Mortar Hogs EQ Cycle

Deck Information[]

Deck Created by: CharlesLEC

Minimum Recommended King Level: 6

Maximum Recommended King Level: 14

Arena Required: Miner's Mine (Wrong?)

Average Elixir Cost: 3 (Wrong?)

More Statistics: Go to Deck Builder

Card Roles[]

Mortar: Mortar is one of your two win conditions in this deck. Mortar can be used in both defense and offense simultaneously, as well as doing splash damage, and only being 4 elixir. Some people say it’s bad, but they’re terribly mistaken.

Knight: Knight is a great mini tank that costs only 3 elixir. It can be used to defend the Mortar or your opponent’s push. A very versatile card.

Archers: Archers can deal good DPS and can shoot troops from your Mortar. A Knight and Archers combo is really good at defending the Mortar (Knight in front of the Mortar, Archers behind the Knight).

Ice Spirit: Ice Spirit is a very good card. It stuns troops for 1.3 seconds which gives Knight and Archers time to land an extra hit. It can also take out swarms and do chip damage, all for just 1 elixir!

Royal Hogs: Royal Hogs is a very strong win condition. If all 4 connect on the tower, the tower will go down fast. They also have a fast first attack time, and they won’t die to Fireball or Megaknight in an instant, so you’ll probably get some sort of damage every time.

The Log: A very versatile card and arguably the best spell. It works in pretty much any deck. Use Log to clean up swarms and knock units back. It can also stop charging units.

Tornado: Tornado is crucial in this deck. This deck will be very bad without Tornado, because it needs the King Tower. Tornado can also be used on defense, to stall troops, or on offense, to pull units out of Mortar’s sight range.

Earthquake: Good Synergy with the Piglets. This deck would be much better before the Earthquake tower damage nerf, but it is what it is. You can switch Earthquake for Rocket. The pros are that you can have a more effective spell cycle. The con is that you don’t have anything to destroy buildings (I know rocket works but you wouldn’t do that). You know what? Rocket could work, but i’m too lazy to try it for myself.

Tips[]

Know your Mortar placements. Here’s a link to all the Mortar placements you need to know: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/912621889082495028/975650030587371530/IMG_6638.png The first image is your defensive placement. This placement distracts building targeters the longest. Use this against big pushes. The second picture shows the offensive and defensive placement. The Mortar can shoot incoming troops and deal tower damage afterwards. Use this to defend against smaller pushes, but be quick, once the unit passes the bridge, they will go to the tower instead because it’s closer to them than the Mortar. The third placement is the offensive placement. It ensures that the Mortar can hit the the tower, while covering the least amount of the arena as well as giving room for a tank or unit to be placed in front of the Mortar.
Don’t go Mortar first play. You may need it for defense.
Use Mortar and Piggies simultaneously if you are able to without being punished or losing a lot of tower damage.
Don’t over defend the Mortar. Use 10-12 elixir at the maximum. There’s no point using 20 elixir to defend the Mortar, as you only need 9 elixir to cycle back to another.
Don’t leak elixir (sit at 10 elixir) if you have an elixir lead/advantage.
Cycle by: splitting Archers at the back, Ice Spirit at the bridge, Log at the bridge, Earthquake on tower. Only cycle 3 elixir once you’ve reached 10 elixir.
Activate King Tower ASAP
If a distraction unit is placed near or in the centre, Tornado the unit out of range of the Mortar.
You can Tornado troops back behind the the towers. Mortar is a siege deck so King Tower activation won’t really matter. It will help your opponent with the Royal Hogs, but that’s it.
Don’t take too much tower damage. This deck doesn’t have good spell cycle capabilities, so taking the least damage is important.
Use Mortar if they played a mini tank in the other lane. Most decks won’t have more than 1 mini tank, forcing them to defend using unreliable units or play a tank, costing a hefty amount of a elixir.
Fun fact: The first variant of this deck didn’t have Tornado, but Fireball instead. I decided to change that while writing this article. I also had to choose between Rocket or Earthquake. Rocket made it look like I took 2.9 Mortar Cycle and changed 1 card, so I went with Earthquake.

Game Plan[]

Single Elixir[]

Cycle until you have Tornado in hand, then activate King Tower. Once you got Tornado, wait until your opponent makes a play. This can get you an easy King Tower activation. Activating King Tower helps a lot in defense, especially against Graveyard.

If your opponent places down a high cost card, punish using Mortar or Royal Hogs. You’ll almost always get some sort of tower damage, especially in Single Elixir. But only do this if you are able to defend with the elixir you have.

Now just keep defending. Remember to use the Mortar in the defense and offense position (this placement is shown in the second picture, find the pictures by clicking the link in the first tip). Don’t place Mortar in the offensive position until you’re sure they don’t have a unit which you need a building to defend.

Don’t use Tornado to pull troops out of the Mortar’s range in Single Elixir. It’s a hefty commitment and you’ll not be able to defend building targeters such as Hog Rider. The only exception is that you know for sure their deck doesn’t have a building targeter.

If you haven’t, activate King Tower.

Double Elixir[]

In Double Elixir, you can be more aggressive. You may use the offensive Mortar if you think you can get back to another one before your opponent gets back to the card which requires a building to counter. You can also use the Hog and Earthquake combo more often. And defend the Mortar using more elixir.

Punishing will also become less effective in Double Elixir. Unless they play 3 Musketeers or Golem, punishing won’t be so effective.

Still avoid pulling troops out of the Mortar’s range, unless you are able to cycle back to another before they send in their building targeter or you are 100% sure they don’t have one.

If they don’t have a building, cycle Earthquake on their tower to get chip damage.

Triple Elixir[]

This decks offensive capabilities in Triple Elixir is not as good. Your opponent has plenty of time to place something down, and your Royal Hogs will be easier to counter.

Now you can use Mortar and Tornado more often, but still don’t use it every time. Cycle Earthquakes on their tower, it does add up quickly. This is also probably the only way you’ll establish a Mortar lock, as in triple elixir, there’s no way they won’t have enough elixir to place something down.

This decks offensive capabilities in Triple Elixir is not as good. Your opponent has plenty of time to place something down, and your Royal Hogs will be easier to counter.

There’s no point punishing if you can gain elixir to quickly. So use all your elixir to defend.

Cycle Earthquakes, Tornados, and Logs on the tower for chip.

Matchups[]

The only bad matchups for this deck are Royal Giant and Spell Cycle. Royal Giant can easily counter the Mortar, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Royal Hogs might be able to get through but that depends on their deck. Sometimes they won’t have effective Hog counters, sometimes they will.

Spell Cycle is the only other bad matchup (or at least the only other bad matchup I can think of). This deck simply doesn’t have good spell cycle capabilities. There’s no way you can fit a rocket in here without making the deck worse. You could switch earthquake for Rocket but then your piggies won’t be as good. They can be countered quite well with buildings, except for Xbow, Mortar and Goblin Cage. But I think switching Earthquake for Rocket could work. Give it a try.

Final Words[]

This is my first article. I might make more articles if I make another good deck. Yes, I make my own decks. I post them in my server here https://discord.gg/ctRN5FN979. I’m running out of decks to make, so join my server and give me a suggestion or two!

Thank you for reading

Started: 15/5/2022 Finished: 16/5/2022 (Day/Month/Year)