july of 2016. the goblin barrel's 22
impact damage is removed zap kills
goblins and one hit
every deck contains zap goblin barrel
never connects it's considered worse
than heal spell in today's standard
january 2017 zap receives a six percent
damage nerf it no longer insta kills
barrel this marks the first time
goblin barrel is a viable card december
2016
supercell releases the unlimited electro
wizard challenge
the week of christmas orange juice
misses christmas
to farm 18 electro wizards december
24th molt plays the ewas challenge at
his parents house
in their laundry room he releases a
video publicizing the success
and fun he's had with this off meta
mirror deck
it receives 1 million views in one day
it becomes
the most meta number one used deck in
the game this
is the moment bait rises into the meta
and becomes respected as its own
archetype
it's an orange juice we've got a lot of
spells now since the prize of the goblin
barrel the log
is one of the most common cards to take
care of the barrel one of the golden
rules is to never
log the princess if you're facing a bait
deck if you have a miner or if you have
anything else
do not log on the princess otherwise the
next barrel is going to deal a lot of
damage
barbarian barrel does an amazing job too
with the balance update in october they
both now roll
at the exact same speed arrow comes in
second and guarantees a counter to the
barrel
its radius is so big that tricky barrel
doesn't work on arrows
you've got snowball when timed correctly
you can shut down the barrel completely
casting the snowball approximately when
the barrel shadow reaches
right here the timing is crucial since
knockback is a true stun
and will reset the goblin's attack frame
back to zero failing to time it
correctly your princess
will take damage on the tower zap
doesn't take care of the goblin barrel
completely if zap is your only answer
over 6 minutes you will lose that tower
slowly but surely
one of the best tactics against goblin
barrel is tornado you don't even need a
king activation to completely
shut down a goblin barrel if planted
precisely on this
tile but realistically an activated king
tower severely
cripples goblin barrel since the basic
bait synergy
is always barrel tank with an activated
king tower the tank is
almost worthless the valkyrie no longer
completely stops the barrel
the best placement is the planter on top
of a center planted barrel
she'll eliminate two goblins mitigating
a lot of that damage
the bowler can completely stop the
goblin barrel you just have to plant it
directly behind the tower
it costs you two elixir but now you have
a bowler on the map for a counter attack
executioner has been tweaked so much
currently as it stands he does
not completely stop a center-planted
goblin barrel hunter is a pretty
reliable counter against goblin barrel
2. plop him down and he'll take care of
the gobby gobs
the electro wizard has a very specific
timing if you plant him around this area
you'll be able to spawn on top of all
three
goblins effectively zapping the goblins
and stopping a lot of that damage
there is about 1 6th of a second to
react to this if you do this
too early you risk missing the zap
entirely and you've practically wasted
4 elixir if you do this too late you'll
only clip the one bottom goblin and this
will turn out to be a
very bad electro wizard investment
basically if your opponent
keeps doing this just place the goblin
barrel on top it'll mess up their
e-waste placement and make them
question their own reality if they
should really put the e was
top or bottom mega knight has a similar
timing except he jumps from the skies he
jumps
a bit slower so what you need to do is
plant the mega knight
right when the shadow touches the river
one of
the best non-spell counters is fire
spirit tricky barrel
regular barrel whatever barrel fire
spirits soft counter the goblin barrel
completely
now i say it's a soft counter because in
higher level play
they're gonna predict your fire spirits
they're gonna throw down prediction zap
and that barrel is gonna
wreck your tower dealing so much damage
if you're a barrel user one of the
golden rules is that you
never barrel the same lane where they
planted a dark prince in the back this
charge attack is a 360 splash this is
gonna wreck your goblin barrel
if you have dark prince and you're
thinking of countering goblin barrel
this will not work there's no way you
can plant a dark prince to counter a
barrel they have to barrel
into your dark prince he simply just
takes way too long to charge up
all center-planted goblin barrels and
1v1 will
always spawn two goblins on the top and
one on the bottom
the princess tower will always attack
the inner goblin followed by the rear
goblin
then the outer goblin
knowing this if you plant the log or any
hard counters to the goblin
always plant units that can tank the
outer goblin since the tower eliminates
the inner goblin first
this minimizes the amount of damage
dealt to your tower
knowing the formation you'll want to
plant the archers to be within range of
the bottom and outer goblin
whether or not they tank the goblins
that princess tower is still going to
get two stabs
if you have skeletons you can completely
stop the goblins plant the skeletons in
the bottom and then the archers on the
top
and they're gonna tank the stabby stabs
so we all know
goblin gang will stop a center planet
barrel but if you react fast enough like
be
radfest you can completely stop a
center-planted goblin barrel with just
two
elixir goblins be careful though if
you're slightly too slow
they're gonna get two stabs on your
tower this is still pretty decent if you
don't have the log in rotation
guards have long swords so they actually
have a bit of a reach since the tower
attacks the inner goblin first plant the
guards on the outer corner so they can
completely stop the outer and bottom
goblins the inner goblins only gonna get
one stab because that's the first goblin
that your tower
targets if you're too slow the goblin's
gonna get two stabs on the tower it's
very important to react really fast with
melee units to counter the goblin barrel
here's a really useful combo if you
plant the skeletons on the bottom left
then you zap the goblins
the tower will take care of the inner
goblin and the skeletons take care of
the other goblins resulting in zero
damage and you're
now up three skeletons yay
before we get into depth with tricky
barrel you gotta understand the optimal
placement for side barrels are always
on the inside of the princess tower you
plant the barrel on the outside it
exposes it to the other princess tower
whereas if you plant it on the inside
edge the spawned goblins are far enough
from the other princess towers and you
will
not get sniped and will therefore deal
way more damage
tricky barrel is the most effective when
you know what type of counters your
opponent has to your barrel you have to
identify these counters it can be the
log it can be
tornado it can be goblin gang you've got
to figure out what kind of cards they
have early on so you know
which kind of tricky barrel to play once
you determine all these you can predict
the type of archetype that they have
you can begin to generalize what type of
counters your opponent has
the tricky barrel should only be used at
an opportune time when you know they're
going to use the log this can
potentially cause some logs to miss your
goblins it's best to tricky barrel these
cards when you know your opponent's
cards and those cards rotations
tricky barrel generally deals a bit less
damage so it's incredibly important to
send in any form of a tank even an ice
golem to tank for a tricky barrel
a high health or fast moving tank is
really intimidating
tricky barrel is all about the mind
games the more scary the tank is the
more successful you will be at tricky
barrel since it diverts the attention
away from the barrel
hog is pretty porky with all of his
health moves really fast and deals a lot
of damage if he connects
this is the ultimate power move and
intimidation
there are a few different placements of
tricky barrel and they all serve
different functions
this is tricky barrel number one the
deep barrel
directly in the middle of the princess
tower three tiles above it this is what
pro players do around the 6k
range the barrel is just beyond the
reach of the perfect log and to the
untrained eye
it's really hard to differentiate this
from a regular barrel
tricky barrel number two the deeper
barrel this one isn't used in
competitive play because pros see this
trick immediately
but it's incredibly effective below the
5 000 trophy range
four tiles above the princess tower the
reason why this works more effectively
in lower trophy ranges is because the
players will sometimes
accidentally or purposely log the center
expecting a center plan so the previous
tricky barrel isn't that tricky it
happens more often than not
so this position is better when you're
sitting on the toilet casually
playing clash royale but it will not
work to the trained eye the barrel's
flying distance is a dead giveaway if
you're playing against 6k
players we've got a kind of tricky
barrel where it's
two tiles on the outside this one is
really easy to spot and it's not really
worth doing are you really tricking your
opponent if their accidental log still
clips a goblin
so we've got tricky barrel number three
the outer
barrel this is three towels to the
outside it's a high risk high reward
payout but it's
really easy to spot now bear in mind
these are all subjective tips because
it's
all mind games but if you plant one or
two tiles higher it kind of changes the
barrel's flying path which makes it a
bit harder to spot
the outer barrel this is something that
you don't want to use all the time
especially considering that a small unit
like a knight is optimal in the outside
goblin and therefore
almost always placed on the outside this
brings us to tricky barrel
number four the inner barrel this will
have more damage dealt
since it avoids the knight but realize
that the knight almost
always counters that outer corner goblin
so you want to put it on the inside
opposite of that corner this is the
optimal inner barrel if you know they
only have melee units countering your
goblin barrel
the only drawback to this is that they
decide not to place knight but instead
use an ice spear that spirit is going to
completely stop
the entire barrel goblin gang and skarmy
can completely stop a center planet
goblin barrel all those swarmy swarms
just
clump up and they just tank all those
goblins even the ones in the front
tricky barrel number five the swarmy
barrel plant the barrel in front of the
tower this way the swarmy skeletons or
the goblin gang will
not reach your goblin barrel in time and
you're guaranteed a few stabs in the
tower and if you have the log and
rotation
prediction log will wipe it all out
tricky barrel
number six the pump barrel if they plant
the pump in the corner and they don't
have the logger rotation but they have
something like a goblin gang or a knight
or
any ground unit you can plant the barrel
on the inside of the pump of the corner
or they can't plant the goblin gang to
stop your goblin barrel you're
guaranteed to get damage in the tower
since the gang is
way too far this isn't something you
want to do if they plant it closest to
the king tower
there's a chance it'll activate the king
tower your future barrels are going to
deal a lot less
damage with an activated king activated
king towers hinder tricky barrels
significantly even with the tank it's
one of the worst things to see as a bait
player
activated king towers are a netty no-no
if they plant an elixir collector in
front of your king can actually surround
the collector if they don't have the log
or anything to counter the card this
denies
five elixir this is a safe play as it
won't activate the king tower
if you're trying to take out your
opponent's king tower with a barrel as
soon as possible in a base race instead
of planting the barrel behind the king
tower place it in the front the barrel
takes
way less travel time to reach the front
of the king tower this is especially
useful
ninety percent of the time because
players will always they will
always play defensive troops in the back
line like a knight to try and tank the
goblin barrel but
put in the front nothing is tanking your
barrel's gonna get a lot of stabs on
so the goblin barrel is all
psychological i can't tell you why but
it just
is the way it is the average player will
always barrel the back and this makes
no sense generally you can tell if it's
a deep barrel if you look at the shadow
as it arrives at the bridge
if the shadow itself is really high it's
going to be a deep barrel
the way the barrel spins and where the
shadow is at at the river
never changes so you can tell if it's an
inner barrel because the shadow is
further from the bridge
this is very evident when you look at
the outer and corner barrels that are
shifted
all the way to the left the shadow is
all over the bridge
now reading tricky barrel takes a lot of
practice so
hear the same scenes repeating over and
over until you get it down
goblin barrel kind of made itself into
its own archetype it
really did invent the bait archetype
just because of how versatile it is and
how
psychological it is just the counter
plays to it are just so intuitive hope
this video is useful good luck facing
goblin barrels or
using tricky barrel