Clash Royale Lava Hound Tips

Clash Royale Lava Hound Tips by kwegner

I’ve been running a lava hound deck for a little over a month now and haven’t seen a guide on how to run or defend against her. I’ve won the last few tournaments I’ve played and sit between 3000-3200 pretty comfortably when I use LH.

I figured I’d break this into 2 sections, one for those with LH and the latter half for those defending against it. Feel free to add tips. I’ll edit my post with things that stand out.

Tips for using Lava Hound

1. Use an elixir collector. LH costs 7 elixir…if you think you can defend against a counterattack with the remaining 3 without the helps of a collector filling you back up, I need to get some tips from you.
2. Figure out your win condition, and use the rest of your cards to defend. My win condition is LH + Poison. There’s not much that can defend against that combo (except arrows…damn you arrows). Some people run LH + Balloon, some throw in a baby drag, but just know that the rest of your cards need to be about defending, not even counter attacking. You can’t support any offense except your win condition if you’re running LH.
3. Take damage. You don’t have enough elixer to defend against chip damage. Let those spear gobs hit you. Don’t worry about a lone ice wizard. Don’t spend elixer trying to save a few hundred damage. Because…
4. Make them play your game. If you are constantly defending against your opponent or are stuck in their cycle without being able to drop your LH you’re in trouble. But the moment you drop a LH you’ll see your opponent’s game change completely. With most tank units you wait until you’re at 10 elixir to drop them in the back, but if I feel like I’ll have to defend another losing wave if I wait that long I’ll drop the LH at 7 or 8 just to change the pace of the game. And it works almost every single time.
5. Go for 1 or 2, not 3. This might be different for LavaLoon, but for LH+Poison it’s much more effective to go for a 2nd crown tower as opposed to going for a 3 crown win.

Tips for Defending Against Lava Hound

1. Don’t over-invest before the pop. You’ll take too much damage if you don’t defend at all, but drop your anti-air defense in stages (e.g. musk at 2/3 health, mage at 1/3) if you have the option. Drop princess just before the pop. If you drop anything too early my poison will make easy work of your entire defense AND slow your crown tower from taking out the pups.
2. You’ve gotta kill the pups. I can’t tell you how many towers I take in the first push because the other player thinks they can zap the pups and move on. If there is a poison down you’ve gotta do more or else you’re done in 1 or 2 pushes, max. Arrows are an obvious choice, but even fireball can do good work as long as you haven’t invested too much in taking down the LH before that point.
3. Towers + Defense. Inferno towers do quick work of a LH, but with zap interrupting it’s not enough to take down the LH + pups alone. Make sure you drop some other anti-air or another building before it’s too late. Same goes for other builings, but you need more and more defense as their HP decrease.
4. Soak up the pup damage. Sometimes you don’t need to attack to defend. I’ve had players drop barbs, giant or even a well timed valk just before the pups come that serve no purpose but to soak up their damage. This works incredibly well, especially if your spells aren’t ready.
5. Counter attack just before the pups. Don’t try to counter while the LH is still on my side of the arena. If you do I’ll just defend the push and save just enough elixir to drop a poison before her pups do some devastation. Instead, drop your push when the LH is 1/2 dead so that I have to use my elixir (and/or poison) on you, defeating my entire push.

That’s it. I’m sure there’s a lot more, but those are the main points I’ve got. I’ll add more as they come in.

Oh, and if you’re interested, my deck is (all at tourny level, excep elixir pump is L6): Lava Hound, Poison, Elixir Collector, Mini Pekka, Zap, Spear Gobs, Princess, Canon. Princess is nice but not necessary, though you’ll need it to be anti-air or else you’ll be too weak there. I’d probably use archers over musk because I don’t expect to turn counter-pushes but that’s up to you.