Princess

“This stunning Princess shoots flaming arrows from long range. If you're feeling warm feelings towards her, it's probably because you're on fire.”

The Princess card is unlocked from the Royal Arena (Arena 7) or a Legendary Chest. She is an area-damaging, long-ranged troop with low hitpoints and moderate damage. Her long range allows her to target and attack Princess Towers from the opposite side of the river. A Princess card costs 3 Elixir to deploy.

Strategy

Due to her splash damage and long range, Princess is a strong support or siege unit. However, she does low damage which coupled with her very slow attack rate makes her a weak solo counter to anything but swarms. Zap is an excellent synergy with Princess as together they can instantly take out Minion Hordes and Goblins.
A good method of getting some early chip damage on the opponent's tower is to deploy her at the bridge at the start of the match if she appears in the player's starting hand. She will start shooting at the tower. This is extremely hard to react to and will often catch their opponent off guard.
- The defender should be aware of when the opponent has a Princess in their hand and cycle their cards in the center of the arena to increase their odds of catching a Princess' sight as it is deployed.
- Skeletons are the cheapest counter to a distracted Princess at the bridge, but they can be spelled away on reaction before she even gets hit once, so players should not solely rely on them.
Despite her low DPS, she does deal moderate damage and has an extremely long range. This means that she will easily affect the outcome of duels, and since she has such a long range, she will safely engage from behind cover. To keep her going, protect her with cheap troops such as a Knight or Goblins. However, keep in mind that spells will ignore all defenses and hit her anyway.
Miner is a decent counter to a defending Princess, as it will two-shot her and can be deployed anywhere around her. The defender can use swarms to reduce the likelihood that the Miner locks onto her. However, if the opponent also has Poison, they may decide to fake the player out and deploy the Miner on the Crown Tower, while the Poison is placed on the Princess. If the player uses a swarm to protect her, this will give the opponent spell value and chip damage.
Even though the Princess deals moderate damage per shot, it is not wise to leave her shooting a tower for too long, as she can rack up major damage — this strategy can be used by the player for extremely easy and flexible chip damage.
Area damage spells are the most effective counters to the Princess as it is impossible to defend her from them. The Log, Arrows, Fireball, and Poison are the most reliable counters to a defending Princess, in addition to the fact that they can clip the Crown Towers for extra damage. The defender should be aware of when their opponent's spells are in hand to maximize the time their Princess stays on the map.
- The Log and the Arrows can all take out a Princess up to one level higher. However, The Log is usually the better counter since it costs 1 less Elixir than the Princess.
- The player can intentionally use other spell vulnerable troops with the Princess to help spread their opponent's counters to her thin. For example, an opponent may use The Log to counter her, on principle that it is a good Elixir trade, only to be left vulnerable to an offensive swarm card such as the Goblin Barrel.
- The Barbarian Barrel can also counter the Princess. Place the barrel in such a way that the Barbarian will spawn right next to her, so that it lands the finishing blow as fast as possible. However, this is not a reliable counter as the opponent can be ready to react to this and play another card to distract the Barbarian, leaving the Princess alive.
- If the player doesn't have spells to counter her, they can use cheap cards instead. Dart Goblin is an excellent counter to Princess since the Dart Goblin can survive 1 attack from the Princess and after defeating her, will chip damage the opponent's Tower. The player can also use Goblins, Minions and Archers, but they should be wary of predictive defending units or spells.
The Princess can deny all other damage from a Skeleton Barrel besides its death damage. Deploy the Princess behind the King's Tower staggered towards the lane of the Skeleton Barrel, and time it so that she spawns when the barrel's shadow is one and a half tiles from the Princess Tower. If done correctly, she will shoot her volley of arrows at the barrel right as it pops, and the area damage will immediately defeat all the Skeletons that spawn.

History

The Princess was added to the game on 29/2/16 with the March 2016 Update.
On 23/3/16, a Balance Update decreased the Princess' hitpoints by 10%. Before the update, from level 5, the Princess could not be taken out by level 12 Arrows (and also she could not be taken out in Friendly Battles where the Legendary level cap was 1 and the common level cap was 8).
On 3/5/16, the May 2016 Update fixed the "range bug" and decreased the Princess' range to 9 (from 9.5) but her effective range is unchanged. The same update also changed her info text. Prior to this update, it read "Shoots a volley of flaming arrows halfway across the Arena. The Princess is afraid of germs, so keep the rabble away from her!"
On 24/8/16, a Balance Update decreased the Princess' area damage radius by 25%. She now has a 2 tile splash instead of a 2.5 tile splash.
On 6/5/19, a Balance Update increased the projectile speed of the Princess' arrows by 33%.

Trivia

The Princess was one of the first legendary cards to be added to the game. It was released alongside the Ice Wizard.
The Princess is one of three cards that have a longer range than an Arena Tower, the other two being the Mortar and the X-Bow.
The Princess actually has a gold crown instead of a silver one like the Princess Towers.
When attacking or spawning, she can say "Let's go!", "Gotcha!", "Bullseye!", and/or "Yay."
The Princess has 3 arrows nocked in the card picture, although she shoots 5 arrows in-game.
The Princess has approximately the same hitpoints as an equivalent level Dart Goblin. While they do have the same health at tournament standard and 1 level higher than tournament standards (as well as 1 level above max level), the Princess has 1 more hitpoint at all other levels above tournament standard.
The Princess is the subject of two sets of Emotes.