三个火枪手

“Trio of powerful, independent markswomen, fighting for justice and honor. Disrespecting them would not be just a mistake, it would be a cardinal sin!”

The Three Musketeers card is unlocked from the Royal Arena (Arena 7). It spawns 3 single-target, medium-ranged Musketeers with both moderate hitpoints and damage each. A Three Musketeers card costs 9 Elixir to deploy.

Strategy[]

The Three Musketeers have massive damage per second and can be split into both lanes, which can make them extremely threatening on offense or defense. However, playing this card incurs a huge risk due to its high cost potentially resulting in a large Elixir profit for the opponent. Additionally, the player will have very little Elixir to deploy other cards immediately afterwards.
When deploying the Three Musketeers, the player should place them close to or in the back of the arena, as they are easily countered alone. Splitting them is recommended since the opponent cannot gain as much value with spells, usually allowing one Musketeer to walk into the other lane unscathed. Splitting them can also discourage the opponent from attacking either lane, due to their defensive presence. A quickly-placed Tornado can deny this split attempt if the Musketeers are placed on the tiles closest to the center of the arena, but it will often activate the King's Tower due to its large radius.
The Three Musketeers can be very powerful support for large tanks like the Royal Giant, catching the opponent off guard and quickly annihilating them if no defensive cards are available. A good combo to counter many Three Musketeer combos is a Valkyrie or Barbarians alongside a quick Freeze, which allows the defending troops to survive and deal massive damage. If only 2 Musketeers are present, these cards can often counter them without the need for a Freeze.
When splitting the Three Musketeers, the player should generally support the weaker lane more than the stronger lane. This can make the pushes in both lanes nearly equally as powerful, making it difficult for the opponent to decide which lane to spend more Elixir in.
The Royal Hogs synergize well with the Three Musketeers. They can be used as tanks in both lanes by splitting them at the bridge, and they can also act as a bait for spells like Fireball. They also have higher health than the Musketeers, which means that they will absorb 3 Lightning strikes, saving the Musketeers from the spell, while also having 1 Royal Hog left to spare.
If a Sparky is approaching you in the same lane as your 2 Musketeers, stun her with Zap. The damage per second of the two Musketeers is enough that it can stop the Sparky with the stun without being defeated in return.
The Three Musketeers can be used similarly to Barbarians against a large push. The difference is that they can also stop air pushes, like a Lava Hound + Balloon push. If you are intending to use the Three Musketeers in such a way, try to take advantage of their range so that they do not gain as much spell value or not lose as much health if at all when spells are not available.
It is a high risk, high reward play to plant Three Musketeers in the middle of the opponent's side, after taking down a Princess Tower. It is very difficult to react to them, but since their high cost prevents them from being placed alongside a tank, troops can be placed preemptively to counter them. If a tank is placed before the trio is dropped, the attack becomes very telegraphed. This tactic also becomes very predictable if it is repeated multiple times in a match.
Never try deploying 4 Musketeers or more unless the opponent has no area damage cards. In the case of 4 Musketeers, not only does it cost 13 Elixir, a Poison can fully destroy them and give the opponent a massive 9 Elixir profit. The player almost always deploy the Three Musketeers in the middle of the arena, making them split up, and then deploy another Musketeer in the 1-musketeer side.
The Three Musketeers deal heavy damage with a Rage, easily demolishing a Crown Tower in a few seconds. It is an effective but very risky idea to pair them with Lumberjack. It can easily take a Crown Tower if not effectively countered. However, it costs a massive 13 Elixir and may leave the player unprepared for an enemy counterattack.
- Rage can also be used to allow them to move faster and possibly dodge some spells, especially the ones with a small radius, like the Rocket.
Spells such as the Fireball/Royal Delivery and Zap/Giant Snowball/The Log combo, Poison, Rocket, and Lightning will all counter the trio for a positive Elixir trade anywhere in the arena. Excluding Lightning, all these spells deal area damage, allowing the defender to reap even more value. However, when using spell counters, one should pay extra attention if any of them deal knockback, since some spell combos may miss due to inaccurate timing. Lightning can also be blocked by higher hitpoint units surrounding the Three Musketeers.
Given that the trio is very vulnerable to spells, cards that can bait spells (like Skeleton Dragons or Magic Archer) often pair well with them. This is less effective if the opponent has other methods of taking care of cards intended to bait spells (e.g. using Earthquake instead of Fireball to counter an Elixir Collector), or a Mirror. The same can be said for decks with many low-cost cards since the opponent can rotate their cards fast enough to get their spells back.
Swarms like Minion Horde, Skeleton Army and Goblin Gang will easily overwhelm the trio when placed on top of them. However, a quick spell can clear the way for the trio without letting them take too much damage.
A Giant Skeleton's death damage will not one-shot the Musketeers, but it will leave them below half-health. This becomes more valuable when other units are placed alongside the trio.
A well-placed Ice Spirit paired with the Guards are capable of taking out the Three Musketeers for a huge 5 Elixir advantage.
When the Three Musketeers are not distracted, deploying small swarm troops like Spear Goblins is very ineffective. This is because they are in a group of three and have low hitpoints; therefore they can eliminate the Spear Goblins in a single burst. Larger or bulkier swarms like a Skeleton Army or Barbarians will work well, provided the opponent lacks a spell to eliminate the swarm quickly.
If they lock on to the player's Crown Tower, the player should try to make them re-target by pushing them away with a large troop or by placing down troops in front of them and then use a Zap on them.
If the player can afford to activate their opponent's King Tower (for example, if they are playing a siege deck, wherein the main offense does not cross the river), a quick Fireball or Poison to any Three Musketeers planted in the back can give them a huge Elixir advantage, provided they react quickly enough, but this is difficult. Rocket will not reach the King in time and Lightning will only strike two out of the three, so in these situations, it is better to wait until they approach the Princess Towers in order to gain better spell value.
The Royal Recruits are extremely effective against the Three Musketeers. Unlike other cards, they can easily stop them even if they are split and if they are not split, a few Royal Recuits will appear in the other lane, allowing you to attack and defend simultaneously.

History[]

The Three Musketeers were added to the game on 29/2/16 with the March 2016 Update.
On 23/3/16, a Balance Update decreased the Three Musketeers' cost to 9 (from 10).
On 3/5/16, the May 2016 Update added the level 13 Three Musketeers (then level 11) and fixed the "range bug", decreasing the Three Musketeers' range to 6 (from 6.5) but with no change to effective range.
On 4/2/19, a Balance Update increased the Three Musketeers' cost to 10 (from 9) but also increased the Musketeer's damage by 3%.
On 6/5/19, a Balance Update decreased the Three Musketeers' cost to 9 (from 10) but also increased their deploy time to 3 seconds (from 1 second) and added a 0.15 second deploy time between each Musketeer.
On 2/12/19, a Balance Update decreased the Three Musketeers' deploy time to 2 seconds (from 3 seconds) and increased the staggered deploy delays between each Musketeer to 0.5 seconds (from 0.15 seconds).
On 2/6/20, a Balance Update decreased the deploy stagger for each Musketeer from 0.5 seconds to 0.1 seconds.
On 6/10/20, a Balance Update increased the Musketeer's first attack speed to 0.8 seconds (from 0.5 seconds).
On 30/3/21, a Balance Update decreased the Three Musketeers' deploy time to 1 second (from 2 seconds).
On 27/10/21, the 2021 Quarter 3 Update added the level 14 Three Musketeers.

Trivia[]

It is the most expensive card in the game, and subsequently, the most expensive Rare card. However, in terms of value per troop, it is not as expensive. Playing the Musketeer alone costs 4 elixir, while with this card they cost 3 per individual troop. Likewise, using Mirror will only leave the player 2 Musketeers for the same cost.
The name and description of the card is a reference to the classic novel, The Three Musketeers. with the Musketeer card being a reference to the fourth Musketeer, D'Artagnan in the same novel.
In the card image, the Three Musketeers lack the crater on their helmets which the single Musketeer bears.
In the card image, the Three Musketeers are depicted with red capes, but in the card's info screen art, the Musketeers have blue capes.
The Three Musketeers is 1 of 4 cards that is unavailable in Triple Draft, the other being Mirror, Clone and Giant Skeleton.