Seeking Air Mine

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"Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Well it makes no difference as the Seeking Air Mine will blow it sky high. This trap does devastating damage to a single air unit."
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Level 1-2
Level 3-4
Level 5-6
==Summary==
*The Seeking Air Mine is a single-target air . It consists of a metallic bomb attached to three black balloons with white skulls painted onto them.
*While the Air Bomb is considered as the aerial counterpart of the Bomb, the Seeking Air Mine is considered the aerial counterpart of the Giant Bomb, though without splash with extreme damage.
*This trap will target most air units (including Healers, Siege Machines, and the Grand Warden if he is set to air mode). The only exceptions are Minions, Lava Pups and Bats, none of which can trigger the Seeking Air Mine, or get affected by it.
*Like all traps, once it is activated, the Seeking Air Mine must be re-armed in order to be a part of the next defense (with the exception of Clan Wars and in Legend League, where all traps are active for every enemy attack). Doing so is free and occurs automatically once the player logs into the game.
==Strategies==
===Defensive Strategy===
*A good place for the Seeking Air Mine is next to an Air Defense. When the enemy destroys an Air Defense and then deploys powerful flying units in the vicinity, the Seeking Air Mine can cripple one quickly, if not destroying one.
*Its inability to be used against Minions can work out in favor of the defender. This means that only larger troops, where the Seeking Air Mine has more utility in, such as Balloons, can be hit.
*You can place it near the outside of your base to quickly take down any Healers that are deployed. However, more skilled players can deploy Balloons to test for SAMs and defuse them. Therefore, it might be more advisable to place them deeper in the base, such as behind a row of defenses.
*It is best used on Dragons or any other powerful flying unit. One can even use this to easily take out s as Baby Dragons are usually deployed without cover from air units.
*You can place it next to your Town Hall to stop lone Dragons from destroying it.
*It's an effective way to counter a Grand Warden in air mode. They can do devastating damage, or knock him out in one hit if he is lower-leveled. This can be used to either force the attacker to use the Eternal Tome early (at a point in the attack where it isn't important), or if the attacker does not react in time, prevent the Eternal Tome from activating at all, reducing the risk of a defensive loss.
**If the player has the setting "automatically use hero ability on KO" turned on, the Grand Warden will be able to endure a hit from the Seeking Air Mine regardless of the level provided his ability has not yet been used. If the Seeking Air Mine would defeat him, the Grand Warden will use his ability and survive with barely any health remaining.
*It can be used to take down a Battle Blimp that is being used to finish off the Town Hall after a ground or air attack, due to the speed of the SAM being faster. However, this may have adverse effects since the Battle Blimp may spawn the Clan Castle troops in an unfavorable location, such as the P.E.K.K.A right near a Wizard Tower or even the Town Hall itself.
*At higher Town Hall levels, Seeking Air Mines can greatly reduce the health of aerial Siege Machines, or even destroy them early. You can spread your Seeking Air Mines in a hexagonal (Th12), heptagonal (Th13), or octagonal (Th14 and above) pattern, so it can cover as many possible Siege Machine directions as possible.
*It is usually not recommended to group together multiple Seeking Air Mines since they will all target the same unit, effectively wasting them.
**However, at Town Hall 9, where Lava Hounds are used often with Balloons, double Seeking Air Mines can be placed near two Air Defenses, to greatly damage Lava Hounds and make them more vulnerable to getting killed early.
===Offensive Strategy===
*The Balloon is the best choice against this trap, as it occupies only 5 housing space. It gains even more value if too many traps are set off against once since they will all just hit the balloon for nothing.
**This is useful in some singleplayer maps where a level can contain hundreds of them as a single Balloon will trigger dozens of SAMs and waste them all.
*Using the Grand Warden's Eternal Tome ability can negate the damage done by the Seeking Air Mine, but if you wish to do so, you have to activate it quickly, otherwise, the troop will get heavily damaged, if not destroyed. Success on your part may be advantageous as you will have negated a powerful trap, but usually, the Eternal Tome is better used to negate damage from more dangerous sources, such as a Giga Tesla's death explosion at level 5.
==Upgrade Differences==
The Seeking Air Mine goes under a visual change at level 3 and 5.
*When initially placed, the Seeking Air Mine is an explosive mine with spikes, hidden under a trapdoor just like the Air Bomb. Three black balloons with white skulls are attached to the mine. When triggered, the mine will have a red trail as it goes to its target, and a red vertical cloud will appear once it hits its target.
**At level 3, the spikes on the Seeking Air Mine get bigger and turn golden, and the Seeking Air Mine can be seen more easily within its compartment as it opens up slightly.
**At level 5, the mine gains a red dot, and the four spikes are replaced by three larger ones. When it follows its target, the dot lights up repeatedly.
==Statistics==
Level	Damage	Cost 	Build Time	Experience Gained	Town Hall Level Required
1 	1,500 	15,000 	N/A 	N/A 	7
2 	1,800 	900,000 	12h 	207 	9
3 	2,100 	1,600,000 	1d 	293 	10
4 	2,500 	3,100,000 	3d 	509 	13
5 	2,800 	8,000,000 	6d 12h 	749 	15
6 	3,000 	14,000,000	12d 12h 	1,039 	16
Trigger Radius	Damage Type 	Unit Type Targeted	Favorite Target
4 tiles 	Single Target	Air 	None
Unarmed Seeking Air Mine	Unarmed Seeking Air Mine	Unarmed Seeking Air Mine	Unarmed Seeking Air Mine	Unarmed Seeking Air Mine	Unarmed Seeking Air Mine	Unarmed Seeking Air Mine	Unarmed Seeking Air Mine
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
==Trivia==
*The Seeking Air Mine appears to come out of its compartment and then hit an air troop, causing a small, red flash.
*The Seeking Air Mine is heavier than an Air Bomb, as it needs 3 Balloons to carry it.
*The Seeking Air Mine shares its initials with the Surface-to-Air Missile. Both are powerful, grounded explosives that can devastate singular aerial units but are ineffective when enemies come in larger numbers, and are not used against weak aerial threats.
*It hits the troop and disappears, but it looks like a flattened Balloon instead of an exploded one when triggered and viewed after a battle or when upgrading the trap. The same applies to the Air Bomb.
*Prior to the November 2013 update, it required Dark Elixir to build them. This same update made Traps permanent structures instead of despawning upon activation.
*Previously, from the 2/24/2015 update, Healers were made unable to trigger air traps, including the Seeking Air Mine. This has since been reverted following a balance change on 8/25/2016.
*The Seeking Air Mine's description is a reference to the musical "It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman".
*Following the balance changes on August 12, 2021, its speed increased from 2.5 tiles/s to 3.5 tiles/s
===Comparisons===
*The Seeking Air Mine is the only trap that can knock out the Grand Warden set to air mode in one hit, provided that the Grand Warden is sufficiently low-leveled so that he does not have enough health to survive one.
*The Seeking Air Mine has the highest damage out of all the traps.
*The Seeking Air Mine and the Skeleton Trap are the only traps that do not do splash damage.
ru:Мины Воздушного Поиска
de:Suchende Luftmine
es:Mina de Rastreo Aérea
fr:Mine chercheuse
nl:Luchtmijnzoeker
pl:Seeking Air Mine
zh:搜空地雷
Category:Traps
Category:Home Village