Hog Mini – The New Meta Hog Control Deck

Hey guys, RohanReigns here after a long time with a Hog Mini P.E.K.K.A deck that I’m getting a lot of wins in challenges and top positions in petty tournaments. This deck is really strong for challenges in the current meta after Mini P.E.K.K.A’s buff. If you have good enough card levels, you can use this deck in ladder too. With that being said, let’s hop into the cards breakdown section right away!

Hog Mini – The New Meta Hog Control Deck

Cards Breakdown:

Hog Rider: The main win condition. Use him as a primary damage dealer, accompanied with spells to take out their counter cards.

This is not a card like Golem, that can grant you a Tower with one deployment. You need to push often and force your opponent to defend so that they can’t build up a huge push. Read more about Hog cycle decks and their usage techniques here.

Mini P.E.K.K.A: The tank shredder. After the recent damage buff he got (yes, he’s a male), Mini P.E.K.K.A is almost used in every deck right at the moment.

Here are some interactions of Mini P.E.K.K.A with some troops:

• Knight: Kills with 3 shots
• Bandit/Ice Wizard: Kills with 2 shots
• Wizard/Ewiz/Musketeer: Kills with one shot
• Hog Rider, Witch: Kills with 2-3 shots

Talking about his uses, he is generally a defensive card as he boasts really high damage and DPS. Use him to kill Hogs, ground supports in a beatdown push and tanks.

Besides that, playing an offensive Mini P.E.K.K.A + Ice Spirit is a great way to make your opponent spend some elixirs, especially when your opponent pumps up or tries to build up a beefy push.

Although Lumberjack has death Rage specialty, Mini P.E.K.K.A is better than him as a tank defense role.

Replacements : Knight, Lumberjack

Executioner: Defensive support. Use him to clear swarms during defense or offense by clumping up their troops with the Tornado spell.

Against Beatdown decks, he works really well to stop the push by killing all the support troops behind the tank while Mini P.E.K.K.A shreds it. His placement is really crucial and can change the fate of the game.

I recommend placing him right in front of your Arena Tower as soon as their Tank crosses the bridge in a linear position as shown below:

This placement also disallows their Miner to distract him and you can easily Tornado all of them.

Feel free to replace him with Electro Wiz or Ice Wiz. The latter one is more popular at the moment and synergizes well with Tornado with a cost of only 3 Elixir.

Tornado: Support Spell.

Executioner is really weak without Tornado. I think this spell needs description no longer.

Fireball : Medium Spell.

You can replace with Poison but for me, Fireball worked better and it’s F2P-friendly too (useful when you want to use this deck on ladder).

Use it while doing Hog Pushes to get damage + value. I suggest using Fireball in 2x Elixir often as one overcommitment in 1x Elixir can cost you the game.

Also you can replace it with Rocket which is a really good counter to X-Bow Decks and can stop mammoth pushes when paired with Tornado. But to make rotation faster, I prefer Fireball. Choice is yours!

Ice Spirit: Staple for Hog Cycle decks. Acts as a mini Freeze to stall their troops for a short period of time.

My all time favorite play with Ice Spirit is freezing all the troops by clumping with Tornado.

Instead of Ice Spirit, you can use Skeletons or Goblins instead. The reason why I didn’t use them in this deck is it already has one Kiting Card (Ice Golem) and has high DPS card too (Mini P.E.K.K.A).

As Mini P.E.K.K.A and Tornado synergizes well with Ice Spirit, there’s no point on not using him.

You can read more about Ice Spirit here!

Ice Golem: The Ultimate Tank. Ahh I love this card so much! Provides insane versatility and tanking with just a minimal cost of 2 elixirs.

Synergizes well with your Hog on offense as it prevents the chances of your opponent tornadoing your Hog to their King’s Tower, swipes out Skeleton Army on it’s way and soaks two extra enemy P.E.K.K.A/Mini P.E.K.K.A shots allowing your Hog to hit more shots.

On defense, it can kite a whole variety of melee troops, soaks damage while your other units inflict damage and acts as a tank for enemy siege units.

You may want to replace him with Knight instead but I don’t recommend since you already have Mini P.E.K.K.A.

The Log: Ground Swarm Killer.

While playing on ladder, you can replace it with Zap if you have high enough level. If you don’t have Log and have low level Zap, Arrows is the best replacement.

Card Roles :

• Win Condition : Hog Rider
• Win Condition Support: Fireball/Log
• Primary Defense: Executioner
• Defensive Support : Ice Golem
• Versatile Card: Mini P.E.K.K.A
• Spell : Log/Fireball
• Cycle Cards: Ice Golem, Ice Spirit

Gameplan:

1x Elixir

Since you guys have figured out, this is a Hog-control cycle deck which means you need to do as much damage as possible during 1x Elixir.

You can easily make positive Elixir trades on defense by Exe-nado combo.

Do frequent Hog Pushes, more better if you can counter push and try to catch them off-guard by out cycling their counters to your Hog Rider. Make sure to not to overcommit on offense.

If they place down their Collector and you have Hog in hand, don’t Fireball it yet.

Do a Hog push and Fireball as this may take out/damage their counter card(s), damage their Tower as well as their Collector. If you dont have Hog in hand, simply drop your Knight at the bridge and prepare your Fireball.

Try to bring their Tower’s HP down to 1200 during the 1x Elixir phase. If they have Tornado, ALWAYS go for a Hog push with your Ice Golem in front.

If you don’t have Ice Golem, either cycle back to it or go for Hog push followed by a Mini P.E.K.K.A. The latter one is a bit risky and you can get punished easily.

As being an average Hog player, I don’t recommend using your Fireball (or any other medium/heavy spell) during your Hog push unless you get really good value like Barbarians+Minions. H og+Fireball is alone 8 Elixir and Fireball can’t always take down their counters (like Inferno, Mini P.E.K.K.A, Ebarbs). This means that you will have to face a huge counterpush with a little of Elixir left to defend. RIP.

2x Elixir

I literally don’t care about Elixir trades in 2x Elixir to be honest.

You have to take control of the battle by constantly doing Hog pushes, forcing them to defend.

Yes, you can use your spells now, even predictive ones.

NEVER make a mistake of attacking the same lane while facing beatdown-ish opponent. Although, Royal Giant Beatdown is an exception. I will talk about it in the matchup section below.

If you think you can’t connect your Hog to their Tower, switch into full defensive mode and cycle your spells to damage their towers and if possible, troops.

Defending is easy with this deck. Say you’re facing a beatdown player. You have Mini P.E.K.K.A for their tank and Executioner+Tornado for their support troops. After a few seconds, everything clear! Easy as that!

Defensive Matchups:

Golem Lightning Beatdown: Easy/Medium. Fireball their collectors at the beginning. Later on, if they decide to Pump, you can simply ignore it and punish their instead. Remember ignoring a Collector is 2 Elixir disadvantage and if you think you can cover that up, it’s okay to ignore it.

Once they drop their Golem, go for a Ice Golem+Hog push in the opposite lane. After the Golem reaches the bridge, place down your Mini P.E.K.K.A right on top of him. The reason of doing this is that since he can Lightning your Mini P.E.K.K.A, it’s better to use most of him rather than getting lightninged by placing it late. Sometimes, your opponent may make a mistake of Lightning your Mini P.E.K.K.A+Tower. If they do so, drop down that masked bad guy and Tornado everything. Clear! If you notice that they’re overcommitting on offense, simply sneak in a Hog Rider in the opposite lane.

Lavaloon: Same as Golem Beatdown.

Make sure you place your Executioner correctly so that it’s axe hits all their troops. Also, don’t hesitate to Lightning on defense.

Hog Exenado: Most of Hog Exenado decks have Knight. So whenever they go for a Knight+Hog push, pull away that Knight with your Ice Golem, and Tornado the Hog to your King’s Tower.

On offense, Ice Golem+Hog works well unlike Knight +Hog. Should be a 50/50 matchup. Also make sure you use your spells frequently as because that’s the only way to do sure damage to their towers.

Spell-Bait: Easy matchup. Save your Log for Goblin Barrel and Executioner works well to defend other swarms.

Against such decks, you have to build up pushes.Your deathball push will be Hog+Mini P.E.K.K.A+ Executioner+Ice Golem. Even if you outcycle their Inferno Tower, they have their swarms for your Hog. So building up pushes is the key to winning against such deck.

You may often need to Tornado on offense too.

Siege: X-Bow is popular right now but this deck can counter it decently. Place your Ice Golem to soak up damage and use your Executioner to damage their Siege unit along with troops in front of it. Sometimes you may want to Fireball+Log.

Should be a medium/hard matchup.

3M: As shown in the screenshot below, Tornado+Fireball can take care of all three muskies and that’s a +2 trade for you, which is equal to ignoring one Collector and pushing with your Hog instead. Makes sense?

And yeah, save your Executioner for Minion Horde. Mini P.E.K.K.A can easily counter Battle Ram with still half of health remaining. Overall, should be a easy matchup.

So, that’s all folks! Use this deck once and let me know how it works! Also thanks to my clanmates for helping me to test out this deck and take scree shots too. Peace out and clash on!