Dagger Duchess

“This Royal stockpiles her daggers when enemies are far away. When they dare to draw near, she unleashes her daggers in a rapid flurry! Oh, one more thing. Don't call her Princess.”

The Dagger Duchess is a Legendary card that is unlocked from Electro Valley (Arena 11). It is a single-target, air-targeting, long-ranged tower troop with moderate hitpoints and low damage. She attacks up to 8 times with a very fast hit speed by throwing daggers, until she depletes all of them, after which she reloads one dagger at a time with a slower reload speed. She resembles a woman who has cyan eyes, blonde hair and eyebrows, wield daggers, wears a team-colored headband, dress with white linings and shoes, white pants, and a gilded breastplate, and carries a dagger case.

Strategy[]

For Battle Decks with this card, click here.

The Dagger Duchess is most effective against small swarms, small pushes, and frailer troops due to her extremely fast initial attack speed and damage.
The Dagger Duchess is best utilized in decks that struggle with other decks using a fast cycle, such as large-tank decks like Golem and Elixir Golem. Since fast paced decks rely on small pushes, the Dagger Duchess would be less likely to run out of daggers, thus increasing her effectiveness at destroying them before any major damage is done.
Unlike the Cannoneer, the Dagger Duchess cannot fully counter Wall Breakers as her low damage allows one of to connect to her tower for a good amount of damage.
- If the Evolved Wall Breakers are used and ignored, the Dagger Duchess's DPS will allow one Wall Breaker and one Runner to connect.
She will have a hard time dealing with Lava Hound decks, as not only it will keep making her go into dagger cooldown, but also the Lava Pups take three daggers to be killed.
Against a Furnace, she will easily deal with the Fire Spirits as they will be destroyed in just 3 daggers, causing nothing to connect to the Dagger Duchess. She will also replenish her daggers in between the waves, ensuring she never runs out.
- Similar to the Furnace, the Goblin Hut is also weak to the Dagger Duchess as she will quickly destroy Spear Goblins with 2 daggers, allowing few connections per wave.
Frailer support cards, such as Little Prince, Magic Archer, Goblinstein, Ice Wizard, Fisherman, Evolved Firecracker, Witch, Electro Wizard, Berserker, Evolved Bomber, Electro Dragon, Mega Minion, Hunter, Evolved Dart Goblin, Musketeer, Wizard, Princess, Flying Machine, Skeleton Dragons, and Evolved Archers, are very weak to her as they will take around 8 daggers to be destroyed, causing them to get little to no damage on the Dagger Duchess when left alone.
The Evolved Knight is extremely effective against the Dagger Duchess as his damage reduction while moving allows him to easily nullify her attacks, forcing her into the dagger cooldown without dealing much damage to him. However, he can still be countered with nearly any tanky troop or building to disable his shield.
The Dagger Duchess is very weak against troops with high hitpoints, like the Giant, Golem, Lava Hound, Giant Skeleton, Mega Knight, Goblin Giant, Electro Giant, and P.E.K.K.A, and very large pushes, due to her charging dagger mechanic slowing down her DPS once all 8 initial daggers have been used.
A full burst of daggers from the Dagger Duchess is enough to destroy any unit with as many hitpoints as a Fisherman before she needs to reload them again. Keep this in mind for when to drop any defending units to defeat any incoming enemy troop and for when to let her soak up the damage herself.
Unlike other tower troops, it is not recommended to utilize scouting strategies against the Dagger Duchess because the Dagger Duchess will be able to nullify the attempt by defeating or heavily crippling the troop used to scout the opponent's deck. An exception can be applied to scouting cards that can outrange her, like the Princess, or cards with high hitpoints, like the Prince, Mini P.E.K.K.A, Dark Prince, Hog Rider, Elite Barbarians, Ram Rider, Baby Dragon, or the Lumberjack.
With the assistance of properly placed Goblins or Guards, the Dagger Duchess can fully counter a Hog Rider and Ram Rider for a +2 and +3 positive Elixir trade respectively.
By herself, the Dagger Duchess can cripple the Battle Ram and Evolved Battle Ram, and with the help of almost any card, the Ram can be taken out. However, this will use up all her daggers and put her into dagger cooldown, allowing the Barbarians to deal significant damage if ignored.
The Bandit is very effective against the Dagger Duchess, as she will become invisible and immune to the damage during her dash, allowing her to soak up a lot of daggers, forcing her to attack the Bandit during her cooldown. When facing a Bandit, make sure that distractions are placed close enough that she cannot dash to completely absorb any dagger.
Kiting opposing troops into the other lane with any card, such as an Ice Golem, Ram Rider, or Goblin Giant, is especially powerful with the Dagger Duchess as the other Crown Tower will usually have full daggers, destroying or severely damaging anything that was kited much faster as both of them will be attacking the kited troops. This can also buy the Crown Tower in the initial lane enough time to reload daggers for any incoming future push.
The Dagger Duchess has lower hitpoints compared to the Tower Princess. This makes her weaker to strategies that can outrange her.
- The X-Bow and Mortar both can outrange her and because of her lower hitpoints, they will need less attacks in order to fully destroy her. This may require placing the cards fewer times, saving more Elixir for later within the battle.
- While a Magic Archer cannot outrange her initially, if he is lined up with an incoming troop, he can deal notable damage to the Dagger Duchess while also slowly chipping down the troop. A similar strategy works with the Firecracker, Bowler, and Evolved Bomber.
She is quite effective against dual lane pushes. Due to them being weaker by having the troops split into both lanes, she will have an easier time dealing with them than if they were all in the same lane. This can allow for the player to ignore the attacks completely or respond to them with cheaper cards than they otherwise would use if they were not split. However, this is less effective if one Crown Tower has been already destroyed.
Against the Evolved Goblin Barrel, she will only be hit once by the Decoy Goblins, which allows the player to largely ignore them and focus most of their Elixir into countering the side with the regular Goblins. If that side is ignored as well, she will only be hit thrice.
The quick unload of her daggers makes her great at defending passive buildings from incoming Miners and Goblin Barrels. These cards will have dealt little damage to the passive buildings, allowing them to gain more value from the deployment, whether that is waves of troops spawned, or in the Elixir Collector's case, Elixir. A similar principle can be applied to protecting frail ranged cards from the same attacking cards.
Aggressively deploying tanks or mini-tanks at the bridge can stop enemy tanks from crossing the river and expending the Dagger Duchess's ammunition, saving them for a higher-priority target like an incoming Hog Rider. Even if the tank is destroyed, it will have bought enough time to deal with the opponent's main offensive units first.
Be especially careful during Double Elixir and Overtime. The higher Elixir generation will allow your opponent to aggressively re-rush the same lane over and over again, preventing Dagger Duchess from being able to reload her daggers. In this case, it's highly recommended to bring strong defensive cards during Overtime and avoid taking too much Crown Tower damage.
When using the Monk's ability against the Dagger Duchess, make sure that it is timed so that they are not reflected during her cooldown time. This will do more damage than if the ability was used during her cooldown time.

Statistics

Dagger Duchess Attributes

Hit Speed	Range	Projectile Speed	Target	Type	Rarity
0.5 sec	7.5	1000	Air & Ground	Tower Troop	Legendary

Dagger Attributes

Max Daggers	Dagger Charge
8	0.9 sec

Card Statistics

Level	Hitpoints	Damage	Damage per second	0 Dagger Damage per second
9	2,298	96	192	68
10	2,527	102	204	72
11	2,768	107	214	76
12	3,035	118	236	84
13	3,327	130	236	84
14	3,657	142	284	101
15	4,013	156	312	111

History[]

2024

The Dagger Duchess was added to the game on 1/4/2024, in the April 2024 Update.
On 14/5/2024, a Balance Update, decreased the Dagger Duchess' hitpoints by 15.8%.
On 17/6/2024, the Goblin World Update, decreased the Dagger Duchess's damage by 27%, but also decreased the dagger cooldown to 0.8 seconds (from 1.2 seconds).
On 2/7/2024, a Balance Update, increased the Dagger Duchess’s attack time interval to 0.45 seconds (from 0.35 seconds), and increased the dagger cooldown to 0.9 seconds (from 0.8 seconds).

2025

On 8/1/2025, a Balance Update, increased the Dagger Duchess' projectile speed to 1000 (from 600).
On 9/4/2025, a Balance Update, decreased the Dagger Duchess' damage by 4%.
On 4/8/2025, a Balance Update, decreased the Dagger Duchess’s attack time interval to 0.50 seconds (from 0.45 seconds)

Gallery[]

Trivia[]

The Dagger Duchess is 1 of 20 cards associated with nobility, with the others being Knight, Royal Recruits, Royal Giant, Royal Delivery, Tower Princess, Royal Hogs, Dark Prince, Prince, Raging Prince, Mega Knight, Princess, Royal Ghost, Spirit Empress, Super Knight, Royal Chef, Golden Knight, Skeleton King, Archer Queen, and the Little Prince.
According to the Dagger Duchess reveal video and family tree, the Dagger Duchess is the blue King’s cousin.
- However, this may be contradicted as in her Card Delivery event, the blue King refers to Dagger Duchess as his niece.
According to the Dagger Duchess reveal video, she is a fan of Crow from Brawl Stars, likely due to his use of daggers in combat.
The Dagger Duchess doesn’t like being called a princess, attacking anyone who treats her like one. This is being referenced a few times:
- Her description says "Don't call her Princess", which is a reference to her saying "Don't call me a princess" in her reveal video.
- When attacking, she may say "It's duchess to you", "You're so dull", "Just sharpening my knives", “Don't call me a princess", or "Stay sharp!".
  - The Dagger Duchess is voice acted by Ronja Stanley.
  - The Dagger Duchess is 1 of 2 tower troops that speak distinct words when on the field, the other being Cannoneer.
- In her Card Delivery event, the Dagger Duchess appears to have a rivalry with the Tower Princess.
The Dagger Duchess is 1 of 10 cards to have an alliterative name, the others being the Royal Recruits, Goblin Gang, Mega Minion, Goblin Giant, Cannon Cart, Barbarian Barrel, Ram Rider, Boss Bandit, and the Mighty Miner.
The Dagger Duchess is the subject of 3 Emotes.
Despite starting at Level 9, it is possible to unlock her and use her from as low as Level 7.
The Dagger Duchess has had balance changes that were planned for it but were not added to the game. More specifically:
- The initial balance change for Dagger Duchess on the 2/7/2024 balance changes was a dagger cooldown time increase to 1 second (from 0.8 seconds), but it was lowered to 0.9 seconds last minute.
- The initial balance change for Dagger Duchess on the 8/1/2025 balance changes was a dagger increase to 9 (from 8) and a projectile speed increase to 1000 (from 600), but the dagger increase was pulled back last minute.