hard to start a push, so simply place X-Bow a tile or two in front of your king Tower to snipe princesses and clear swarms halting their pushes, possibly baiting out their Rocket so they don’t hit the Tower instead.
You can cycle to another X-Bow to have 2 on the field if they ignore it and have supreme defense.
You can try to start a push but a draw is recommended.
Hog Cycle
Easy to Medium matchup. Their quick cycle is quite annoying.
Tesla for the Hog every time, Skeleton Army if out of cycle, but be careful. Once you have Tesla tanking for X-Bow you should be fine as long as you have an Ice Spirit handy for overleveled Hogs.
Always start with Giant Skeleton, but starting with Executioner isn’t a bad choice, either. Build your push like how I told you and you are gold.
Hog Tank – Easy Matchup.
Tesla for Tank and Lumberjack for Hog Rider. Punish afterwards.
Other Siege – Medium Matchup.
It is Siege versus Siege, whoever outsmarts who tends to win the match.
Try not to go crazy on placing troops, a Giant Skeleton with Lumberjack for the mini-tank is usually enough.
Don’t dip too low on Elixir when his siege building has been on the field for 15-20 seconds, it WILL cost you dearly.
Playing X-Bow on defense to snipe the Siege weapon and tank for it is a good option as you have another option to take a Tower with.
Bridge Spam – Easy matchup.
Giant Skeleton or Tesla + Ice Spirit for their spam, X-Bow + Executioner to punish, if Giant Skeleton is still alive, include him in the push. GG. The only problem is bad starting hands.
Royal Giant – Hard Matchup.
Try to have Tesla tank for X-Bow as it shoots the Royal Giant.
If he keeps using Royal Giant to tank, switch X-Bow to defense to tank shots, and use Giant Skeleton to whack him down as enemy support tends to kill everything else.
Build up an Elixir lead and try to outcycle the big beast to place an offensive X-Bow.
————–
Conclusion
Overall a hard-to-master deck, but a solid deck in any meta! Helped me break 3K in the past and now got me my new PB, 3.6K, with tourney standard card levels!
As an F2P, I can suggest this deck to other F2Ps if you can get the epics to at least level 5 and commons to level 11, and rares to level 8 or 9.
I, with this deck, have a level 5 X-Bow, level 4 Giant Skeleton, Level 3 Executioner, Level 10 Tesla, Level 9 Ice Spirit, Level 3 Skeleton Army, Level 1 Lumberjack, and Level 7 Fireball!
Wish you luck, and have a great day! <3
a similar guide was posted on CRA about an year ago, can’t find it though. GG, especially considering this is your first!
I don’t remember seeing a guide like this before. Oh, well. Thank you, btw! When I saw the notification I was pretty hype!
1st! Nice guide, interesting deck.
interesting deck, lol giant larry in an x-bow deck is very……. interesting xD
And works surprisingly well, you don’t know how stupid people can be when they throw everything at the Giant Skeleton only to have it blown up for a huge negative trade and an X-Bow locked on the tower. So satisfying 😀
i used x-bow a lot about a month ago so i know how it feels
Seems like not many people like siege xD
~sniff sniff~
i play another game that is called siege, but when i play this game, all i want to do is trigger people with my lvl 5 xbow in 4K+
Unless:
Rocket
i sometimes use x-bow, but i would then encounter something like golem or mega knight like 90% of the time
Mega knight. Where has he gone?
Sorry just a weird deck for me, it ain’t the balance of cards I use so Idk really know whether I’ll try it. No hate, great guide ;D
Weird decks make things unpredictable! Opponents might not identify your deck type in 6 minutes, being a big advantage on it’s own. As long as you know how to play the weird cards you will dominate!
Understandable if Giant Skeleton ain’t your type or not using archers for support is odd, etc. I mean, switching from a quicker cycle, about 3.0-3.6 elixir average maybe, to one that requires less mistakes, 4.1 average elixir, is quite a change.
I tend to disagree, I like playing with synergies and proper balances, and I play all archetypes because if one gets nerfed I’ll switch. Being at 4k myself I play quite somewhere close to macro, knowing the deck is unpredictable could come instantly with two non-fitting cards and then you just have to work as your real gameplan instead of playing around an archetype which comes to my point of balance: it won’t be especially power on type of play and will get the boring defensive/offensive typing, also letting an opponent play their deck the way they really want it without abusing their gameplan would make it impossible to reach higher arenas and 4k, that’s why 3800-4000 is covered with brainless fireball-bait ebarb players.
I can count all the cards of the deck, abuse the heaviness and overkill of the amount of power each card provides and gain incredible cycle advantages, coming to a point where I am spamming with any deck possible.
Don’t thnk it needs tesla, tornado would be better. Synergizes with both GS and Exe very well.
Ah, but swarms will be a problem. Tornado will only deal with what is already there, but Tesla can deal with spam for a long duration, forcing the opponent to keep his cards or play smart with a mini tank, being a great defense against them. Plus you would lack a decent tank killer if your lumberjack dies, so you would suffer.
GS+Tornado and Exenado aren’t decent tank killers??? And tornado will give cheaper cycle. Tesla doesn’t deal with Swarms very very well.
Meant to say spam, sorry
Agreed, but golem would be a pain and would take time, not to mention you want to counterpush sometime.
Bridge spam though, you need a cheap counter to them. Tornado is cheap but it doesn’t do the job well, requiring more expensive cards afterward. Tesla can deal with them easy and defend even further, getting a lot of good trades while doing decent against beatdown as well.
GS + Nado does do well against Giant Skelly. When he dies to the spam troops just nado everything to the bomb. lmao
GS + Nado and exenado are OP beatdown push stoppers lol. That’s why tornado would be better
They are very good beatdown push stoppers, but not bridge spam stoppers, it is very expensive.
If someone makes a bomb tower clone deck that works I’ll be your friend.
okay i put a bomb tower in a deck and cloned it, didn towkr sorry try again later
4 epics + 1 legendary ≠ F2p deck
when you try your best, but you dont succeed….
That’s what i thought too lol
He said in the pro that he Epics are manly level dependent.
Xbow is manly alright
Is Xbow a woman or a man?
It’s an object.
😉
ugh, last time i was here xbow could still targeted air!
that was a long time ago my friend
that was about 2 yrs ago bro (dang i wish someone had a pfp of mario)
Deal
What does the PB stand for?
Personal best
2nd and gg
What about Tornado . . .
Although it works well, it is not as good a defense as tesla. Tesla is a long-lasting spam killer while tornado is used once, allowing more spam to come through.
Seems very expensive and depends on a huge elixir advantage without pump. Ill pass
it is a good deck idea and i like varity fly forth my xbow brethrin!
and btw how does this xbow deck sound xbow sparky arrows gob gang archers tornado rocket ice golem? I have a 67% win rate rn(at least 5 battles lost because of bad wifi and i am srs)
about 30% of my overall losses were either from wifi lag or my game crashing (legit takes like an entire MINUTE to reload the game and only occurs on my lvl 11)
so true
Not sure you need rocket in the deck, but your call. It’s decently good, Sparky defense is beast. Just make sure the opponent doesn’t have rocket in cycle or you will probably lose.
thx
I’m surprised that with both Giant Skelly and Executioner, you opt to not use Tornado.
ikr
Without tornado, I would use something like wizard. More outright damage and faster hit speed, without relying on tornado most of the time
Too heavy for Xbow. Archers, Ice golem, Log are much better supports.
Tesla just does so much better, imo. It does have decent synergies with them but you don’t need a tornado to hit everything, making it seem a waste of elixir. Tesla can deal with spam from any direction for a long time, unlike tornado.
Ha ha! Xbow without cheap cycle! That’s funny.
Also the 3.6k max. Hovering around 4k with level 10 mortar + knight, level 9 archers, ice spirit, bats, level 1 log, level 3 tornado, and level 7 rocket. (maybe I should do a guide!)
Yeah, I like XBow cycle decks(Like the one in the pro deck challenge: Xbow, musky, 1 elixir Skeletons, ice spirit, log, Tesla, fireball).
Discussion:DO you think Supercell should, if there is sudden disconnection or lag from one of the players, the game ends and everythig resets to it previously? Exsmple is you have 4003 trophies now. 1 minute into the game, there is some lag and then you and your opponent both leave the game and you are back at 4003 trophies. I mean mosyt of us have experienced this and everyone else and maybe this could counter the problem. Let me know what you think!
But how would Supercell distinguish between lag/bad wifi and people purposely turning off cellular and wifi to cheat the system if they are losing? It’s an honor based system, and people will exploit it. Therefore, this idea is wonderful in theory but destructive to the game in reality, which is unfortunate.
i guess that is true if they cant do that. We need to advance much more n tech to do something like my idea…but thx
I wish it were possible…
nonetheles it is a good idea that is all i am happy abt
Happiness is gud
If supercell did this all the servers would crash. The solution is to have better Wifi servers on Clash Royale.
didnt think technical really. Unless you have servers which are huge then i guess that would work
Yes, Because even with full WiFi service and available routers, you still need those routers to have a secure server connection.
People would abuse that system, there are many ways to get lagging purposefully, you could just start lagging yourself if you were losing the match and only play the matches you win.
it was only an idea i mean it would be nice if the tech was way more advanced bro
YES MY WIFI SUCKS ASS I NEED THIS
new poll : which is your favorite skeleton card?
Mine would be the giant skeleton
1 elixir skeletons
Graveyard <3
E-Wiz
Later:
XD didn’t fully read the question
Balloon
Zigge caught on cam
Off meta and I like it
This DOOT
XD
What’s a viable substitute for the Lumberjack?
Probably Mini Pekka, otherwise your usual mini tanks, like Knight, Valkyrie, Dark Prince, etc.
Thanks! I was thinking that but wasn’t sure if I should use rage instead. mini pekka, here we go! 🙂
😉
GRRRRR they removed my guide on my completely original giant skeleton xbow deck and put this in it’s spot?!?!?! Why didn’t they just make another page… No offence, but this deck isn’t even that good. Most cards lack synergy, and an integral part of a giant skeleton xbow deck is tornado. Yes, I do know what i’m talking about, i’m an 18 win player with a 4.9k pb. Sorry to the author of this page, I mean no offence, but it bothers me that the moderators just took down a perfectly good guide and replaced it. Why not just leave the old one?