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What is a Cycle Deck?
For those of you who are familiarized with the core strategy, you can skip to the decklists and explanation I give. If not, follow me and learn what the heck a cycle deck is exactly. For more articles about deck strategies and deck lists you can keep checking our page out.
The word “cycle” refers to “drawing” cards. Although this is a card game, you don’t actually see yourself drawing cards from a deck, but we call cycle to getting new cards available to play. So what this type of decks aim is to cycle fast to both attack and get valuable cards available. If you cycle fast you can get the same card faster and can attack faster than your opponent. Also, if your opponent wastes a good defensive card on one of your pushes, cycling fast won’t give him time to get that defensive spell or troop again so fast. That will give you the upper hand when you are playing against some slow but powerful decks.
This combination of cards have to have a low elixir cost in order to be able to cycle fast, and they have to have a purpose. You don’t just play troops when you have them available and send them to die. You have to have an organized strategy in order to maximize the value of each card. Usually it’s all about supporting a strong offensive card such as hog rider or a high hp card like the giant. For example, if you drop a hog rider and it gets countered by an inferno tower, cycling through your cards will make the hog rider available faster than the cycling of your opponent, so he won’t be able to use another tower.
There are decks that include cheap cards in order to be able to cycle faster and there are others that rely on stacking elixir pumps. Both strategies have their strengths and weaknesses. We will explore different strategies and how to use them.
Giant Cycle Deck
- Giant
- Zap
- Electro Wizard
- Elixir Pump
- Skeletons
- Minions
- Ice Spirit
- Lightning
Now that we know the general idea of this type of strategy, we’re going to go deeper into every choice of cards. The aim of this particular deck is to stack elixir pumps and push with the giant and electro wizard. The lightning and zap serve to reset the inferno tower and destroy other threats. Let’s talk about them individually.
The giant is our win condition but it is also good for using defensively. Since we can cycle fast, we can put it to withstand some damage while we drop support and make a counter push. Together with the elixir pump and the elixir boost, we could even push with two giants and a couple of wizards at the same time. One example of this would be if the opponent drops something like elite barbarians or “ebarbs” for short. They are fast and hit hard so we would need the giant to block them and distract them while we drop either skeletons or electro wizards to finish them off.
The zap is a very popular spell nowadays. This is because it can reset troops such as Sparky and buildings like inferno tower. These two are counters to our giant strategy. With the zap and the electro wizard we can keep resetting the cards that would kill our giant easily. The other troops like a musketeer or a wizard can be destroyed with the lightning. This makes way for our giant to connect a couple of hits. This card can also destroy the skeleton army, the goblin barrel and the goblin gang. If you feel like you don’t need so much reset for enemy troops you can replace it with the log. This card will be able to kill stronger troops and knock them back a little. It kills the princess while the zap doesn’t. It depends on your playing style.
The Electro Wizard serves as both support for the giant and as an offensive card. This one hits more than one unit, making it deadly with the giant protecting it. It serves as a constant interrupt and reset to protect the giant from an inferno tower or sparky. It also slows the attacks of the other troops due to its constant short stuns. It doesn’t reset the enemy troops’ attacks but it does enough.
The elixir pump is the whole reason this deck works. It doesn’t have strong tools but when you manage to stack both elixir pumps you are able to drop your cards at incredible speed, making it easier to deploy more giants and defenses against strong cards like hogs or ebarbs. Try not to put them both on the same side because your opponent would benefit from it. Through defensive cards, he would get a lot of value by hitting both pumps in one hit.
Skeletons are a smaller and cheaper version of the skeleton army but they still hit very hard and serve as good distraction against single-target troops. They can help kill a hog rider, distract the ebarbs and other offensive troops. They can also be used to support your push or kill adjacent enemy troops. Great for distracting other skeletons, ebarbs, goblins and good to damage incoming tanks.
The minions are excellent support and distracting troops. They too deal decent damage and they are cheap. They can distract minion hordes, can seriously damage giants, hog riders, ebarbs and other offensive enemy troops. Also great for supporting the main push with the protection of the giant.
The ice spirit is great for cycling since it is very cheap and it freezes enemies. It delays enemy troops so they can be killed by the towers or other units such as the skeletons. Combined with the giant and electro wizard, it helps to stop defensive troops and buy time for the electro wizard to finish them off.
The lightning is one of our best and strongest tools to destroy defensive troops and buildings such as inferno towers, musketeers, ebarbs, wizards and other possible threats to the giant. It is very expensive but with both elixir pumps running it shouldn’t be a problem with using it continuously.
Now that we have explored all possible card choices, it’s time to figure out how we could counter this archetype.
How can I counter the Giant Cycle Deck?
What you need is to simply destroy or damage the elixir pumps as much as you are able. That will cripple the speed and rotation of cards in that strategy. Without the boost of the pumps, by killing the giant is enough to counter the push. If you leave the elixir pumps be, they opponent might just overwhelm you.
Hog Knight Cycle Deck
The deck list of this particular archetype is the one I propose next:
- Hog Rider
- Knight
- Fireball
- Ice Spirit
- Skeletons
- Archers
- Cannon
- Zap
So, we have seen one possible cycle strategy with the giant cycle deck. This one is a little different. Its strength relies on the hog rider to deal damage to the towers and you can support it with the other card choices. Let us review them all individually.
The hog rider serves as the source of the damage done. It can move relatively fast and can jump the river. That makes it easy for it to get to the enemy towers. The problem is that it can get distracted by buildings and therefore becomes very vulnerable to tower damage and other kinds.
The knight serves as a good cheap melee tank. It has decent hit points and can be used to tank for the hog rider when you are pushing or in the worst case scenario, you can use it to defend against ground troops. You can find yourself in a match where your opponent has heavy ground defenses and he counters your pushes effectively. If this happens, don’t worry, that’s what the other tools are for. The knight can deal decent damage to incoming tanks and other melee troops. Try not to leave it alone against too much cheap troops stacked since he’s a single-target troop.
The fireball is intended to be used defensively until you wait for the elixir boost or apply pressure to your opponent when he deploys buildings, especially elixir pumps. An inferno tower is a very good way of countering a hog rider, so we must either have a zap and/or a fireball ready to make way for the hog and buy him some time to hit the tower. When your opponent has a lot of counters for your chosen troops, you are going to have to rely on the power of your fireball to destroy the enemy towers. Try to time it when the opponent drops troops next to the tower so you can damage them both. This way you get way more value from the card.
Ice spirit is great for any cycle since it is a very good defensive card. It freezes its target and it only costs 1 elixir to use. When used offensively, it is great to freeze enemy defensive troops for a while and let the hog get some hits in the tower and used defensively it can give your towers time to kill enemy troops on your side of the river. Remember it is a fragile troop so drop it behind the hog or the tank when you push and wait for the enemy to target your tower when using defensively. Take advantage of the fact that when the freeze ends, the enemy target resets. That way the enemy will not be hitting your tower anymore if you drop something like skeletons in front of it.
Skeletons are a cheap troop, a good distraction and they have high dps. When you push try to drop them behind the hog or the tank so they can land some hits on the tower. They will be deadly if left unchecked. When I say distraction I mean for cards like the ebarbs. They are very vulnerable to stacked troops because they have to target them individually and they don’t attack too fast. Great for dropping when you are being attacked by a hog rider. They will kill it rather quickly. I didn’t add the skeleton army because the objective of this deck is to cycle. It still serves as distraction for most cards in the game. Drop them wisely.
Have you noticed that this deck does not have many air defenses? That’s what the archers are for. Sacrificing air defenses we add a unit that is able to target flying troops and is able to support the knight when you push with him. Be careful when dropping them. If they die too quickly you will be left defenseless against whatever flying troop your opponent has. If you see him dropping troops like a lava hound, it is better if you try to race him and get your 3 crowned win.
The cannon is a good defensive building that will prevent troops like the giant and the hog rider to hit your tower. Try to put it on the middle just enough for the troop threatening you to notice it and go attack it but not too close to the river or else a princess can target it from across. This card is included in this deck list because an inferno tower is too expensive to be included in a cycle deck. It doesn’t target flying troops but helps cycle for the archers.
The zap needs almost no explanation whatsoever. It is one of the most effective cards in the game, being able to reset troop attacks, the inferno tower and to kill most of the existing cheap troops such as skeletons and goblins. It is great for defending against swarms and great to make way for your win condition to reach the enemy tower. It does little damage to towers but enough when you need to use it for a couple hits to destroy them. Try to save it to support your hog rider pushes. Expect a skeleton army and an inferno tower to stop your push.
Playing around the deck weaknesses is essencial to win with it. Remember sometimes the decks we build can’t win against every strategy that exists. What is important is to seize opportunities that present themselves by remembering what cards your opponent has played and how much elixir he should have at a certain point. That is going to be fundamental as you get higher trophy count. Good luck out there with the Cycle decks!
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