Not playing that high but I prefer Giant Skeleton over Pekka in the 1800 range because Pekka is not good at stalling when you are trying to come back from behind.
I agree Drain/Hog is a great combo. You need to have missile/fireball or huts to stop them with an elixir advantage.

Really hate Xbow decks, apparently they've already downgraded the Xbow a couple of times since the soft launch!

Hope it doesn't catch on more.

Tired of getting my ass handed to me with guys holding bigger cards.

If I take a mis-step in offense, these guys with super units would just crush me on the other side, and I wouldn't have the cards to defend. So the optimal way ended up being just sitting back and play defense until I can get super units...

Battling those idiots who just build defense is probably as fun as watching paint dry...

Novelty is gonna wear off soon.

So far at every level i have played all the way to 1900 the amount of players with similar level cards greatly outnumbered the ones that beat me with higher level cards. If you have lvl2 epics and lvl4 rares then you can make arena 6.

Not true, and I am pretty decent for a level 6 without balloon, prince, xbow, and have just lvl 1 dragon, 1694 decent actually.

I am not aiming for 1700 per se, but at 1600+ level, I am probably drawing 30% and lucky to win 20%.

Never used balloon, xbow or prince to push trophies. Balloon needs lvl2 freeze or rage, prince sucks against anyone with a brain and xbow is a one tiny mistake and you lose deck. I made arena 6 at lvl6 with a lvl 2 big skeleton a lvl1witch and a lvl5 giant plus a varying support crew but mostly hog rider to get the kill. I am now occasionaly getting arena7 matches with a huts deck without epics. Only deck I play against that i tend to play to a draw is lix collector decks as i have no missile or fireball to kill them. If you draw a lot then you are not split pushing enough. Go the other side and watch tons of players panic and make mistakes.

Forgot to add that 30% draws and 20% wins would make you drop trophies really fast. You need at least 40/40/20 win/loss/draw to maintain trophy level

Just got a super magical chest from battle

Mirror card, poison, rage, Pekka, and these gems of upgrades:

What is "Drain"?

I prefer Golem to Pekka, but it's close.

Dragon

I'm still just playing for free, maxed out near 1k trophies. Settling near 800.

Here is what is limiting me now, it's gold coins. I have a ton of upgrades in the queue, but the levels are getting expensive.

Still no prince, loon, or skeletons. But for some reason I don't really care. It just forces me to get better. I'm sort of leaning towards defensive upgrades first, like the arrows, lightning has been good to me also. Except I don't like the bomb tower, it does not seem to bother the better players much, and it started to feel like a crutch.

I get solidly crushed against prince, skeletons, pecca, xxx decks. The walking giant skeleton that drops the big bomb seems weak.

Gems->coins

How long ago was this?

Thing about this game is that people are getting really good really fast.

Your mentioned card setup would not get you to arena 6 as lvl 6 without lots of lots of draws to maintain trophy.

That in itself was my rant.

Game is moving so quickly that the same combo that's winning majority of the battles can be ineffective by the following night. It's pretty wild actually.

Getting to a specific trophy level is getting easier every day because of trophy inflation. You can have annoying losing streaks running into people that are gemming and on their way to the top but those are rare. The deck I mentioned is still one of the most popular decks because it is consistent. It is witch, skeleton giant, defensive building, missile or fireball and then the rest depends on what cards you have but hog rider is a good tower finisher. You just need to be accurate with your missile or fireball because they are harder to land than arrows. Deck gets good if you have a wizard for extra area damage.

LOL ok.

So skeleton (6 elixir), rocket (6 elixir), giant (5 elixir), witch (5 elixir), hog rider (4 elixir), and cannon (3 elixir) or tesla (4 elixir) are what you recommend as a deck?

Clearly you don't actually use such deck because then you would realize that you do need them to be relatively high level to be effective, and once you're countered, you got nothing to defend.

FWIW, giant, skeleton, rocket, spear goblin, tesla, giant skeleton, witch, hog rider deck = 4.1 average elixir.

Most of those units are also offensive oriented and pretty useless other than meat shield to defend, not to mention they're super heavy elixir and can't use as quick counter.

So if these units aren't overpowering enough to maul down enemy in one hit, you are pretty much exposed to be 3-starred.

Worked for me and I am at the 1900 level with lvl2 epics and lvl5 rares and no lvl8 troops. Thought it would be clear you dont run both tanks or both spells at the same time.

Seriously? We are going to continue down the discussion in which what worked for you, must work for everyone else?

Lvl 2 giant skeleton + lvl 1 witch + lvl 5 giant won't work in 1600+ trophies, unless you're up against brain dead players who are somehow able to run good and got up to that range.

If you listed those 3 units, they must be your main troops.

So you got 3 super slow units that are elixir heavy (5, 5, and 6), and somehow you think you can get to the other side at 1600+ trophy range and destroy towers?

I mean seriously...

lol wtf?

People play the game in a different way than I do, I must argue with them repeatedly!

Save that for the Xbow users.

So you don't know how to get to arena6 with such a deck so that deck must be bad? Despite the fact that we have 3 people in our clan that are in arena6 with that deck.

So what deck are you running anyway?

Degens?

I can't get super slow units to the other side. Plus you are speaking as if lvl 5 giants are easily attainable.

I have lvl 3 giants.

I have lvl 2 witch, lvl 2 skeletons, lvl 3 hogs, and lvl 3 giants. I cannot get to the other side in 1600+ with the deck you mentioned.

Richard why in a game with a meta that's constantly changing are you telling people what they do can't/won't work?

You do realize that I am arguing the opposite?