Clash! Royale! Pick a fight with anyone!

—Clash Royale Advert

An Expanded Universe spinoff to Clash of Clans, Clash Royale is an interesting mix of genres: a Collectible Card Game, Tower Defense and Multiplayer Online Battle Arena rolled into one, released under a Freemium model.

Each player has a deck of 8 cards out of the many possible choices, each being a separate unit or spell that all have their own playstyles and niches. The playing field consists of you and your opponent's King's Tower (an Instant-Win Condition should it be destroyed) at the bottom and top-most parts of the field, respectively, and two Crown towers on each side, defended by a Tower Troop(Usually the Tower Princess). Each Crown Tower destroyed yields you one crown out of a possible three. The goal of the game is to earn more crowns than your opponent by the end of the match.

To achieve this, you have a starting hand of four cards out of eight chosen beforehand, which can be used to attack or defend. Playing your card will not discard it for the rest of the game, rather, it'll be put at the bottom of your deck. Each card uses up a certain amount of "elixir", which is shown as a auto-refilling bar with a maximum of 10 elixir you can have before you won't generate any more. Much of the game's strategy revolves around proper elixir management, a deck with a low elixir average (that being cards that aren't all elixir-heavy), and knowing how and when to play your cards to achieve victory.

This game was soft-launched in Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Finland and New Zealand for iOS systems at January 4, 2016. It was then fully released in all regions and on Android systems by March 2, 2016. Since then, it's had many various additions and updates to the game, retaining one of the highest spots for "top grossing apps" across all platforms.

Download it here for iOS and Android systems.

Note: The numbers in the ensuing trope examples assume that all cards will be at tournament level standard (level 11 as of Champions update) unless stated otherwise.

These are the tropes of the duel:

• Action Bomb: The Giant Skeleton drops a bomb on death, dealing immense damage to anything caught in it.
  • Fire Spirits and Ice Spirits hurl themselves at their enemies to blow them up and freeze them, respectively.
  • The Wall Breakers rush towards the nearest building to blow them up.
• Action Girl: The Archer, Bandit, Musketeer, Witch, Valkyrie, P.E.K.K.A, Sparky, Princess, Battle Healer, Female Rascals, Night Witch, Firecracker, the Ram Rider, and the Mother Witch are female troops that attack opponents. The Archer Queen is a female champion.
• Airborne Mooks: Certain troops like Baby Dragons, Minions, Balloons, Bats, and Lava Hounds can only be targeted by certain other troops.
• Amazing Technicolor Battlefield:
  • Spell Valley, with blue grass, purple lakes and pink crystals. One of the most visually appealing arenas in the game.
  • Electro Valley. It's entirely purple, except for the tesla-powered machinery that litters the Arena. The arena even lights up during Sudden Death.
• Animal Motifs: Aside from Hog Rider and Ram Rider, the P.E.K.K.A family is associated with butterflies. Both P.E.K.K.A and Mini P.E.K.K.A are shown to be fond of them in animations, whenever P.E.K.K.A is summoned in Clash Royale she says "butterfly", and the P.E.K.K.A family is often represented by a butterfly symbol, such as in Merge Tactics.
• Anti-Hoarding: As a spin-off of Clash of Clans, it's to be expected. There are limits to the number of Magic Items you can hold onto at once, though the maximum capacity increases with King Level to accommodate for higher card levels. Magic Items obtained from the Shop and the Diamond Pass of Pass Royale will ignore the limit, but ones from other sources will "overflow" and grant a compensatory reward (such as Gems). However, the reward is generally worth significantly less then the value of the Magic Item itself/
• Anti Poop-Socking:
  • Indirectly enforced with the Battle Reward systems. You could play as much as you want, but the rewards dry up eventually. It'd get to a point where only Crowns and Trophies are obtained from battles.
    • The original Chest-based battle rewards. Each Victory gave a Chest and some Gold, with there being 4 chest slots to hold rewarded Chests. Each took at least 3 hours to open, and only the unlocking progress of a single chest would be progressed each time. The Gold earned was much lower than what you would get from chests, and even that would eventually run out. As Chests from battles tend to be one's main source of Gold and Cards, this disincentivizes any further grinding.
    • The new Lucky Drop battle reward system. The first 3 daily wins granted a Lucky Drop each, alongside Cards and Gold for a limited number of wins.
  • Formerly, battles in the Event Tab would award Season Tokens based on performance. They were exclusively spent in the Season Shop to purchase rewards like Evolution Shards and Books of Cards. However, there was a max of 1000 Season Tokens that could be earned each day... unless you paid 50 Gems to increase the limit to 2000 while also doubling the token earnings.
• Anti-Wastage Features: When you try to trade away the same set of cards to the Trader as the ones you are requesting (i.e. a useless trade), you will be barred from making that specific trade, while a pop-up stating "Trade Tokens are a terrible thing to waste..." will be shown.
• April Fools' Day: The party mode for April Fools in 2022 has the "totally balanced game mode" which randomizes the elixir cost of your next card. There's nothing more infuriating than having to fend off 50 Musketeers at once.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: The current Legendary Arena is set in space, with waterfalls and a river (somehow) flowing. There's even gravity in that Arena.
• BFG:
  • The Musketeer's gun is about her own size.
  • The Royal Giant wields a cannon as a weapon.
  • The Hunter has a huge shotgun that is about his size.
• Bleak Level: Bone Pit. An arena sandwiched between Goblin Stadium and Barbarian Bowl, and a bleak desert with bones everywhere.
• Body Armor as Hit Points: In addition to their normal health, Guards, Dark Prince, and the Royal Recruits have a shield that negates excess damage, allowing them to tank big damage such as Rocket or a P.E.K.K.A hit.
  • It formerly applied to the Cannon Cart as well. In this troop's case, losing the shield made it stationary and made it decay its health over 30 seconds just like a building. The Cannon Cart's shield was removed in May 2025; its regular hitpoints were increased to compensate for the removal.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory:
  • A rare Aversion with direct competitive advantage. Paying to get high-level top tier cards will...match you with other players who have high-level top tier cards. This only applies on Casual Modes (Trophy Road, Party, etc), as true Competitive Modes like Challenges and Tournaments will always have all cards be at Level 11 and let you create decks with any card in the game.
  • Played Straight with general account progression. There are numerous ways for paying players to obtain more resources (like cards, gold, magic items) that can be funneled into upgrading cards and levelling up your experience/king level, including permanent and limited shop offers plus Pass Royale.
  • Pass Royale, which is divided into a Free Pass and the (paid) Diamond Pass. While the Free Pass has rather decent rewards by itself, the Diamond Pass contains all that and more- such as a full Evolution, a Royal Wild Chest and much more. It also provides additional perks such as free Challenge continues or Chest Queuing.
  • Exaggerated with Continues in Challenges. After hitting all three losses in a special Challenge, you have two options: either you give up, or you can pay gems to reset your losses and continue playing. Pass Royale instead gives the option to continue for free, unlimited times.
• Dem Bones:
  • The Skeletons are a weak but cheap group of skeletons.
  • The Skeleton Army card costs a bit more Elixir, but consists of much more skeletons. It can be used to perform Zerg Rushes and swarm slow hit speed enemies.
  • The Witch can summon skeletons every 7 seconds.
  • The Giant Skeleton is a Giant Mook with a lot of health and drops a bomb when destroyed.
  • The Bomber is a bomb-toting skeleton that deals area damage.
  • The Balloon is a bomb-toting skeleton in a hot air balloon that only targets buildings. It also does damage when it goes down, and is notorious for its large health, damage, and its status as an air attacker.
  • The Guards are stronger versions of Skeletons with shields that protect them from any damage unless the shield is destroyed.
  • The Tombstone spawns a skeleton every 4 seconds, plus spawning 4 skeletons when it's destroyed.
  • The Bomb Tower is a building with a Bomber on it.
  • The Graveyard Spell is a spell that produces a skeleton every 0.5 seconds.
  • The Skeleton Barrel is a barrel that flies with balloons and goes after buildings. It does damage and releases 7 skeletons when it reaches a building or goes down.
  • The Wall Breakers are two small skeletons that rush toward the nearest building, exploding on contact and dealing damage.
  • The Skeleton Dragons are basically a pair of weaker Baby Dragons.
• Eternal Engine:
  • The Builder's Workshop. An area with all manners of moving cogs, gears and machinery making up the arena.
  • Electro Valley. In this medieval world, sandwiched between the top of a mountain and a graveyard horror-fest, is a desert with an entirely electrically-powered arena in it. The arena even lights up during Sudden Death.
• Instant-Win Condition: Destroying your opponent's King Tower will win you the round - even if more of your towers are destroyed.
• Kill It with Fire:
  • Inferno Towers. Due to their intensifying damage over time, they shred tanks easily.
  • The Inferno Dragon is a slightly weaker but cheaper Inferno Tower that flies. It's notorious for this reason, as it is very hard to take down, and can actually attack enemy Towers with its intensifying damage.
  • The Wizard shoots fireballs. He's a very good choice for countering Zerg Rushes due to his splash damage. Don't let a Skeleton Army surround him, though.
• Kill It with Ice:
  • The Freeze Spell, unlocked in Frozen Peak (Formerly unlockable in P.E.K.K.A's Playhouse), allows the player to temporarily freeze and damage enemy troops and buildings.
  • The Ice Spirit, also unlocked in Frozen Peak, is a variant of the Fire Spirit that does less damage, but temporarily the enemy in a similar manner to the Zap spell.
  • The Ice Golem, also unlocked in Frozen Peak. They soak up some damage, and upon death, explode and slows down everything around them.
  • The Giant Snowball, ALSO unlocked in Frozen Peak, acts as a cheaper alternative to the Fireball spell with lower damage but still keeps the knockback at a small price of two elixir and has an additional slowing effect.
  • The Ice Wizard, unlocked in Spooky Town (Formerly unlockable in Spell Valley), shoots ice blasts that slows and deals area damage to enemies.
• Lightning Bruiser:
  • The Prince's charge attack causes him to accelerate and deal twice as much damage.
  • The Dark Prince also charges and does double damage, but he also gains 360 degree area splash with his charge attack.
  • The Mega Knight is a heavy hitting AOE fighter that can jump.
  • The Evolved Royal Recruits become this when their shields are destroyed.
• Loading Screen Message Gag: The loading screen tips mostly consist of humorous quips. Some are pointless biographical information on the various cards, some (such as "NERF MINER") are references to community memes, and a few are Mythology Gags referencing Clash of Clans.
• Loophole Abuse: A clanmate with cards from later arenas can trade these cards with clanmates who aren't in a high enough arena to get that card.
• Medieval European Fantasy: The Royal Arena. One of the most iconic levels, centered in a castle with a bustling crowd watching.
• Mook Maker:
  • The Witch can summon skeletons every 7 seconds.
  • The Night Witch can summon Bats every 5 seconds, and spawns one more on death.
  • The Furnace can summon Fire Spirits every 7 seconds. The Evolved Furnace has the same summoning interval when it is not attacking, but summons Fire Spirits every 2.4 seconds when it is attacking.
  • Spawner buildings periodically spawn troops.
• Musical Nod: The music that plays during Sudden Death includes the leitmotif for multiplayer battles in Clash of Clans.
• Purple Is Powerful: Evolved cards have purple colorings and are stronger than their normal counterparts.
• Shifting Sand Land:
  • Bone Pit is an arena which is just a desert with flags and bones everywhere.
  • The Electro Valley is set in the middle of a desert/canyon, as revealed after the battle ends.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Frozen Peak. It's set up on top of a mountain where it permanently snows and is completely frosted over.
• Snowlem: Ice Golems, as their name suggests, are golems made out of solid ice.
• Super Mode: Some cards have Evolved forms that possess upgraded versions of their normal abilities. They can only be played after their regular counterparts are used once (or twice, depending on the card).
• Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: Some cards fall under more than one category, but for the most part...
  • Somewhat averted or subverted with some cards, such as the Mega Knight, which is a heavy hitting AOE fighter that can jump.
  • Heavy hitters beat AOE fighters. AOE fighters beat swarms. Swarms beat heavy hitters.
  • Troops like Prince, Ram Rider, and Sparky who have attacks that require a few seconds to charge up can be stopped by lighting attacks like Zap and Electro Wizard.
• There's No Kill like Overkill: Sparky's description states that "Overkill isn't in her dictionary."
• Zerg Rush:
  • The Skeleton Army is an Epic card that summons 14 high-level skeletons. Useful for killing slow attacking single target troops such as Prince and P.E.K.K.A.
  • The Minion Horde is a swarm of six flying Minions that can unload immense damage and shred nearly every push in seconds, but have little health.
  • The Zappies. They are the most expensive swarm card, and while they do little damage and move slowly, there are three of them and they have the health of every swarm card. Despite this, one of them is weak by itself, and the player must get the three of them to work as a unit for them to be significant.