What makes a card a win condition?

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The term win condition can refer to three things;

1: The end goal (Take more towers or deal more damage than your opponent)

2: The means to that end goal (i.e build up a massive push from the back to single handedly take down their tower)

3: The centerpiece to the means (using the example above, you can achieve the means using Golem + spell resistant support troops)

People usually mean the third definition when referring to win conditions. But what exactly does being the centerpiece to a deck mean?

The win condition's role in a deck is to... well, secure the win. If a win condition is removed from a deck, the deck as a whole suffers considerably. It may still be able to defend well, but it doesn't mean much if it can't make use of the Elixir of defender's value gained on the offense. Not every card in a deck needs to have a fantastic synergy with the win condition, but there should be at least some cards in the deck that help the win condition over come its weaknesses (eg Hog Rider + Earthquake to thwart buildings, Miner + Poison to thwart swarms).

The difference between a win condition and a threat

All win conditions are threats, but not all threats are win conditions. When I say "threat", I mean cards that have the potential to deal notable damage to a Crown Tower. There's a lot of them; Prince, Mini P.E.K.K.A., Goblin Gang... you can probably think of a dozen more. What counts as "notable" depends on the kind of deck you're using. If you're running a heavy investment deck, a single Miner's damage is rarely notable. The opponent is spending 3 Elixir to take around a fifth of your Princess Tower's health. Investment decks can rely on taking tower damage to build a big enough Elixir advantage to snowball the opponent with. If you were running a chip damage control deck instead, fully ignoring a Miner is pretty much out of the question. They'll get the damage advantage by a fair margin, and it'll be hard for you to take it back without a lucky break.

Anyways, here's the difference. A win condition is consistent at dealing tower damage. Threats are not. Mini P.E.K.K.A. costs the same amount of Elixir as a Hog Rider and will fully take out a Princess Tower, and deal sizable King's Tower damage if left ignored. Cool. But against an experienced player, how often will a Mini P.E.K.K.A. even land a single hit on that Princess Tower? Maybe... 1 out of 100 times? There's so many ways to abuse the Mini P.E.K.K.A.'s slow attack speed. On the other hand, that Hog Rider only does two hundred damage per swing, but he's got pretty good odds at landing one swing each time he goes in, especially if the opponent doesn't have a building in hand. Most of the time, the opponent has to spend just as much Elixir to counter him too, meaning you can reduce the total deficit by using defender's advantage alongside cheap cards to take down the counterpush. If you wanted to reliably take towers and could only choose one or the other to fill the win condition slot, would you take the Mini P.E.K.K.A., or a Hog Rider?

Secondary win conditions

Secondary win conditions are kind of halfway between a threat and a win condition. Most of the time they are just lumped in as "win conditions" with all the rest, but I bet you would find it tough to take towers with just Wall Breakers. Secondary win conditions are cards that are only considered win conditions when paired with a primary win condition; primary win condition meaning a win condition that does not need another win condition's support to function well. So something like a Goblin Barrel is a primary win condition, even though it can be paired with a Skeleton Barrel to help it circumvent its weakness to spells. Sure, the two win conditions do work well together, but there are plenty of successful decks only using one or the other. The aforementioned Wall Breakers would be a secondary win condition. Outside of Training Camp, Wall Breakers are either seen with a Miner or not at all. You can't really substitute the Miner for a mini tank either because of how unique its role is. Wall Breakers need to be played with a tank that won't be susceptible to area damage, something the Miner can do perfectly. When the Wall Breakers do have this synergy, they are much more threatening and versatile. Does this mean that having to run two win conditions is worse than just needing to run one? I'd say no. In fact, running two win conditions can give a deck a quick way to apply pressure without needing a fast cycle (in the past, Royal Giant + Hog Rider/X-Bow decks have popped up).

The secondary win conditions below will be marked with an asterisk (*). I will also include the win conditions they are commonly paired with, excluding the spells because they can work with a ton of different ones. Additionally, for the sake of avoiding muddling the categorizing, I'm going to exclude win conditions requiring spells (in other words, like all of them) to function well as a determining factor for a secondary win condition. Otherwise, nearly every win condition would be considered secondary.

Types of win conditions

There are three categories a win condition can fit into.

Building only targeting

Since these cards ignore troops, they will not waste time attacking them and instead head straight for a Crown Tower if there isn't another building nearby. Thus, even in the face of several defenders, these cards can still get damage on the opposing Crown Towers.

The weakness of these win conditions is that because they do not counterattack against troops, placing one at the wrong time can give the opponent a ton of defensive value. This is especially apparent with Elixir Golem, due to its compounded Elixir effect. A well timed and supported E-Golem push can devastate a tower, but just dropping it by itself at the bridge is practically a death sentence. They defend for a good trade, you lose out on your strongest punish card to stifle their next counterattack, and you probably lose.

Some cards aren't as scared to be completely countered, though. Wall Breakers placed at the bridge alone? Disregarding counterpush potential, at worst you'll get a -1 Elixir trade off some Skeletons. Usually, it gets the opponent's spell out of hand, allowing the Wall Breakers player to build momentum. Hog Rider decks function similarly. Hog Rider vs. Mini P.E.K.K.A.? Yeah, you might get zero tower hits, but a single Mini P.E.K.K.A. is not much of a threat. Place down some Skeletons to defend and you're only down one Elixir. They play an instant deployment spell like Zap or combo it with another troop? You're still not in much trouble, since now you have the Elixir advantage and the defender's advantage.

Giant Wall Breakers* (Miner, Skeleton Barrel)

Hog Rider Battle Ram Golem Lava Hound*(Miner, Balloon) Skeleton Barrel Royal Giant Royal Hogs Goblin Giant Ram Rider Elixir Golem

Unrestricted placement

These cards can be played anywhere in the arena. Even if they don't target buildings, being able to spawn right beside the tower kind of has the same effect. Since these cards do attack troops, they can be used situationally on defense as well, usually to better effect than a building only targeting win condition.

The fact that these cards attack troops is also a weakness; a double edged sword, if you will. Proficient players can usually be able to predict a Miner placement or redirect its targeting, negating most of its potential damage, or save their spells for your Graveyard and Goblin Barrel, wisely countering your other troops with different methods. They may also play support troops behind their more healthy tower, or play them farther forward to prevent Rocket value. Since they can be thwarted more easily than building only win conditions. you'll often see more support cards geared towards helping out the win condition rather than focusing on the best possible synergies with each other. Goblin Barrel decks run a ton of swarms to bait the opponent's spells. Miner decks can run another win condition, have a spell specifically to defeat swarms, or use swarms themselves that the Miner tanks for. Rocket decks usually have Tornado to allow the Rocket to gain more value, and have an especially robust defense to mitigate the Elixir deficit from using a Rocket on offense. Graveyard decks pack tons of Poison bait and cheap mini tanks so the Graveyard can be played the moment an opportunity rises.

Arrows* Fireball* Zap* Lightning* Tornado* Poison* Giant Snowball* Earthquake* Goblin Barrel Miner* (Wall Breakers) Rocket* (X-Bow, Hog Rider, Mortar) Graveyard* (Giant)

Special cases

As you might expect, special cases don't specfically target buildings, nor can they be placed right on top of a tower, and yet they miraculously find a way to deal tower damage more consistently than a threat does. How is this possible? I believe that all these cards take advantage of what I like to call "defender's advantage denial". It's primarily how Graveyard decks function, whether they have a Giant or not. The tank is played not necessarily to deal tower damage, but to keep the Princess Tower's aggro off of the newly spawning Skeletons, allowing them to accumulate damage exponentially. Giant works well because of its high health to Elixir ratio while also being cheap enough to be played right at the bridge, but other cheap, high health cards can substitute for it, like Knight or Baby Dragon, simply because of how threatening Graveyard is when the tower isn't helping out against the Skeletons. Likewise, for these win conditions, they mitigate the value gained from the opposing Crown Towers enough to net them a spot in the win con slot (though most of them are still secondary win conditions).

Magic Archer* (Royal Hogs, Battle Ram) Mortar* (Miner, Rocket) X-Bow The Log* Three Musketeers* (Royal Hogs, Battle Ram) Princess* (Goblin Barrel, Skeleton Barrel) Bandit* (Battle Ram) Sparky* (Giant, Goblin Giant)

Closing

I hope you were able to get a better idea of how win conditions are determined and what kinds of win conditions there are. This post has been in my drafts for maybe a week or two now, so my thought might seem jumbled around in some places. If you'd like to ask a question, or debate something about the post, feel free to leave a comment!