• Chinese New Year Theme
  • Chinese New Year’s arena
  • Lantern tower skin
  • Firecracker Emote on trophy road
• New Card: Firecracker
  • Clash Royale’s newest card, the Firecracker, is a 3 elixir common card that has two special abilities:
    • a scattershot that initially shoots a single unit, then spreads out to hit units behind the target
    • Deals self-knockback - pushes herself backwards 2 tiles for every shot
  • The firecracker will be an excellent way to deal with a large variety of pushes - not only does her wide range allow for quick work of swarm units, but her scattershot ability allows her to hit units behind a tanky push from afar, just like the magic archer!
  • She has 2 major weaknesses, however
    • Low HP - while she does survive log and barb barrel, she will die to arrows, meaning that she can be taken out pretty easily with the right counters
    • Easy king tower activation - it is actually VERY easy to activate your king tower when defending against a firecracker!
• Clash Royale’s Biggest Character Release of 2020
  • Clash Royale’s Art Director, Brice Laville Saint Martin, tweeted a while ago about an easter egg he would hide in the Firecracker’s character renders:

    I’ll hide a clue about Clash Royale's biggest character release of 2020 in the next character renders.

    — Brice Laville Saint Martin ™ (@Brice_Supercell) December 14, 2019

  • Now that we finally have the renders, something has been noted in her right eye… Its a very unclear teaser, but definitely a cool easter egg to keep in mind in the coming months!

    Was tired of seeing the same unaltered close ups of what the new card could be, so I played with the phones features and enhanced it to this. from r/ClashRoyale

We have a much smaller set of balances this January, with only 4 cards being balanced. Keep in mind that these balances will be going into effect on January 7th, one day after the official start of season 6 (January 6th).

• Night Witch
  • Initial Bat Spawn Speed Reduced 1.3s → 3.5s
  • Slightly Slower First Hit
• Fisherman
  • Hook Range Increased 6 → 7
  • Hook Charge Time Increased 1.1s → 1.5s
• Elixir Golem
  • Hitpoints Reduced 6% (Affects all forms)
• Lava Hound
  • Range Increased 2 → 3.5
• Lava Pups
  • Damage Increased 67%
  • Hit Speed Reduced 70% (1s → 1.7s)
  • Melee Range: Long (2 → 1.6)

The Bren Chong Cup’s final bracket is underway! After a few weeks of qualifiers, we are now down to a few finalists who compete in a double elimination bracket, for a prize of 3000 euro. If you want to check out some high tier gameplay in this CRL off-season, be sure to check out Andrew Ghai, who broadcasts streams on his twitch channel!

First, we have a loading screen fanart by u/Veryrary on reddit. It’s a super creative and clean design, and is probably one of my favorite Clash Royale Fanarts yet!

Clash Royale Loading screen fan art | 100% Vector illustration yt video included from r/ClashRoyale

Earlier this week, seth also posted a discussion thread on reddit, in order to gather come community ideas on ways to freshen up Clash Royale’s gameplay. The biggest group of ideas so far in this thread has been to develop largely into the single player aspect of the game: through introducing a Story Mode into the game, as well as possible puzzles, games against AI, and even a tower defense mode. There’s so much that Clash Royale can do in this area, and I hope this is something they can look into as 2020 kicks into full gear. Have an idea? Join the discussion here:

Daily Discussion 1/2/2020: Establishing a Breath of Fresh Air in the Arena from r/ClashRoyale

With the release of the Firecracker and the set of balance changes coming with Season 7, the meta will definitely see some big changes. Here are my predictions:

• Firecracker
  • During the first week or so of this season, she will begin to see high use and win rates, but once people adjust to facing her, her use rates till definitely begin to fall slightly
  • She brings up many complications in deck-building, as the deck will have to be prepared to have to face an activated king tower
  • Arrows may see a rise in popularity in this new meta, as they can now take out lava pups, elixir blobs, AND the firecracker.
• Elixir Golem
  • This guy will definitely see a decrease in usage in January. He may still be seen in one or two meta decks, but combined with the night witch nerf, I don’t think he will be as popular as he is now.
• Other Meta Shifts/Predictions
  • P.E.K.K.A. control and P.E.K.K.A. bridgespam will remain just as popular
  • Miner Wallbreakers Cycle decks will increase in popularity, with no nerf to any of those cards
  • Baby Dragon will continue to dominate the meta, always gets tons of value
  • Beatdown will see a decrease in usage due to night witch nerf and firecrackers release