“Spawns a handful of tiny flying creatures. Think of them as sweet, purple... balls of DESTRUCTION!”
The Bats card is unlocked from Spell Valley (Arena 5). It spawns five single-target, melee Bats with very low hitpoints and damage. They are the same as those spawned by the Night Witch. A Bats card costs 2 Elixir to deploy.
Strategy[]
- Skeletons + Bats can stop a lone Sparky. The Skeletons will surround and stall the Sparky while the Bats damage her down. However, the player should be certain that the opponent does not have a quick spell to take care of the swarms.
- The Bats are somewhat like faster, aerial Skeletons, except they cannot be used to pull units that only target ground units.
- They can be a replacement for Minions. However, they have significantly lower hitpoints, slightly lower damage and thus can be defeated in one shot by many air-targeting troops like the Witch or the Princess Tower, or spells like Zap. They also pose much less of a threat when used for attacking.
- Bats can be used to counter ground-attacking troops like the Knight, Valkyrie, Mini P.E.K.K.A. and Bowler. They can quickly defeat the troops with their high DPS if not countered by spells or splash units.
- Bats can be used to fully counter many air-targeting troops such as Executioner, Musketeer, and Hunter, by placing them on top of the card when it comes within range of the defender's tower's firing range.
- The Zap is a neutral Elixir trade for the Bats though they may be used to bait the opponent into using their Zap for other swarms after that, essentially making for a new card to be put in spell bait decks.
- They can be used to counter the Graveyard for a 3 Elixir profit. Be careful, however. The Bats are vulnerable to spells such as Zap.
- The Bats cannot counter the Golem completely because its death damage will defeat them, but they will deal significant damage to a Golem if not dealt with.
- Bats can help a Balloon bypass certain defensive building placements, such as a building placed one tile from the Princess Tower and four tiles from the bridge. First, place the Balloon on the outer edge of the arena, as far forward as possible. Wait exactly one second, then deploy the Bats on the bridge, staggered one tile towards the Balloon. If done correctly, the Bats spawning will push the Balloon further away from the center of the arena.
- The lone 5 Bats will usually be picked off by a Princess Tower before they can get in range, but depending on what formation they're in after defending, they might get one shot in. This will often happen if the Bats arrange themselves in a flat pattern, where all 5 of the Bats come into range of the Tower at about the same time. However, this extra chip damage is not guaranteed even when they do form up as stated.
- Bats have a wonderful indirect synergy with Balloon Decks. Since Balloon necessitates your opponent's aerial counters, it can lead to more situations where the skies are free enough to use Bats without being immediately removed by an air-targeting troop.
- After Bats finish defending, sending a Miner to the Tower ahead of the leftover Bats can make for a great surprise attack, as Bats can deal a lot of damage to a Tower if they aren't being targeted by it. Though easily countered, it turns what would normally just be a Miner chip into a potentially tower-taking attack.
History[]
- On 12/6/17, a Balance Update decreased the Bat count to 4 (from 5). The Bats had not been released at the time of the Balance Update.
- The Bats card was made available as a one-time reward from a special Draft Challenge that started on 23/6/17, meaning the card could be unlocked before it was generally released.
- From 30/6/17 through 3/7/17, the Shop had a special offer that Arena 8+ players can buy up to six Giant Chests at the normal price that guarantee at least 40% of total cards (or 50% of all Common cards) to be Bats.
- The Bats card was added to the game on 7/7/2017.
- On 11/8/17, a Balance Update increased the Bat count to 5 (from 4).
- On 9/10/17, the October 2017 Update changed the card description. Prior to this update, it read "Five tiny flying creatures with big ears. Having big ears doesn't mean they'll listen when asked to stop attacking you".
- On 24/1/18, a Balance Update decreased the Bats' hit speed to 1.1 sec (from 1 sec).
- On 25/4/18, the Clan Wars update changed the description; it used to read "Spawns a handful of tiny flying creatures with big ears. Having big ears doesn't mean they're good listeners."
- The 20/6/18 Update moved the Arena to unlock the Bats from Frozen Peak (Arena 8) to Spell Valley (Arena 5).
- On 4/3/19, a Balance Update increased the Bats' deploy time by 0.15 sec for each Bat.
- On 2/6/20, a Balance Update decreased the deploy stagger for each Bat from 0.15 seconds to 0.1 seconds.
- On 3/8/20, a Balance Update increased the Bats' hit speed to 1.3 sec (from 1.1 sec).
- On 9/12/20, a Balance Update decreased the Bats' first attack speed to 0.6 secs (from 0.8 sec).
- On 27/10/21, the 2021 Quarter 3 Update added the level 14 Bats.
Trivia[]
- Bats, Minions, Mega Minion, and the Balloon are the only flying troops with a melee attack range.
- Bats are 1 of 4 troops which can defeat themselves in one attack, the others being Hunter, Skeletons, and Firecracker.
- When the card was first announced, there was a mistake in the description stating there were "Four" bats instead of five, and many got confused as the count statistic stated the correct "5". The mistake was quickly fixed and the description was changed to "Five". The card was then nerfed, changing the description and number of Bats back to "Four", and then once again back to "Five" as of the 11/8/17 Balance Update.
