Understanding The Nightmares of Clash Royale’s Mid-ladder
Written By Helin Zhou
Disclaimer: this was written before the autumn 2022 update. Game mechanics have changed since.
One might hear the phrase “HEHEHEHA” and remember Clash Royale (CR), the mobile game gamers play on a toilet. While its legacy may not be as prominent as Clash of Clans, it nonetheless is considered one of the most successful freemium (pay to win) games of all time. Of course, the CR player base is known for its toxicity. From spamming emotes to humiliating misplays, no one is safe from the wrath of “HEHEHEHA” or princesses yawning. But, emotes are never as devastating, as phone-breaking, as midladder.
Dear reader, I will assume you know the basics of Clash Royale. Clash Royale is developed by Supercell, a Finnish video game company. It is a tower-rush game where the player’s aim is to destroy their opponent’s princess towers, or do the most damage before the match ends. Everyone begins with eight tutorial cards before steadily unlocking more from chests, though only eight can be used in battle via Elixir. Elixir is a magical purple substance that makes up the blood of CR characters. This is why cards expend Elixir. Fortunately, Elixir is steadily replenished, so that cards can be repeatedly used. When a game is won, 25-30ish trophies are gained. When a game is lost, your sanity is lost as well. When sufficient trophies are won, one moves to the next arena. This starts off breathtakingly fast because Supercell litters earlier arenas with bots to increase progression, until…
We hit 5000 trophies. We hit the beginning of leagues*. We hit midladder.
This little manoeuvre does not cost us 51 years. It costs 51 centuries.
*Leagues reset a player’s trophies to half their trophies above 5000. Eg. if a player ends at 7000 trophies, they get reset to 6000 after the season ends in a month.
Clash Royale’s trophy range is undeniably distinct. Popular consensus defines “midladder” as leagues I, II, and III. Simply put, midladder’s beauty arises from deck creativity, as you will understand later. Mathematically, the combinations formula of nCr = n!/(r!(n-r)!) can be applied for the number of deck combinations. For the sake of simplicity, cards of “champion” rarity (having unique deck-building mechanics) will be ignored. This limits us to 103 cards, for a total of 103!/(8!(103-8)!) or 2.38 x 10^11 possibilities. Usually however, CR contains archetypes that make a particular combination immensely popular, to the point where millions use the same eight cards. A couple examples are shown below.
Figure 1 we have 2.6 Hog Cycle, players who spam the HOG RIDAAAAA! (Thank you Helin)
Figure 2 we have 2.9 X-Bow Cycle, players who enjoy eating the salt from their opponents’ tears.
Figure 3 we have Log Bait, players who throw Princesses or Goblin Barrels to see them murdered by trees, electrickery, or arrows.
What’s fascinating about midladder is many choose to make their own decks, distinct from everyone else’s. Figure 4 shows player x’s deck they call “winner”:
This is why you need to have some experience with CR to decipher the monstrosity* on the left.
*Figure 4 is merely more frequent in midladder than elsewhere. I am not assuming every player plays like this.
I’ll admit my personal best of 6120 is relatively low. But, as CR is my frenemy, I will always find figure 4 problematic. In essence, “winner” has too many win-conditions. Win-conditions are usually building-targeting cards that are reliable and effective in securing wins. For example, the Electro Giant above (2nd row, 2nd column) ignores troops and heads straight to buildings, of which the princess tower is one. This AI is significant because it makes the E-Giant bypass distraction troops to minimise Elixir investment in building “pushes”. Compared to the same-elixir PEKKA (2nd row, 1st column), the E-Giant, when appropriately strategised, has a greater probability of getting to towers (PEKKA gets distracted by troops and butterflies).
To begin exploring what’s bad, consider the trophy system as the main flaw. Note that if you’re a casual player, 大丈夫! There is nothing wrong with creativity. If you’re hardcore and genuinely want to escape this prison, then choosing to be overly-experimental means “you’re in for a world of hurt”. If I remember correctly, the April 2019 update inflated trophies since bots were inserted and players couldn’t drop below an arena after they’ve reached it. This subsequently made “climbing” easier, to the point where getting to 5000 is possible in a month. But, inflation diminishes the value of strategy. In other words, it does not teach players how to successively play. It is possible that midladder players misunderstand a win condition’s value. It is absolutely not “the more the merrier”, because their relative costliness and lack of synergy allows easy exploits from opponents. Below is a list of potential moves opponents make undermining figure 4’s validity:
- Outcycling with lower average Elixir (e.g figure 4 vs Hog 2.6).
- Negative Elixir trades leaving you at an Elixir disadvantage (e.g Wizard vs Bats, 5 vs 2).
- The inability to effectively counter some cards, when cards fulfil similar purposes (e.g against the Balloon, a high damage, building-targeting air troop).
Continuing on, when bots first exist (before midladder) and you lose less trophies than you gain, irrational choice is not a problem. Yet, reaching 5000 takes all that away: you win 30, you lose 30.
“Well, can’t they change cards and LeArN frOM tHEir MiStAkEs?”
Not. when. levels. exist.
Enough of figure 4. Let’s explore levels and integrate them into emotional damage midladder players experience. Cards in Clash Royale can be levelled up with gold earned in chests, battles, or special challenges. Doing so increases the stats of a card, roughly in equivalent percentage intervals. If a player begins levelling win-conditions with scarce gold, an opportunity cost is incurred (economics!), being the inability to level anything else. Advancing stats can make a card tank more damage, or deal more damage to others, justifying the incentives of levelling. See where I’m going?
If you overly-upgrade win-conditions or heavy cards, you can’t upgrade anything else. When you can’t upgrade anything else, you can’t use those cards to beat your opponent. When you can’t beat your opponent, you resort to your highest levelled cards. What are your highest levelled cards? Those like the eight found in figure 4.
It doesn’t have to be as severe as figure 4. Even as a semi-veteran, I’ve been playing a personal PEKKA-Hog deck for three years just because I chose to upgrade those eight cards. Their power can be easily ruined by a balance change, though that’s another story to tell. There is no incentive for me to play any trophy-winning matches since matchups become repetitive, caused by both the opponent and I. If I do, level-dependent interactions can be emotionally infuriating. While stressed for humour and laughs, it may be entirely possible phones break thanks to midladder. That’s definitely not a small price to pay for salvation. Hence, I resort to friendly battles naturally restricting card levels, literally the game’s supplementary mode to compensate for the “fun” found in the main mode of progression. This leads to a terrifying conclusion:
Midladder players are doomed to stay in midladder unless they grind or access the “cheating” card.
And by the cheating card, I mean the credit card.
It is an old saying that the best card in CR is the credit card, and I wholeheartedly agree. For in-app purchases, the developer team has made plenty of… questionable “x times more value” claims that make me doubt their mathematical capabilities. For freemium games, in-app purchases are perhaps the only mechanism to generate revenue. CR is no different. CR lives off “whales” spending millions maxing accounts in days, As a matter of fact, no freemium game cares about free-to-play players accounting for the majority of the playerbase, explaining the inevitable toxicity of players: in CR, the aforementioned emotes are a potential emotional response and “stress relief” in the 5000-6000 range. Even then, emotes are regarded as rude and demoralising. Then, how does CR make players remain happy, addicted for so long? Is certainty even attainable?
Ultimately, all the above explains why midladder is clumped with both newcomers and some veterans. It seems that every arena below 5000 is a tutorial, and from 5000 you immediately face an especially tough boss defeatable only via monetary expenditure, rooted deeply in Clash Royale’s design. I understand Supercell has made the game easier with plentiful updates (Clan Wars 2). However, the problem of midladder has yet to see its prevalence decline: players running eight win-conditions, E-barbs rage, or Megaknight fans may never change, whether they want to or not. This snowball may never see its end without adequate “grounding”, getting increasingly large in size, and increasingly dangerous for Clash Royale’s future. So, should Clash Royale be gatekept with money, becoming premium instead of freemium? I don’t know. It’s too late to tell, though it’s not too late to analyse!
I think, to ease my thoughts, I will now return to friendly battles and pretend I’m out of this prison.