Clash Royale Goblin Barrel Guide

Clash Royale Goblin Barrel Guide by LH1407

Hello everyone, today I will be giving you a guide on one of my favourite cards, the goblin barrel. I recently stopped using it, but I pushed up from Royal Arena all the way to 3962 trophies with a level 2 GB as a level 9 before switching it out in order to get above 4000.

The first that you should know when using the barrel is that you are investing three elixir for a card that will rarely do damage to your opponents troops. This means that it will almost always set you back on elixir. In this way, it is quite similar to the hog rider and freeze spell.

The goblin barrel mainly fits well with a few deck archetypes: chip cycle, spell bait and control. Some cards that synergise well with include the miner, skeleton army, minion horde, hog rider and sparky.

When playing the goblin barrel, you ALWAYS have to know when your opponent has counters in their hand, and whether you are at an elixir advantage or not. NEVER start a match by investing a lot of elixir into a push such hog rider goblin barrel. I tend to do this a lot when I’m really tilted. This may pay off one in ten times, when your opponent has no counters in hand. However, the other nine times you will probably get 500-1000 damage off, then get destroyed on the counter push. You should only do that kind of push if you are at a large elixir advantage, in double elixir, or has a last ditch move if the match isn’t going your way.

Here are a couple of quick tips when using the goblin barrel.

• Always mix up your placement. If you know that their counter is zap, keep them guessing buying throwing the GB a little off centre. If you are lucky, your opponent could miss completely, giving you damage and an elixir advantage. It often slows down their reactions too, as they will wait a second before zapping next time, allowing your goblins to get a stab in.
• If your opponents counter is the log or fire spirits, you can play the barrel at the front of the tower. This will allow the goblins to get in a few hundred damage before the log crushes them. It can also give you time to zap the spirits if you have quick reactions.
• A goblin barrel can cause a baby dragon or mega minion to switch lanes if it is placed behind the King tower.
• It is usually worth it to throw a barrel just to bait the zap, allowing you to easily defend with inferno and skeleton army.
• When doing a hog/miner barrel push, throw the barrel first. This will allow the barrel to go down quicker, getting a few more stabs in.
• If you are doing a hog barrel push, and your hog is about to die, you can zap the tower to retarget it onto the goblins, letting your hog get in a few more shots.
• If your opponent has bowler in hand, don’t even bother sending in the barrel. You are just going to set yourself back on elixir, and you won’t get any chip damage if your opponent is a good player.
• If your opponent doesn’t have any hard counters such as spells or a bowler, GB and ice spirit is a combo that can easily deal thousands of damage. The ice spirit tanks a few shots and freezes the tower. Left alone, this four elixir combo can nearly take a tower.

How to counter the goblin barrel

The most obvious counters to the GB are the spells. Zap and the log will both give you +1 elixir, and arrows is a neutral trade, but with the advantage of being easier to hit.

However, with the meta being filled with spell bait, using a zap may not be the best way to counter. Instead, using a troop can allow you to counter push, while still saving your spells.

As far as I know, there are only four troops that can shut down a goblin barrel. These are the bowler, three musketeers (not recommended of course), electro wizard and the dark prince. I didn’t know about the dark prince because it is so rare, until i played someone using a troll mirror clone deck. When charging, the DP somehow hits all three goblins through the tower.

There are other troops that don’t quite shut down the barrel, but do a pretty good job. These include the skeleton army, minion horde guards and the Valkyrie. You can place the Valkyrie at the front of your tower, and an ice spirit at the back, to completely shut it down if you cannot afford any damage

I hope you enjoyed my first card guide. Sorry for the rubbish formatting and terrible structure. Remember, I’m not the best player in the world so if you think I’m wrong about something, or I missed something please let me know and I will add it in. Thanks for reading!