“Six fast, unarmored flying attackers. Three's a crowd, six is a horde!”
The Minion Horde card is unlocked from the Hog Mountain (Arena 10). It deploys six single-target, short-ranged, flying Minions with low hitpoints and moderate damage. A Minion Horde card costs 5 Elixir to deploy.
Strategy[]
- The Minion Horde is a high risk, high reward card. It is a powerful defensive card and can easily be turned into a threatening counterpush. However, area damage cards such as the Wizard or Arrows will easily destroy the Minions, so placing them at the bridge alone to attack is not recommended.
- Despite their massive DPS, a Minion Horde can't always destroy a unit before it reaches the player's tower. For example, the Giant Skeleton and Hog Rider will both reach the tower either because of their high hitpoints or fast speed. The player should keep this in mind when facing similar threats and respond accordingly by placing a ground unit like Skeletons or a building to distract them.
- The Miner pairs well with any surviving Minions. Even if just one is still alive after a defense, tanking for it with a Miner will force the opponent to address both. It can also be played as a fast and lethal push when at an Elixir advantage or when the opponent's best counter is not in hand.
- On a similar idea, it may be worth casting a Freeze spell to allow the Minions to deal severe damage to the Crown Tower. This is especially punishing when the opponent is caught off-guard, for example, if they counter them with a Zap. One thing to remember is that the surprise factor is what makes this effective, so follow-up attempts may not be as successful.
- Another deadly but fragile combo is the Minion Horde and Clone. When their spell or splash damage troops are baited out, a Cloned Minion Horde could destroy almost anything.
- The Minion Horde is extremely vulnerable to splash damage — most area damage troops that target air and spells can eliminate it efficiently for a positive or neutral Elixir trade.
- All area-damage spells will be able to counter a Minion Horde when played correctly. Zap is the cheapest counter, but it relies on the player's Princess Tower to finish them off. The Giant Snowball is a slightly better counter since it knocks back and slows down the Minions, while also dealing the same amount of damage. However, its large area, fast travel time, and cheap cost makes Arrows the most reliable counter by far. Fireball and Poison will quickly defeat a Minion Horde but the Fireball has a smaller radius and Poison deals damage over time. The Rocket can counter them as well, but its slow travel speed, tiny area-of-effect and high Elixir cost makes the Rocket both unreliable and a negative Elixir trade unless other troops are caught in the explosion.
- Troops are reliable counters and are an active presence in the Arena, meaning they can be counterpushed with after defending the Horde. Wizard and Executioner can defeat the Horde with one attack and threaten any enemy units nearby, while the Witch has a fast attack speed and can stall the Horde with her spawned Skeletons.
- If the opponent uses Arrows on the player's Minion Horde and misses one or two Minions, they can use the Heal Spirit to get more use out of the surviving Minions.
- Due to its high DPS and low hit points, the Minion Horde is an excellent bait card for Fireball, Arrows, and in some cases, Zap. Therefore, it is often used in Fireball and Zap bait decks.
- Minion Horde can act like Skeleton Army, so they can counter a lone P.E.K.K.A.
- The player can hide a fast moving troop underneath a Minion Horde so that when the opponent defeats the Horde, the troop beneath might take them by surprise.
History[]
- Minion Horde was added with Clash Royale's soft launch on 4/1/16.
- On 3/5/16, the May 2016 Update added the level 13 Minion Horde and fixed the "range bug" and decreased the Minion Horde's range to 2 (from 2.5) but their effective range is unchanged.
- On 20/6/18, a Balance Update staggered each Minion’s deploy time by 0.15 seconds.
- On 1/7/19, a 'Rulebook' Update decreased the Minion Horde's range from 2 to 1.6 (now classified as 远距离近战).
- On 2/6/20, a Balance Update decreased the deploy stagger for each Minion from 0.15 seconds to 0.1 seconds.
- The 2021 Quarter 2 Update moved the Arena to unlock the Minion Horde from P.E.K.K.A's Playhouse (Arena 4) to Hog Mountain (Arena 10).
- On 27/10/21, the 2021 Quarter 3 Update added the level 14 Minion Horde.
Trivia[]
- The description is a reference to the popular saying "two's company, three's a crowd".
- The Minions in the card picture of Minion Horde are paler in skin color compared to the regular Minions, most likely due to the lighting of the area they are in. They also appear to be wearing pale reddish-purple fingerless gloves, as opposed to the indigo gloves worn by the regular Minions. However, the Minions of Minion Horde are visually identical to the regular Minions in battle.
- The Minions on the card appear to have purple eyes despite the fact that their eyes are red in battle.
- The Minions appear to have an underbite, similar to the Lava Hound.
- The Minion Horde is one of the highest damage per second cards in the game. A lone Level 13 Minion does 123 damage per second, which amounts to 738 damage per second considering the six Minions in the Horde. This figure is surpassed only by 3 other troop cards, the Skeleton Army (1,372 damage per second total at max level, but more vulnerable and cheaper), the Barbarians (825 damage per second total at max level, having the same cost, more health but does not hit air) and the Inferno Dragon (1277 damage per second max level at the max tier).
- In the Japanese and French language settings of the game, the Minion Horde's name literally translates to "Gargoyle Horde".
