Golem Pump Beatdown

Introduction

This is the deck that get me my first ever 12 Wins in Classic Challenges. It is quick to learn and easy to play, so if you want to get your very own 12 Wins, definitely give this deck a shot.

This deck is all about Elixir management and overwhelming your opponent with a big enough Elixir lead. Sounds simple on paper and it actually is simple — simple yet effective enough to brute force your way through a lot of matches. Without further ado, lets get into it.

Deck Information[]

Deck Created by: GrandWiz05

Minimum Recommended King Level: 9

Maximum Recommended King Level: 13

Arena Required: Miner's Mine (Wrong?)

Average Elixir Cost: 4.9 (Wrong?)

More Statistics: Go to Deck Builder

Card Roles[]

Golem: Your Win Condition. The King of ground based pushes and the heaviest of all tank.

Night Witch: Support and Spell bait troop. With the ability to summon Bats, she alone is the embodiments of ground, air and swarms.

Mini P.E.K.K.A.: Support and core defense troop. With enough health to survive a Sparky blast, Mini P.E.K.K.A. is the end of any light ground based pushes.

Skeleton Dragons: Support and Spell bait troop. Replacing Mega Minion, this pair of Bones does immense area damage at range and have fast movement speed.

Baby Dragon: Support and core defense troop. Despite its lesser DPS compared to Skeleton Dragons, it has a lot more health and a larger splash radius, making it a lot more reliable on defense.

Elixir Collector: Core of the deck. Sharing the same weaknesses as Night Witch and Skeleton Dragons, Elixir Collector (or Pump) is how you get those big Spells out of hand and gain immense Elixir advantage, something a heavy Beatdown deck needs exactly.

Tornado: Core Spell. As the one and only Spell able to displace troops however you want, Tornado allows you to get good trades, stall troops, reel in range units on offence and empower the defensive power of your splash troops significantly.

Lightning: Core offensive Spell. The main obstacle of your Golem Decks is usually buildings and high damage backlines. While Tornado can disrupt defending troops, Lightning is reliable in removing both buildings and high damage backlines.

General Tips[]

With this deck you want to play very passive at the beginning of the match. You should always wait for your opponent to make the first move if you have Tornado in hand, as most of the time it gets you an easy King Tower activation against impatient opponent. Most of the time, a Tornado King Tower activation is a good trade and makes your future defense against most deck much easier.
- Even If you don’t have Tornado in hand, it is still recommended to wait for your opponent to play first. Do not be afraid to wait until Double Elixir Time as you are a heavy deck — at worst it is a three Crown race between two Beatdown decks.
When defending against incoming pushes, try to preserve as many troop health as possible, even if it means your Princess Tower take a lot of damage. For example, if they rush with a Mega Knight at the bridge, let it connect to the Tower, then deploy Mini P.E.K.K.A. or Night Witch beside it. Your Tower suffers a lot more damage, but since your remaining troop will be full health and they will have to spend a more Elixir countering it. What would’ve been a 3 Elixir lead is now expended even further at the cost of some Tower health.
- This is how Golem deck gain an Elixir advantage most of the time beside Tornado and Pump, since Golem deck does not have cheap cycle card to gain good trades. It is similar to tank and spank strategy, except this time the tank is your Tower.
Whenever you have an Elixir lead or have their main threat out of hand, build the Elixir Collector in front of the King Tower (against Rocket) or in the corner (against Siege, Miner and Hog Rider).
- This is one of the best way to set up a Golem push.
  - If your opponent decides to use a big Spell on the Pump, not only are they down on Elixir, they will also not have a big Spell in hand for the next 20 seconds or so. Since Fireball and Poison does not destroy the Pump instantly, it still allows you to bank Elixir and have more Elixir then your opponent in the same span of time.
    - Even better yet, this frees up your Night Witch and Skeleton Dragons on offense. These card are extremely annoying to deal behind a Golem when there is no Spell.
  - If your opponent decides to rush you, they are expending their already huge Elixir deficit. Defend slightly (Tornado, Mini P.E.K.K.A. or Baby Dragon are all great options to keep your Tower alive but not overspend) and sacrafice Tower health or even a Tower if you must, but do not spend so much on defense that you throw away your lead and mess up your card cycle for the upcoming Golem push (generally means not to use Night Witch on defense).
  - If your opponent decides to leave the Pump alone, you will have even more Elixir to play with in the upcoming Golem push, which grant you access to Lightning and Tornado on offense as heavy removal options.

As you can see, it is basically always a advantageous situation for you. The only time this might not be true is when your opponent have Earthquake, but since the Earthquake Building damage nerf Pump can still generate 2 Elixir, which is still very useful and well appreciated. Generally having Earthquake also means no big Spell so it would be even harder for them to remove your support behind the Golem.

Here is some basic tips during investment of a Golem.
- When investing a Golem in single Elixir time, deploy it behind your King Tower or at the corner. This is to buy yourself the most amount of time before the Golem crosses the bridge, as well as your Pump to pump out extra Elixir if you had one.
- Generally you would want to have full Elixir and Tornado in hand when you invest a Golem to prevent punishment such as Hog Rider and Balloon. Punish that is less threatening such as Miner, Wall Breakers or Goblin Barrel can be ignored since you won’t lose your Tower for that in the first place and doing so means you gain a larger Elixir lead to beat your opponent with.
- Night Witch is your primary support behind Golem. When Golem just crosses the Princess Tower 1 tile, deploy Night Witch behind your King Tower so that the first wave of Bats are tanked for by the Golem.
- When supporting your Golem with melee at the bridge, deploy it one tile closer to the edge of the arena so it sticks to the outer side of the bridge. This can prevent the troop from being kited to the other lane unless they pull them to the middle first, which forces them to expend even more Elixir.
  - The same goes for air troops. Place them at the anti building placement so that they can go straight for the Tower if the opponent deploy a building at the furthest position to pull the Golem.
- Priorities Buildings with your Lightning. Given you have enough Elixir and sufficient supports, defensive troops should not hinder your push because Golem support are some of the best at troop to troop interactions, not to mention there is a Golem intersecting majority of the damage and restrict their troop placement. The only obstacle is normally Buildings that cause Golem to move away and expose your supports, so keeping the Golem in the right path is very important.
  - High DPS range units are high priority as well, but you can reel them in with Tornado so try not to waste your Lightning on them unless they have no Building.

These are most of the thing you need to know during a Golem push. There are advance tips such as getting Night Witch stuck behind the Golem for 3 Extra seconds, but with basic mechanic alone it was enough to get me 12 Wins so I don’t see the need for flashy stuff like that.

Generally after a successful Golem push you would have taken their Tower or at least severely cripple it and gain an Elixir lead. You choose to either defense and settle for a 1 Crown win or go for second Princess or even the King Tower, depending on the opponent‘s deck.

If their Tower wasn’t quite dead yet, rinse and repeat on what you did before.
If you‘ve taken a Tower but your own is not healthy and they have a way to guarantee taking the Tower down before match ends, continue investing Pump to snowball your Elixir lead and go for more Golem pushes to force them to go on defense and secure your victory if you did manage to get the second Tower.
If your Tower is healthy and your opponent doesn’t really have a way to guarantee damage, sit back, invest Pump and play reactively.
- Baby Dragon paired with Tornado is very hard to break through for most decks.
- Use Lightning if you sees a valuable one, but beware Lightning block especially against Royal Hogs.
- If they overspent on offense and there is more than a minute left in the match, feel free to initialise a Golem push and teach them a lesson on why having more Elixir is simply the better idea.

Useful Blogs[]

Here‘s the shameless self promotion xD

Building Placement (I don’t think you’ll use Pump as a defensive building but I’ll throw it in here regardless)

Tornado King Activation (very important for Golem decks, I highly suggest you read it)

Identifying Opponent Deck (will be related to the matchup section)