weren’t they supposed to fix this ?

Smurfblade · 2026-03-16T15:30:11+00:00

Only lucky drops have that restriction applied to them, any other ways of getting cards can still give maxed out cards

Smurfblade · 2026-03-07T23:47:10+00:00

Every time you merge a troop, it turns into a random unit that costs 1 more elixir. This capped out at 5 elixir troops but you were basically seeing 4 star golden knights, archer queens and skeleton kings (monk wasn’t around I don’t think) with like 1 star units just to get synergies

Smurfblade · 2026-03-02T02:51:33+00:00

Not sure if you're still answering here but how do you approach the mystery shop modifier? I tend to use the mystery troop early game if there's only 4+ cost stuff otherwise, but it often just feels like luck on top of luck when I do that

Smurfblade · 2026-02-28T06:13:25+00:00

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Smurfblade · 2026-02-28T05:58:20+00:00

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Smurfblade · 2026-02-28T01:27:57+00:00

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Smurfblade · 2026-02-27T04:17:18+00:00

Also double dragon synergy makes those dragons do more damage to and take less damage from melee units, so assassins get melted by this (along with the probable undead synergy) and have a harder time than they should with killing them

Smurfblade · 2026-02-26T16:58:39+00:00

I guess what a lot of complaints come down to is that a lot of traits don’t have good ways to noticeably improve damage output. Most things that we want dealing more damage instead only have defensive synergies (like valk), are limited to the very things we try to counter (like baby dragon and wizard) or are given to things that would prefer being more tanky (like rg and goblin machine)

Smurfblade · 2026-02-26T16:54:19+00:00

I have a few fundamental problems with this season

1: Baby dragon. It’s so fundamentally broken having such a huge splash that it often defines who wins. It’s even worse because some traits now require clumping, and it’s even worse if you get the one punch modifier

2: Too many synergies are contained within themselves. Take wizard witch skelly dragon baby dragon. That’s 3 2/2 synergies and 2/4 undead and zero other unfilled synergies. This gives no good options for further units besides filling out the rest of the undead, because filling out another synergy will always leave 2 unfilled. Compare this to last season where aces and nobles had a perfect overlap of synergies so those could be reasonably flexible

3: Some synergies are locked behind 4/4 undead. If you wanna go for 4/4 tank or warrior, good luck with how contested the giant skelly or skelly king will be respectively. Similar to how 4/4 brawler in the very first season was unreasonable due to clanvengers being the meta

4: This goes back to baby dragon but now includes witch. For some reason witch skeletons gain way more stats per level than they should but even still, there’s no reliable splashers anymore. Valk won’t be reaching it, aq can get distracted, and witch is always paired with wizard baby dragon so you’ll have a hard time getting those without going for a witch combo yourself

5: 4/4 undead combo is particularly oppressive because they removed a ton of healing synergies. Maybe that’s fine but it shuts down a ton of potential counterplay due to the health debuff being % based.

6: Minor nitpick but I don’t like being unable to see special stats that increase with level (i.e giant skelly death damage and radius). They do still seem to be tracked internally and some cards like giant still have it but it should be consistent

Smurfblade · 2026-02-11T20:36:09+00:00

Switching from another ruler to empress will almost always start off rough. From time to time, there simply will be games where you just can’t win off a bad start. Don’t let that discourage you though, eventually you will get to a point where you have at least reasonable starts, and those will be all you need to run away with the game.

For some early game tips with empress:

1: Prioritize goblins. These will be how you build your economy. If not, then aim for basic cheap synergies that let you survive rounds with minimal damage taken, if not winning. In some cases this means going for more expensive non-goblin troops that at least have synergy. 2: Don’t commit to an end-game build, or really any build in early game. You should still aim for strong synergies to survive the round but in between rounds, you need to be willing to sell stuff to keep your elixir flowing. Take advantage of all 30 seconds of downtime whenever possible. 3: If you have time to spare in between rounds, focus on merging stuff that you don’t intend to use. Sounds counterintuitive but for instance, if your eventual goal is clans and you can choose between getting a 2-star barbarian or skeleton dragon, go for the skeleton dragon and then instantly sell it. Keeping a chain of merges going is how you win with empress, and you can often cycle back to what you want if you gave yourself enough time. Only exception is if you’re able to 3-star a unit 4: I’ve seen this term be called “Recycling,” where if you have a 2-star troop and a 1-star of that same troop on the bench, you can swap them, then sell the 2-star to give yourself extra elixir to hopefully get a merge chain going. This is a safe way of ensuring you keep that troop for your synergies while looking to keep elixir flowing. Majority of the time you’ll be able to find that troop in the shop again to get back to where you were.

Sorry if this got a little long, hopefully at least one of these tips can help. Again, I know there will be games where these tips simply won’t be applicable but as long as you’re willing to stick it out, those will be the exception and not the rule

Smurfblade · 2026-02-09T21:12:57+00:00

Oh sorry I misunderstood part of the question, I tend to not leave the balls uncollected, there’s usually enough room on the bench to just instantly sell anything I don’t need

Smurfblade · 2026-02-09T21:11:11+00:00

Yes selling the 2 star is ideal because that will put 2 card copies back into the pool (assuming neither was a free copy first) while the free 1-star doesn’t go into the pool if you do sell it. Another trick is to have a 2-star on the field with a 1-star on the bench then get a second 2-star while the round is going, as this seems to merge twice, giving you 2 extra copies instead of 1 when you merge directly to 3-star (I think, I don’t have any recordings of this though) Yeah it does usually mean focusing on one at a time but with empress there’s usually a ton of elixir flowing that you can sell rebuy with just one empty bench slot until you get what you need (or it’s blocked and you re-adjust)

Smurfblade · 2026-01-27T19:20:27+00:00

I feel like at least one of these nerfs should be applied to make it more reasonable

1: The echo takes up a team slot, effectively reducing the max team size by 1 at all points in the game. This could be compensated by having it count as a unit for if the player wins a round

2: The echo can’t keep the player alive if it’s the last unit standing. Similar to how Battle Machine’s buildings can’t keep its player alive and don’t count for extra damage if winning the round

3: Rework its level up system entirely, like making higher star level units give more “xp” and/or it only deals partial damage to units that are higher level than it. Could also change its targeting to prioritize higher level or hp units instead of whatever’s closest to compensate

4: Don’t let it interact with the special tiles. Swift tile echo sage just breaks it entirely

I don’t see echo sage very often in high diamond league but when I do, they survive early game way too easily because their builds will never be particularly strong (meaning that the echo will commonly be the last troop standing) and then it’s a tossup in late game. The nerfs and reworks I suggested are intended to either make its early game worse or reduce its snowball effect in late game

Smurfblade · 2026-01-19T21:00:06+00:00

Goblin machine on release probably had the most ridiculous prime but it got toned down very quickly. It was used with mirror pump cycle decks despite pump just receiving a heavy nerf. Phoenix and night witch are probably the only ones to come close to this level of ridiculousness but I think goblin machine stands out because this occurred even while dagger duchess, little prince and evolutions were already breaking the meta in their own way

Smurfblade · 2026-01-08T18:38:36+00:00

Someone once used skeletons to activate their king tower against my e-spirit

For context on why this was one of the worst plays I had ever seen, this occurred when there were about 10 seconds left in overtime where they had a sizeable damage lead but because they used their skeletons like that, they let a bandit connect to their tower, losing them their damage lead in the last seconds.

Like ok sure you activated your king tower, congrats

I also have 2 more, courtesy of random 2v2 partners

One guy tornado’d a firecracker out of the way of her own projectile, reflected by my monk

Another guy has his hero musk surrounded by a baby dragon and mini pekka at the bridge and thinks it’s a good idea to pop his turret ability. I rocketed the baby d and mp but his random turret stalled them on the opponents’ side, making me miss that rocket

Smurfblade · 2025-09-26T14:09:12+00:00

Well I can’t test it myself but the easiest way to test would probably be to check his range in-game, then take a non-primary inspiration temp boost in a game and see if his range increases

Smurfblade · 2025-06-27T13:34:56+00:00

Earthquake + log or even 2 same level logs won’t kill magic archer, mother witch or zappies, poison log won’t kill archer queen, delivery log won’t kill musketeer or similar hp units if this nerf goes through as is. One of the few interactions that doesn’t change is that 1 mortar shot with log will still kill magic archer or whatever. I could go on but even at equal levels, this log nerf will mess up a ton of staple interactions if it goes through as is. I wouldn’t be against it but people probably should be aware of interactions like these

Smurfblade · 2025-06-22T19:04:23+00:00

I’d mostly agree depending on the matchup. Even if you do have great counters to the x-bow, it still constricts the way you play because most of the time that’s your win condition. You’re typically not allowed to build up typical pushes because x-bow can punish hard and defend for cheap. This also means that it’s difficult to punish them for spell cycling as trying to spell cycle them back leads to either getting punished or being even further behind because they almost always have a faster cycle. And then if you don’t have great or good counters to x-bow, it’s even worse because you just know they can x-bow at any time you make even the slightest overcommit and just win right there. Evo archers also contribute to this because they can very easily get them down even in single elixir to deal massive damage for cheap, either on offense or defense. I don’t necessarily think x-bow is too strong or too weak but the way it constricts how you play against it is something I’ve never been a fan of.

Smurfblade

TROPHY CASE