Graveyard Bandit Deck for Arena 9+

Hey guys. Lolman here with another guide. I recently came across this deck in a Tournament that I won and I almost lost to it. Though it’s by no means OP because it has a reasonably steep learning curve I believe this deck is very strong.

After some research I found that this deck was created by GoHawks. He’s a Youtuber and a great CR player!

So I’ve tried this deck and I can say that it’s a very strong deck. It does have weaknesses. I will address them later on.

So I tested the deck in 2 Classic Challenges and a tournament between the two. I finished 12-0, 1st place and 11-3 respectively. Out of these trials I believe that this deck is very solid. Now enough blabbing, lets get to the deck.

Graveyard Bandit Deck for Arena 9+

Cards Breakdown

Graveyard- Win condition and the one card that cannot be replaced. Timing is key with this card. You don’t want to Graveyard without being able to take care of counters or without a tank in hand unless you want to Exert immediate pressure on enemy etc. This is one of your 2 addresses to an Elixir Collector.

Ice Golem-  Main tank for Graveyard because it’s the cheapest. Along with your main kiting card. It’s a decent Graveyard counter to soak up damage as well as kill of Skeleton Army. Or maybe even to plop in front of almost dead Musketeer to force a reaction. Golem in the back? Ice Golem + Graveyard opposite lane. Pump? Ice Golem Graveyard. Disclaimer- Only if you know you can counter opponents counter-pushes and have Poison in hand to make sure Graveyard isn’t easily countered by Minions etc.

Bandit- This is an aggressive deck. Pressure pressure pressure. This card does just that. Only 3 Elixir and can’t be stopped mid-dash. Deals a decent bit of chaRGe damage. I love placing Bandit in middle and Graveyard in corner when the opponent is one tower down. The chaRGe is instantaneous so very had to stop it from hitting the tower.

Bandit Graveyard with one tower down

Musketeer– Your primary air defense. In fact, other than Goblin Gang this is the only air defense. Good starting play is Musket in the back. Outside of that ideally you want to play it in defense. Ie vs Lavaloon. With Inferno to pull and Musket to attack loon. Etc. It’s also very good when you’re one tower down to smack into the center with Ice Golem to tank.

Musketeers in middle

Poison– Almost always goes with the Graveyard but not all ways. Don’t play it pre-emptively unless your opponent makes a habit of using squishy cards vs Graveyard. If opponent puts e-wiz. Poison it, Inferno Tower is your main defense in this deck. Sooner it dies the better. And you get chip damage. + in Poison, e-wiz doesn’t last the full 10 seconds. More will spawn. If lucky you will get a couple hundred extra damage and no counter push to worry about.

Log– This card can be replaced by Zap on ladder if you have it over levelled for your trophy range or just have it at 13 :P. Mainly to deal with Goblin Barrel but you do have other answers to Goblin Barrel. Feel free to Log away the princess to bait a Goblin Barrel out and counterpush with defensive troops.

Goblin Gang– I tried this deck with Skeleton Army but find Goblin Gang to be far more versatile. This deck is a chip deck for the most part. You want to Graveyard Poison it out. Unless you catch opponent off guard don’t expect a tower from a single push. That being said, it’s not always good to have an early tower on your opponent as this deck is slightly weaker when going for second tower.

Inferno Tower- This is your main building. The deck lacks DPS so you need to make up for it by smacking this bad boy in there. Placement is key. Ie- Try to change things up. If you counter Giant or RG and opponent has Minions, next push he might place Minions in middle so it’s best to place Inferno elsewhere. Same applies for Lavahound.

General Gameplan

Okay so typically you don’t want to start aggressive but once you gauge opponents counters you want to play aggressive as you can counter the counters by predicting them. That being said, if opponent plays a Golem in the back or an Elixir Collector.

FINISH HIM.

Well yeah, just pressure opposite lane with a quick Bandit + Goblin Gang or a Ice Golem Graveyard etc. If that is not the case and opponent is relatively skilled you both will start off passively. Here are some good starting moves.

1. Musket in the back.
2. Bandit in back
3. Split Goblin Gang
4. Ice Golem in back. (Not very ideal because of how slow it moves. You will wind up just wasting this card.)
5. Poison.- Sometimes. If pump is placed and you have a bad-ish hand. Poison it. Or maybe place it down if you can get a positive trade. Here I got a 4 for 5 trade by Poisoning Ice Golem and Tombstone.

Positive Poison trade

Within the first minute or so of the game, get whatever chip damage you can. Say Ice Golem death damage. Spear Goblins spears. One or two Musket shots. Or even a lucky Graveyard might significantly damage the tower if not take it.

This is where you test the waters.

Try not to predict too much and over commit here. That’s for later on.

Whittle down the HP on one tower as much as you can. Once you do figure out counters you want to predict.

That being said, only Poison with Graveyard if you know for a fact that they didn’t just use their only Graveyard counter.

Ie- If they counter with Skeleton Army and just used them. Try not to Poison a defensive Knight. The Knight will most likely not die to it.

This sort of move should only be done in 2x Elixir or if you can get value.

Ie- Opponent drops Knight + e-wiz. Poison is more of an offensive card in this deck but save it if your opponent is playing Graveyard as well.

Possible match-ups

This deck is usually good vs beatdown but it’s somewhat weak against a few decks. I’ll list a few down below along with how you’d deal with several other popular meta decks.

3 Musketeers. This is a hard match-up as Poison is a bit iffy vs 3 Musketeers. You have to keep them in there as long as possible and you can’t really use Poison with Graveyard if they don’t use 3 Musketeers to defend it. ((This can vary. I’m mainly referring to the pumpy 3 Musketeers cycle that people up top use.))

Lavaloon/ Golem+ Lightning: With Golem, it’s somewhat easier to deal with.

Inferno Tower near center. Musket for support troops. Once you kill them, they have to choose. Tower+ Musket? Or Inferno? Either way it’s a -2 or -1 trade.

You can use Goblin Gang to take down the Golem.

It’s hard not to take damage vs this deck. That and you can always push on opposite lane to make it so that less Elixir is there for their pushes.

Be wary, E-wiz can punish this sort of Inferno plant. Lavaloon is a bit more difficult as Musket is the only counter.

Inferno Tower should be put down so it locks onto the Lavahound. Even if it means letting Lavahound get to the tower so placement is key there. That or Musket and make sure to pull the balloon and LH with Inferno. You don’t really want all 3, (Tower+ Musket+ Inferno) to hit the Lavahound.

X-Bow- Inferno Tower can be pre-emptively placed as a tank and then use it to deal with Inferno Tower and it can also take down the Inferno Tower. You can use Ice Golem to tank while Musket snipes the X-Bow.

It’s not too hard to play against it as long as you don’t do something like place a Musket far away to tank for the X-Bow and she gets 0 shots off.

Spell bait- Goblin Gang and Log can alternate for Goblin Barrel.

Try not to let opponent figure out, keep them guessing. ((Assuming you got both in hand when he or she drops Goblin Barrel)).

It’s pretty easy to play against. Poison wipes out almost all Graveyard counters. Bandit is a good princess counter as well. Place her far enough that she dashes into the princess though.

Graveyard- Fairly easy to deal with. Save your Poison unless you feel like you can clutch a tower with that offensive Poison.

Royal Giant- Inferno Tower is your saving grace. Change up it’s positioning to make sure opponents predictions aren’t futile.

So in conclusion. I want to thank GoHawks for creating this deck. It’s very fun to play and I hope you guys have as much success with this as I have. Cheers.