Clash Royale Tornado Tips and Techniques Guide

Clash Royale Tornado Tips and Techniques Guide by Tilenull

Table of Contents

• I : Introduction
• II: Statistics and Overview
• III: General Techniques and Manipulating the Field in Your Favor
• IV: Activating the King Tower
• V: Synergies and Combos
• VI: Integrating the Tornado Into Your Deck

I : Introduction

A Hog Rider barrels down your lane, three hundred plus pounds of pure muscle and mohawk screaming HOOOGRIDAAAH as he prepares to decimate your tower with his massive sledgehammer. Your opponent BMs and throws a laughing emote, confident that there is no counter to this tanky overpowered beast of a card. You chuckle softly, however, as you unleash THE TORNADO. He prediction logs but it is no use, his hog has already been whipped into your king tower and ANNIHILATED for a positive elixir trade, reducing your opponent to spamming the crying emote as he suddenly comes to terms with his miserable hog-using life.

I’ve been using the Tornado in most of my decks since unlocking it in Builder’s Workshop and for good reason; the Tornado is an incredibly versatile card, not only as the best defense spell but also allowing you to execute moves that will greatly aid your push. Tornado has greatly risen in popularity thanks to combos like Exenado but unfortunately, it is still a card that I frequently see used wrong, often costing people the game. That being said, the Tornado is still an amazing card that, when played right, has infinite possibilities both defensively and offensively, some of which I hope I can illuminate in this guide.

II: Statistics and Overview

The Tornado has the unique ability to pull troops into its center with its wide radius of 5.5, dealing 29 damage per 0.5 seconds over a duration of 2.5 seconds at tournament standard. It is important to note, however, that the Tornado cannot damage buildings or towers and although it can cause troops to retarget, it does not stun them and they can still attack while in its radius. In addition, some troops have a slight resistance to the Tornado such as heavy tanks like the Golem or charging units like the Prince (covered later in the guide). Don’t let this discourage you however, the tornado still has innumerable applications in turning the game in your favor.

Tornado vs Other Spells

The following is at tournament standard:

III: General Techniques and Manipulating the Field in Your Favor

The Tornado is an incredibly powerful spell that can greatly shift the game in your favor. However, it is a rather skill based card so try to practice and familiarize yourself with Tornado techniques as one Tornado misplay could leave you unable to defend and cost you the game.

Retargeting Troops Like fireball, zap, and log, the Tornado can be used to make troops retarget but with even more flexibility thanks to its larger radius, allowing for even better plays. For example Tornado can be used to drag Inferno Dragon off of your Golem and onto your Night Witch Bats, to drag Electro Wizard off of your Sparky and onto your Giant, or pulling that Giant into your Inferno Tower. The Tornado can even be used to restrain troops to allow your push to make it to the tower. Be careful, however, tornado costs three elixir and wasting your tornado could easily put you at an elixir disadvantage as well as leave you vulnerable to later attacks.

Crossing Lanes If your opponent chooses to rush the opposite lane while you are building a push, drop Tornado in the center and pull them across to engage your troops.

The same strategy can be applied in assisting your push; if your opponent plays a card near the center to counter your push, Tornado can be used to kite it onto the other lane.

Note that this is more difficult to pull of with Prince and Battle Ram as their charge allows them to resist the tornado, however, ice spirit or zap can be used to reset this charge.

Unsplitting the Three Musketeers A common strategy with Three Musketeers is to split them to apply double lane pressure, however, with a quick tornado you can in some cases regroup them into the same lane, making them easier to deal with. This move also pairs well with high damage spells like Rocket and Fireball since the tornado allows all three of the musketeers to be taken out cleanly.

Defending With Glass Cannons If you’re defending with a glass cannon like Wizard, Musketeer, or Sparky, Tornado can be used to pull your enemy’s push farther back, allowing your units to get off a bit of extra damage. For example, if you were defending a Pekka with Musketeer, you could use tornado to stall the Pekka so that the Musketeer can finish her off.

Pulling Troops to the Center For a quick defense while your primary defenses are out of cycle, tornado troops to the center where they are in range of both princess towers. This is especially effective when the king tower has already been activated.

Tornado Princess to the Princess Tower Not the best defense – a three for three trade with the princess usually getting a few shots off, but it works in a pinch; use tornado to pull princess into the range of the princess tower.

IV: Activating the King Tower

One of the most notorious tornado moves, most melee troops such as the Lumberjack, the Hog Rider, and even the Golem can be tornadoed into the king tower, activating it and often netting a positive elixir trade.

Here is a chart (adapted and expanded from this post by min_58 and smlbiobot) identifying some useful placements:

https://imgur.com/a/kiYZy

There are also some important considerations to make when tornadoing troops into your the king tower:

Miner The tornado cannot pull the miner into the king tower when the miner is placed directly one tile diagonally to the outer side of your princess tower and it can be difficult to tornado when the tornado is placed on the outer edge.

Golem/Giant Be careful when tornadoing Golem/Giant because supporting troops behind the tank can do severe damage to your tower while the towers are focused on the tank. It is also important to note that heavy tanks have a certain resistance against tornado (this can be negated with an ice spirit or by pulling them in the direction they were already walking).

Hog Rider Pig Pushed Hogs can also warrant a placement more to the side which can result in extra hits (see chart). A common Hog move is to follow the Hog with Goblins or Bats, be wary of these and try to catch them in your tornado as well or they can also deal serious damage to your tower while the Hog is tanking.

Once the king tower is activated, troops can be tornadoed to the center (see chart), where they can be targeted and killed by all three towers

Activating the king tower is usually a big priority in the beginning of the game as it can greatly help later on.

Usually you will want to place your tornado a little bit earlier in order to drag the troop away as soon as it reaches the tower to negate most of the damage; try not to hesitate.

One trick to use against some troops is to use a cheap troop or building like the ice spirit or skeletons to draw the troops into the center where you will be able to safely tornado them into your king tower.

V: Synergies and Combos

Tornado pairs extremely well with some cards most notably splash troops and high damage

Exenado Exenado is one of the most powerful combos in the game with the tornado grouping all of the troops together so that the executioner can slice through them cleanly with his axe. What’s more, you can easily counterpush while your opponent is down on elixir by dropping troops (such as a Hog Rider) in front of the executioner. If your executioner becomes distracted by a single troop, use tornado to align all of the troops together so that he can splash all of them together. A similar effect can be created with the many other splash cards in the game like Wizard and Baby Dragon and even the underrated Bomb Tower. Sparkynado is especially effective with her 1100+ damage shotgun that can instantly vaporize a push, and a Tornado can be used to focus her blast where it will splash the tower. Another extremely effective combo is Ice Wizard Tornado; the Ice Wizard freezes the entire push while the towers pick it off, capable of completely denying a push with a little bit of assistance from a mini tank like Knight or Ice Golem to absorb the damage (thanks to mananpatel67 for the suggestion). Mortar is yet another splash card that has excellent synergy; pull troops into the enemy tower so that the mortar splashes them (thanks to sword88).

Ice and Fire Spirits Tornado can be used to bunch troops together so that they can be splashed by either spirit card. Ice spirit has especially good synergy with tornado, allowing you to kite a troop with the ice spirit and then pull it further with the tornado. Heavy troops like the Golem and charging troops like the Prince that usually cannot be pulled by tornado are easier to tornado once immobilized by an ice spirit.

Rocket/Fireballnado Use Tornado to bunch troops together so that they can all be hit by a single rocket or fireball. Remember to Rocket first and then use Tornado to pull the troops into the Rocket. This technique is especially applicable against heavy beatdown decks and Three Musketeers, where a single fireball + tornado will completely destroy them and score some tower damage as well. This combo can be rather expensive, so don’t use it when just a rocket or fireball would be good enough.

Giant Skeleton Giant skeleton is not only good at blowing up towers but can also be used as a great defensive card, blowing up enemy troops. Unfortunately, Giant Skeleton bombs takes three seconds to explode, this is where tornado comes in: Once your Giant Skeleton has been destroyed, tornado your opponent’s troops onto it, trapping them until the bomb explodes and kills all of them.

Pekka and Sparky Tornado can also be great in assisting a push involving high damage but slow moving and relatively low range troops like Pekka and Sparky. You will often see these troops defended against by glass cannons like Wizards and Musketeers who can snipe your troop before it has a chance to land a hit. However, Tornado can be used to pull these troops into the range of your Pekka/Sparky, killing them before they have a chance to do severe damage and clearing the way for your troops to reach the tower. The same can be applied as a counter to Exenado; simply pull the Executioner into your Pekka/Sparky and your opponent has just wasted five elixir and likely has no better response to your push.

Tornado + Zap/Ice Spirit If better counters are out of cycle, Tornado plus an Ice Spirit or Zap can be used to take out a Minion Horde, with the added bonus of Tornadoing accompanying troops.

VI: Integrating the Tornado Into Your Deck

First off, due to Tornado’s unique properties and lack of direct tower damage it can be difficult to determine where Tornado fits into your deck as a spell and what other spells to accompany it.

Three Spell Decks These decks are generally rather well-rounded and can be solid offensively and defensively since you can include a cheap spell and a high damage spell, in addition to Tornado but they have one major flaw: a bad cycle. A starting hand with all three spells could force you to play whatever card is in your fourth slot often putting you at a disadvantage and later on you could find yourself making similarly bad plays trying to cycle.

Tornado + Zap/Log Tornado paired with a cheap deck like zap or log can also be a solid deck but with vulnerabilities in not having a card that does significant tower damage or a card to damage troops and buildings. However, this can be circumvented with Tornado plays such as pulling troops into your push to kill them, pulling them out of range, or using strategies like exenado. This combination can also be helpful in beating logbait thanks to the multiple cheap spell responses. Zap plus Tornado can also kill minion hordes.

Tornado + High Damage Spell Once again this can be solid basis for a deck especially since it allows you to execute combos like Fireball/Rocketnado but it is flawed in that the only cheap swarm killing card is the Tornado, which when baited out can hinder later plays.

Now let’s get into synergies and actually building the deck:

The following example decks are my interpretation of popular meta decks

Beatdown There aren’t any significant changes to make since beatdown typically synergizes extremely well with tornado, however, one factor that should be kept in mind is what spells to carry: Many beatdown decks already have a heavy cycle so three spells is usually not the best option, leaving you with a choice between tornado + cheap spell, which can help clear swarms to support your push, or tornado + high damage spell, where the tornado replaces the anti-swarm card but has the benefits of a direct damage spell. It is also important to remember to have a resetting card, either Zap or Lightning, which in most cases generally narrows your choices to Tornado+Zap or Tornado+Lightning.

Example Deck

Golem, Night Witch, Elixir Collector, Baby Dragon, Mega Minion, Goblins, Lightning, Tornado

Strategy:

• Tornado those irritating splash cards that will take out your Night Witch into the center of you push so that your push support cards kill them
• If they play Inferno Dragon to counter your Golem, Tornado it to retarget it onto your Night Witch bats
• Baby Dragon Tornado to rip apart any push or defense.
• If they try to rush the opposite lane while you’re building a heavy Golem push, Tornado their troops across the lane so that they will engage yours.
• While low on elixir from dropping a pump or a Golem, Tornado can be used as a cheap defense by tornadoing to the center or to activate the king tower.

Siege Arrows can often be replaced with Tornado in siege decks, while this creates a vulnerability to Minion Horde, it allows for a lot more synergies and plays. Ice Spirit, a common element of cycle siege decks, can be used in conjunction with the Tornado as a cheap defense to freeze an entire push and in many other techniques further explained in section V. Ice Spirit can also be used with tornado to completely kill Minion Horde at tournament standard. What would typically be Archers or Mega Minion could be replaced with Princess or Ice Wizard to further the Tornado synergies

Example Deck

Mortar, Ice Wizard, Rocket, Fire Spirits, Knight, Ice Spirit, The Log, Tornado

Strategy:

• While Knight tanks a push, use Ice Wizard Tornado to slow it so that the princess towers can pick it off. A similar approach can be taken with Ice Spirit
• Use tornado to gather troops together so that either spirit can splash all of them
• Use tornado to gather troops together so that they can all be hit with one rocket
• Use tornado to pull troops into the the enemy tower so that the mortar’s shots will splash them
• Once again, Tornado can be used as a cheap defense by activating the king tower or pulling to the center (sometimes an ice spirit will make this easier to pull off)

Control With control decks’ generally better and generally faster cycles you can have the flexibility to go with a three spell deck, pairing tornado with a high damage and a low damage spell for an ultimate defense/offense. The Tornado offer great versatility in pairings with cards like Executioner and Ice Spirit for a solid defense.

Example Deck

Hog Rider, Skeletons, Executioner, Rocket, Knight, Ice Spirit, The Log, Tornado

Strategy:

• Use exenado to rip apart any push (Knight can sometimes be used to tank for the Executioner) and then drop a Hog Rider in front for a counterpush
• Use Tornado to gather troops together so that the Ice Spirit can freeze all of them while the towers pick them off
• Use tornado to gather troops together so that they can all be hit with one rocket
• Once again, Tornado can be used as a cheap defense by activating the king tower or pulling to the center (sometimes an ice spirit will make this easier to pull off)

Thanks for Reading!

I had lots of fun writing this guide and I hope you enjoyed reading it as well; let me know in the comments if I missed anything and criticism is always welcome.