Best Lava Hound Decks for trophy pushers

In the last post, we focused on one of the most used Clash Royale cards the hog rider. In this post, we will take a look at a very powerful deck that is used by many players to gain trophies and win tournament battles. Lava Hound decks are the decks of choice for trophy pushers because of their ability to overwhelm opponents, thereby inflicting 3 crown damage wins. So, we will look at two of the best lava hound decks for trophy pushers, one for advanced players and one for medium level players.

Understanding Lava Hound Decks

The key to understanding lava hound decks lies in knowing everything about the win condition which is overwhelming the opponent using the Lava hound itself supported by damage inflicting melee troops.

The lava hound is unlocked in Arena 4 also known as P.E.K.K.A’s playhouse achieved when a player reaches 1100+ trophies. See the full troop profile in the image above.

 

What makes the lava hound an integral part of the deck?

The Lava hound is a tank card, it means that it can soak in major damage while you use small troop units to chip away and destroy towers. So, in other words, it provides cover to the rest of the troops by sustaining damage over a considerable length of time. When a lava hound is destroyed, it bursts into a number of fragile but dangerous lava pups that continue to attack the structure in question.

Building your lava hound decks

When building a lava hound decks, one must keep in mind that the lava hound itself consumes a lot of elixir. At an elixir cost of 7, you have to associate lava hounds with elixir economic card to use for defense as well as for your pushes. The archetype used in lava hound decks is the beat down.

Lava Hound Deck for high advanced players

For players on Arena 8 and above, the following beat down lava hound deck is effective for 3 crown wins:

1. Lava hound
2. Fire spirits
3. Mini P.E.K.K.A
4. Ice spirit
5. Zap
6. Elixir collector
7. Spear goblins
8. Mega Minion

Deck explained

In this deck, the lava hound is the tank card, it should be used at full elixir preferably at the double elixir stage or when you notice that the opponent has used up their elixir. The hound is supported by a mini p.e.k.k.a and or mega minion. The mini p.e.k.k.a and mega minion can cause massive damage to towers under the cover of the hound. They are also good at ambushing an inferno tower and to defend against the opponent’s push. The two troop cards make for excellent survival troops after a defense job, used to launch a quick counter-attack on the opponent before he/she recovers elixir.

Know the associate troops

The fire spirits, zap, ice spirits, and spear goblins are essential in defending against swamp troops like minion hordes and skeleton army. These associate troops are your main defense against the opponent’s melee troops and any push that they might throw at you, particularly on a counter.

 

The elixir collector is the most integral piece of this deck, placing elixir collectors will give you’re a massive advantage when you make your beat down push. This is even more efficient when battling an opponent who ignores your elixir collector. The best place to deploy your elixir collector is somewhere in between the towers.

 

 

 

Using the deck

There a few key principles that you must keep in mind when using a lava hound beat down deck.

• Always stay pumped and deploy your hound during the double elixir phase or when your opponent has a shortage of elixir.
• Place the elixir collector as early as possible and stay pumped
• Use a mini p.e.k.k.a and zap to take out the opponents inferno tower, canon or mortar
• Use fire spirits against minion horde
• The best beat down push is achieved with a lava hound, mega minion, mini p.e.k.k.a and spear goblins.
• Deploy supporting troops only after the towers are locked on to the lava hound or when the opponent places an inferno tower.

Deck variant
You can replace one of the support cards with a defense building card to defend against potential counter attacks or against a player who uses a similar deck.

Lava Hound Deck for middle-level players

Like the advanced players, middle-level players battling around arena 7 can use very powerful lava hound decks. A typical beat down at this level will be as follows:

1. Lava hound
2. Balloon
3. Lightning or fireball
4. Minions
5. Miner or Mega minion
6. Arrows
7. Tombstone
8. Baby dragon or skeleton army

 

Deck explained

The idea behind this deck is to slowly build the main push that is difficult for the opponent to deal with. As you may have noticed this is a very expensive deck in as far as elixir is concerned, therefore you have to build an elixir advantage when using this archetype. Since it does not contain an elixir collector card, you will have to use the positive elixir defense trade. You will also need to inflict damage on your opponent’s towers by transitioning from defense to offense using any troops that survive from your defense.

Your typical push with this deck will consist of a hound, a balloon, a lightning spell or fireball supported by a mega minion/miner and a baby dragon. A push of this magnitude is almost always difficult for the opponent to stop.

For defense, you will need to rely on cheap elixir troops like the tombstone, minions and meg minion. You can throw in a baby dragon and use it to transition into a counter-attack after your successful defense.

 

Tips when using Lava Hound decks

• Do not allow your opponent to get an upper hand with crippling pushes
• Deploy your hound at the back of your tower
• Pay attention to your opponent’s deck and how they use it
• Do not be worried if your opponent gets a crown or two, as long as you push correctly you will get the 3 crowns.