Best Clash Royale Decks: 3 Decks For Winning Arenas 2, 3, 4 And Beyond

Winning the strategy based mobile game Clash Royale comes down to building a good deck, finding great combos and managing your elixir. After a week of playing the game, we’ve found a few decks that took us where we wanted to go in terms of defense, offense and winning more trophies. The decks we will offer here seem to have been most effective in Arenas 2, 3 and 4, though they may be effective, with some tweaking, for arenas beyond that. If you are just getting started playing Clash Royale, we do have a beginner’s strategy guide to help you get more wins, or if you want to know more about the types of chests and what they contain, you can check out our chest guide, here.

NEW: iDigitalTimes Favorite Deck And Strategies

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Best Clash Royale Decks And Strategies For Using Them (Arenas 2-4)

Deck 1: Barbarians Lead The Way

1. Barbarian as Tank (High Level) – alternative Knight/Prince

2. Skeleton Army (Level 1)

3. Mini Dragon (Level 1)

4. Spear Gobs (High Level)

5. Tombstone (High Level)

6. Archer (Mid Level)

7. Arrows (High Level) – alternative Fireballs or Rocket

8. Witch (Level 1) – alternative Musketeer

Average Elixir: 3.6

Advantages Of This Deck

• Barbarians are great as a tank in this hand because there are four of them, so they are fairly resilient to the skeleton army (unlike Giant). Pair in a combo with your air fighters like the Witch, Spear Goblins or Mini Dragon and you have a successful offensive push combo.

• The Skeleton Army works as a great defensive player against strong tanks like the Prince or the Giant. If you wait until the opponent’s Giant is about halfway across your side of the green to deploy the Skeleton Army, it will completely demolish him before he hits your building if the Giant isn’t backed up, or it will severely weaken his ability to attack. When dealing with the Prince, his first hit is twice as strong as all other follow-ups; the Skeleton Army is great for taking the brunt of that attack.

• Similarly, the Tombstone can defend well against tanks like the Prince, Giant, Knight or Mini-Pekka as they will all head straight for the Tombstone tower to destroy it before heading to your real towers. The Tombstone is a great bait player that is relatively cheap and will buy you some time to build up more elixir.

• Mini Dragons – this is one of my favorite cards no matter what deck I’m playing, as it works well as defense and offense. Defensively, it can act as a tank or as a support companion to the tank. It deals some pretty awesome splash damage, allowing you to take out a lot of small troops like Goblins, Skeletons and Minions at once. It also plays great defense against strong tanks like the Prince, Giant or Balloon.

• Spear Gobs and Archers make great cheap defense since they can attack from a distance, striking both ground and air targets. They deal a respectable amount of damage for their cheap price. These are great for using next to your towers during a heated push battle.

• The Witch makes a great defensive and offensive player. It can be a strong tank as it shoots both air and ground troops while having a stream of tiny skeletons to distract ground troops headed towards her. It can hit targets from a distance very quickly. It does alright when surrounded by a skeleton army. It pairs nicely with barbarians for an offensive attack on a tower.

• Arrows , while I don’t use them frequently, come in handy when countering small swarms of attackers like Goblin barrels, skeleton armies and other grouped up tiny attackers. They also work well against those pesky barrel goblins that crash right in front of your towers.

Deck 2: Giants Before Witches

1. Minions

2. Spear Goblins

3. Musketeer

4. Bomb Tower

5. Bomber

6. Arrows

7. Giant

8. Witch

Average Elixir: 3.8

Advantages Of This Deck

• Minions are a great offensive player because they can strike both air and ground targets and a fairly cheap to deploy. They are great for combatting a bomb tower or tanks like the Giant, Prince or Pekka.

• Spear Goblins are a favorite defensive player because they are cheap, quick to deploy and have the ability to strike air and ground targets from a distance. These are good cards to level up as much as possible because, when they get to the higher levels, they actually can strike some decent blows against a tower or other opponents coming at them.

• Bomb Tower is a very strong defender and can also be a great tank back-up. If I get this one in an opening hand, I’ll usually play it pretty quickly. It will distract any enemies making their way toward your tower for several seconds, allowing you to build up elixir.

• Bomber - can be a strong companion to your Giant tank. Just remember, it can’t hit air targets!

• Arrows - again, great for defense. Can take out a big clump of troops together or defend against a skeleton army attacking your Giant.

• Witch - amazing defender or offender striking solid blows against land and air targets while holding up well to swarm attackers like goblins and skeleton armies. Best paired for offense with the Giant as it can stop swarm attackers like the skeleton army.

Deck 3: The Skeletons Have It

1. Giant Skeleton

2. Witch

3. Skeleton Army

4. Goblin Hut

5. Musketeer

6. Valkyrie/Baby Dragon

7. Arrows

8. Spear Goblins

Average Elixir: 4.2

Advantages Of This Deck

• Giant Skeleton can be a nice tank when combined with a range companion like the Witch or Musketeer . The great thing about this guy is if he’s taken down by a swarm, the bomb he detonates at the end of his life will finish them off too.

• The Witch is a great push player, particularly in the later part of the battle where you are given twice as much elixir. If you can manage to get two of these ladies in the same lane, it could be the game winner for you.

• Skeleton Army as mentioned in earlier decks, is great for taking down heavy tanks like the Prince, Giant or Pekka . If you can manage to get them near a tower and your opponent doesn’t pay attention, they can do an insane amount of damage. Just pay attention to if your opponent has arrows. If so, they can render your skeletons completely useless. In that case you have to pay attention to when the arrow card was last used for most effective deployment.

• Goblin Hut is is good for both as defense or offense. If you pair them with skeletons they can deal pretty heavy damage. Or, if you manage to get two Goblin huts in the same lane, they can build steam quickly and become a powerful force.

• Musketeer is a strong support against air and ground enemies and can deal decent damage to a tower.

• Valkyrie/Dragon : Great for combating a Skeleton Army or Witch, since Witch slices right through them or Dragon deals them splash damage from the air. Just be careful how you use the Valkyrie. Spear Goblins, Dragons and Archers can deal her range damage. She is also a poor choice against bombers and bomb towers.

• Arrows are good for combatting goblin barrels and swarms of weaker troops.

• Spear Goblins are inexpensive, can hit ground and air and deal powerful blows to tanks like Giants, Witches and Knights

• This deck is great for two-lane play when opponent drops heavies like a Knight and Giant. You can strike with a skeleton army and then deploy spears goblins and skeletons inexpensively in the second lane. This doesn’t work of course, if the opponent has a goblin hit or bomber set up as defense.

Do you have a killer deck for Arena’s 2-4 or 5 and beyond? Send them to c.harbison@idigitaltimes.com and if we like it, we’ll feature it, along with a credit to you for the deck idea.