Clash Royale
Clash Royale is a free-to-play real-time strategy video game developed and published by Supercell. The game combines elements from collectible card games, tower defense, and multiplayer online battle arena. The game was released globally on March 2, 2016. "Clash Royale" reached $1 billion in revenue in less than a year on the market. In three years, "Clash Royale" made $2.5 billion in revenue according to market intelligence company Sensor Tower. Gameplay. Premise. "Clash Royale" is a tower rush video game which pits players in games featuring two or four players (1v1 or 2v2 ) in which the objective is to destroy the most opposing towers, with the destruction of the "King's Tower" being an instantaneous win. After three minutes, if both of the players/teams have an equal number of crowns or none at all the match continues into a 2-minute "overtime" period and the player who destroys an opposing tower wins instantaneously. If no towers are destroyed during overtime, there is a tiebreaker where all towers rapidly lose health, and the tower with the least health is destroyed. If the two towers with the lowest health have the same health, there  is a draw. After an update in late 2018, leaving a 2v2 match multiple times prevents the player from playing 2v2 with random players for some time. In "Clash Royale," players are ranked by their number of trophies. Players level up by gaining Experience (or King Level) points through donating and upgrading cards. The highest possible level is level 14. As of the October 2021 update, players also receive Star Points when gaining experience, which can be used to give their cards an updated visual skin, usually gold in color. There are up to three Star Levels for each card , which are unlocked when the card is leveled up to level 7 (for level one Star Level), level 10 (for Star Level 2) and level 13. Trophies are won or lost through multiplayer battles, a player wins a battle by destroying more towers than the opponent (each destroyed tower being represented as a 'crown'), or by destroying the opponent's King's Tower, resulting in an automatic "three-crown" victory, commonly described as being "three-crowned". (unless the King's Tower was destroyed at the same time by both players, resulting in a draw, however this is nearly impossible). There  are fifteen playing arenas in total (excluding the tutorial arena, Training Camp): Goblin Stadium, Bone Pit, Barbarian Bowl, P.E.K.K.A's Playhouse, Spell Valley, Builder's Workshop, Royal Arena, Frozen Peak, Jungle Arena, Hog Mountain, Electro Valley, Spooky Town, Rascal's Hideout, Serenity Peak, and Legendary Arena, with each arena corresponding to a certain trophy range. Leagues were introduced in March 2017. Upon reaching 5000 Trophies (Legendary Arena), players compete in leagues: Challenger I, II, III; Master I, II, III; Champion, Grand Champion, Royal Champion, and Ultimate Champion. After the end of each season, the player is reset to half of  the trophies they gained above 5000 trophies. There are various game modes that the player can play aside from 1v1 or 2v2. These alter the game in some way, including by changing the elixir generation speed, having various troops spawn throughout the game, drafting (Players are given a choice to pick between some cards at the beginning of a match. In the normal Draft, the player chooses four cards, while they get 4 from their opponent. In Triple Draft, cards that aren't chosen by either player will not be in use at all.), auto-selected decks, and more. Players  gain experience to level-up their King Tower, with levels ranging from one to fourteen. Experience points are gained by means such as upgrading cards and donating troops to other clan-members. Cards. Playable troops, buildings, and spells are represented as cards. Many cards are directly based on troops and buildings from Supercell's previous game "Clash of Clans", such as giants and cannons, and the game uses a similar art style. Prior to each battle (with the exception of the first battle in Training Camp), players construct a deck of eight cards which they use to attack and defend  against their opponent's cards. At the start of each game, both players begin with four randomly chosen cards from their deck of eight, with the only exceptions being Mirror and Elixir Collector. Each card costs a certain amount of elixir to play. Players start the battle with five elixir points (zero in Double and Triple Elixir modes), and one elixir point is replenished every 2.8 seconds (or 1.4 seconds in Double Elixir Mode, the final 60 seconds of the game and the first minute of overtime, and roughly every 0.9 seconds during Triple Elixir Mode and the last minute  of overtime), to a maximum of ten elixir points. Once a card is played, a new card is automatically drawn from the player's eight card deck. Clash Royale first launched with 42 cards, there were 14 cards for each of the three rarities that existed at that time: Common, Rare, and Epic. The February 2016 update added a new rarity: Legendary, with the introduction of two new legendary cards to the game: Ice Wizard and Princess. The September 2018 update changed card levels so as to not confuse new players. All cards now cap at level 14, with common  cards starting at level 1, rare cards starting at level 3, epic cards starting at level 6, legendary cards starting at level 9 and champion cards starting at level 11. All cards are level 11 for all tournaments. The only exception to this rule to these rules is the Mirror, a spell that allows the player to place another version of their previous card but two levels higher, and for one extra elixir than the normal unit. This would mean that a level 13 or 14 mirror would produce level 15 or 16 troops respectively, and level 13's in  tournaments. The June 2018 update added the emote deck, allowing players to use up to eight emotes from their emote collection. Players start with four free King emotes, but they can purchase more from the shop or special challenges. Trade tokens were introduced in the September 2018 update. They can be used to trade Common, Rare, Epic, and Legendary cards with clan-mates so players can get more of the cards they need and get rid of the cards they do not want. These can be won from challenges, clan war rewards, or purchased from the Shop in special offers . The December 2018 update added Star Points to unlock special golden cosmetics for Max Level cards. This would be tweaked in future updates, which lowered the levels at which Star Points were unlocked and cosmetic options became available. Certain cards have multiple levels of golden cosmetics that can be unlocked. In October 2021, a new card rarity—Champion—was added to the game, with three new cards being added: Archer Queen, Skeleton King and Golden Knight. These cards differentiate from other cards as a player can only have one Champion in their deck, and each Champion has a special ability  that can be activated by spending additional elixir (for example, the Golden Knight's Dash ability costs 1 additional elixir). A fourth champion—Mighty Miner—was added in March 2022. In this same update, Supercell implemented a mastery track for each card, which provide rewards such as extra cards and gold for completing various milestones. Completing these mastery tracks allow the player to display various badges in a revitalized achievement system. Other badges might reflect tournament statistics, as well as a display of how many years a player has had the game. As of March 2022, there are 107 cards  in the game, coming in five rarities: Common (28), Rare (28), Epic (30), Legendary (17), and Champion (4). Clans. Starting from Experience Level 1, players can join or form clans. Joining or forming a clan enables the player to engage in friendly battles and clan wars. It also unlocks the feature of trading and requesting cards from clan-mates after reaching Experience Level 2. Clan members can also chat and share emotes with their clan-mates. A clan has a maximum player limit of 50. Clans earn trophies and progress collectively through Clan Wars. Clan Wars. Original format. On April  25, 2018, Clan Wars were added. Initially, a given war would be separated into two days: "Collection Day" and "War Day." Clans were eligible to participate if they had a minimum of ten players that are level 8 and above. Collection Day saw players battling in a variety of game modes, which rotate every month, to gain cards to add to the Clan collection. Winning awarded more cards, as did participating in higher Arenas. If a minimum of ten players did at least one battle each, the Clan could progress to War Day, where a Clan was matched with four  other Clans with a similar number of participants and Clan Trophies. Each participant gets to build a deck and battle using only the cards that their Clan unlocked on Collection Day. After the battles, each clan is ranked from 1st to 5th place based on the number of wins they have, with the rank decided by the number of Crowns. At the end of the War Day, all players that participated in the War received a War Bounty containing Gold and sometimes Gems or Trade Tokens. Based on their War rank, Clans gain or lose a certain number of Clan  Trophies. Clans progress through Clan Leagues by gaining Clan Trophies, and higher leagues result in better rewards. Clan Seasons lasted two weeks, and at the end of each season, a chest is awarded to every player that participated in a war during the season, with the number of cards in the chest being determined by the highest war rank the Clan had during the season and the highest league the Clan was in during the season. Clan Wars II. On August 31, 2020, Clan Wars II was added and was a reworked version of its predecessor. Each week consists of  three "Training Days" and four "Battle Days." During Training Days, participants can add troops to their respective Clan Boat, which mark the progress in the week's war and add movement bonuses based on surviving troops. Battles are fought with 32 total cards from the player's collection being used to make four unique war-decks with no overlapping cards. War-decks can be play-tested during these Training Days, though Boats cannot be attacked until Battle Days. On Battle Days, players have the option of several battle variations, with points given based on wins and participation. Clan Trophies  are still awarded for the clan's placement in the War, which is determined by which Clan Boat crosses the finish line first. However, if no clan reaches the finish line, the clan that went the farthest is awarded first place for that week. After a week, the cycle will reset to Training Days, and each total War lasts five weeks, while each clan loses or gains trophies each week depending on where they finished that week. On the fifth week, the clan's boat stops at the Colosseum as the final round of battles. At the end of season , Clans that have high placement gain a significant amount of Clan Trophies. Tournaments. In July 2016, Supercell introduced a new Tournament feature. Tournaments are similar to normal battles, but all cards are capped at level 11. This feature is unlocked at player experience Level 5, but can only be played from experience level 8. Tournaments can only be created by using gems, and the creator can choose to make it password protected or open. Based on tournament performance, players are rewarded with tournament chests. As well as tournaments, there are two types of Victory Challenges, one in which the goal  is to win twelve times while losing no more than two times and the other's goal is to play until you finish the entire challenge by winning all crowns or battles, regardless of losses. A Grand Challenge costs 100 gems to enter, and a Classic Challenge costs 10. Completing (or getting 12 wins on) a Grand Challenge gives you 22,000 gold and 1,100 cards, and completing a Classic Challenge will give you 2,000 gold and 100 cards. Supercell has also added various event challenges, for limited periods of time, that add special features to the battles, or allow players  to receive special cards. These event challenges can also sometimes be played in Friendly Battles. As of the October 2017 update, players would no longer get a refund on gems if no matches take place in their custom tournaments. In December 2018 update added Global Tournaments while Custom Tournaments is renamed to Private Tournaments which removed the prizes but added more options. Release. The game was soft-launched in Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, and New Zealand for iOS platforms on January 4, 2016. The game was soft-launched on Android for those same countries on  February 16, 2016, in the form of an Android application package. Both platforms received a global release on March 2, 2016. Upon its release, "Clash Royale" became the most downloaded and top-grossing app on the U.S. iOS App Store. Reception. "Clash Royale" mainly received positive reviews, with "TouchArcade" Eli Hodapp calling it "absolutely phenomenal" in his five-star review. "Pocket Gamer" Harry Slater gave the game a score of 9/10, summing up "It's an incredible amount of rewarding fun, it's nail-biting at times, and there's content here that will keep you busy for weeks if  not months." Writing for Geek.com, James Plafke criticized ""Clash Royale" for being genuinely fun—more so than "Clash of Clans"—while the developer chronically interrupts the player from enjoying it." "Clash Royale" has received a positive response from its players, with an average score of 4.5 out of 5 on the Google Play Store and an average score of 4 out of 5 on the Apple App Store. Championships. Clash Royale League. The Clash Royale League is the official team esports world championship on a league format, developed by Supercell. It consists of 5 leagues: North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia , and China. Season 1 of the CRL started on August 20, 2018. After fifteen games per team in the regular season, playoffs were held in each region, and the subsequent World Finals were held in Tokyo, Japan on December 1. Season 2 was held in 2019, and it was conducted in a similar format. The World Finals were held in Los Angeles, California. Clash Royale Crown Championship. The "Clash Royale Crown Championship" was the official esports world championship of the game, developed by Supercell. The tournament connected the best players all over the world from North America, Asia, Latin America , Europe, and more. The first edition had over 28 million participants all over the world, becoming the world's largest Clash Royale event. Asian Games. "Clash Royale" was a part of an esport demonstration event during Asian Games 2018 held in Indonesia. Eight countries were able to participate after having qualified from their respective regional qualification, with Indonesia automatically qualified as host.