Clash Royale Sparky Analysis and Guide

Clash Royale Sparky Analysis and Guide by supyonamesjosh

As many of you who have read my previous guides know by now, I got a Sparky about a week after she was released. She was my first legendary and also what pushed me over the hump from 2800ish to legend. Although the push to legend was extremely easy, what was really hard however, was staying in legend.

The first few weeks of Sparky looked like this:

• Week 1: Sparky completely trashes everything. It is easily the best card in all of Clash Royale. I am 3 crowing half of my games.
• Week 2: Seeing more zaps around. Need to try to play around it.
• Week 3: Sparky not working. Constantly surrounded by barbarians and minions. Losing terribly.As people started learning how to beat Sparky, more of my Sparky’s were ending like this

Taking out cannons that were going to die anyways was not what I had in mind.

What does it mean that Spark is swingy?

To answer this question it might be easiest to review the basic concept of elixir trades. The idea is something like this:

Basic Review of Elixir Trade:

• Both Players have the same number of resources available to deploy troops throughout the game. This resource is elixir.
• If player 1 deploys 4 elixir of units, and player 2 deploys 5 elixir of units, and all units die before they do any tower damage, player 1 has gained an advantage over player 2. Player 1 now has more resources available then player 2 for the rest of the game.
• Elixir ultimately is converted into tower damage. If player 1 spends 2 elixir deploying goblins and player 2 does not respond, player 2 is going to be up 2 elixir, but will have taken tower damage in exchange.

One of the hardest judgments to make in clash royale is how much damage is acceptable per point of elixir at each point in the match, but that is a very complex subject for another time. Someone remind me and I’ll write about it later.
The Ultimate goal of most cards: Positive elixir trade.
With the exception of some of the cards that only attack structures, the basic goal in playing cards is to generate positive elixir trades. The more positive trades you make, the more resources you have compared to your opponent. The more resources you have comparably the easier it is to trade your extra resources into damage on their towers.

Example 1:

• Opponent plays 3 muskateers (9 elixir)
• You kill them with a fireball and a zap (6 elixir)
• The board is clear and you are now 3 elixir up.

Example 2:

• Opponent plays Princess (3 elixir)
• You play miner on the princess (3 elixir)
• miner kills princess and takes 2 shots at their tower. You are elixir neutral, but converted some of your elixir into tower damage. You are winning.

Example 3:

• You play Sparky (-6)
• Sparky blows up Valk (+4)
• Sparky also blows up the prince in the same shot (+5)
• Sparky blows up barbs that are slightly misplayed (+5)
• Sparky blows up crown tower
• You are up… Well, You win. Congratulations.

Example 4:

• You play Sparky (-6)
• opponent plays goblins surrounding the sparky
• sparky kills goblins one at a time (+2) then dies
• You are down (-4)

Well

That was worse.

No card in the game is as volatile as Sparky

With nearly every other card you kind of know what you are going to get.

• You play the muskateer. It’s going to shoot some stuff and its going to die.
• You play a fireball, it will explode some stuff.
• you play a sparky, you could have either completely wasted 6 elixir or started a slow role to inevitable victory. Impossible to say.

Except its not.

The last sentence was a lie. Did you catch it? Did you disagree with me or were you nodding your head along? 90% of you are probably scrambling to reread the last sentence. The lie was that I said it was impossible to say how effective sparky is going to be.

It is completely possible.

The Problem with Sparky Decks: Where is your escape valve?

Sparky Deck tip #1: If you are leading the game off with sparky you are probably going to lose the game.

Within 30 seconds of a match it should be obvious how good sparky is going to be.

• The first thing you need to be trying to do entering a match is figuring out your opponents win condition. Unless you have a perfect aggressive start (More on how you could have an aggressive start in a sparky deck later), you want your opponent to make the first move.
• As you make a few defensive trades, you should be paying attention for cards that are especially bad against sparky.
  • Does my opponent have zap, freeze, or the new ice spirit?
  • Does my opponent have units with shields such as dark prince or guards?
  • Does my opponent have an abundance of cheap cards they can throw in front of sparky?
• Based on this information it should become abundantly clear how good sparky is going to be. This isn’t going to be 100% accurate because you can still set up situations where sparky will be good, but you need to quickly know how successful a sparky push is going to be. Sending out a small suicidal sparky convoy is better then sending out a huge wave a troops that all are crushed because you overrated how successful your attack will be.

So Lets suppose you quickly determine you are playing against a very bad matchup. Let’s say they have several troublesome cards.

Now what?

If you are playing a sparky/giant deck that I often see floating around, the correct answer might be…

Die

Which probably isn’t what you want to hear.

Sparky decks need a Plan B

Sparky Deck tip #2: I think baby dragon is the best sparky tank right now. Worst case scenario you have a great defender, and sparky decks need to plan for the worst.

I’m currently sitting at roughly 3500 trophies right now, and its all thanks to a legendary. That legendary however, is not sparky. But this guy

Previously in this guide I linked this GIF which showed my sparky getting crushed for a huge negative elixir trade.

Did I mention I was quite happy with that result?

Let me rewind the gif a little bit

My opponent played the cannon in sparky range to stop the sparky, and lost their elixir collector and a huge chunk of tower hp because of it.

This is the deck I am currently running right now I would be lying if I said that the level 11 goblins and level 11 zap weren’t a big, if not the biggest, part of the reason I am at 3500 trophies. But that is easy enough for anyone to achieve through constant requests (Read my guide posted at the top to learn more) but sparky has been great, and has won me games I wouldn’t have won otherwise.

Conclusion: How good is Sparky in general? Should she be used more at top levels in a deck closer to yours?

I’ve been thinking about this question a lot lately, and I think at some point Sparky decks reach a peak. Sparky is incredible at beating players who misplay. One misplay against a Sparky and the game could be over. As you play better players the chances for misplays drop considerably, and you are more open to Spark’s liabilities. I think if the full arsenal of legendaries was open to me I might choose a deck that doesn’t include Sparky.

Having said all that, I think that building leaner, meaner sparky decks can be a great ticket to legendary, and it sure is a blast to play.