Clash Royale
Clash Royale is a freemium real-time strategy video game developed and published by Supercell. The game combines elements from collectible card games, tower defense, and multiplayer online battle arena. The game was released globally on March 2, 2016. Clash Royale reached $1 billion in revenue in less than a year on the market.
Gameplay
Clash Royale is a tower rush video game which pits players in games featuring two or four players in which the objective is to destroy the most opposing towers, with the destruction of the "King's Tower" being an instantaneous win. After three minutes, if both of the players/teams have an equal amount of crowns or none at all the match continues into a 2-minute overtime period and the player who destroys an opposing tower wins instantaneously. If no towers are destroyed during overtime, there is a tiebreaker, where all towers rapidly lose health, and the tower with the least health is destroyed. If two towers have the same health, there is a draw. After an update in late 2018, leaving a 2v2 match multiple times prevents the player from playing 2v2 with random players for some time.In Clash Royale, players are ranked by their number of trophies. Players level up by gaining Experience points through donating and upgrading cards. The highest possible level is level 13. The December 2018 Update added Star Points for excessive Experience when players reach level 13, and will award Star Points for previously leftover Experience.
Trophies are won or lost through multiplayer battles, a player wins a battle by destroying more towers than the opponent, or by destroying the opponent's King's Tower, resulting in an automatic "three-crown" victory.
There are thirteen playing arenas in total : Goblin Stadium, Bone Pit, Barbarian Bowl, P.E.K.K.A's Playhouse, Spell Valley, Builder's Workshop, Royal Arena, Frozen Peak, Jungle Arena, Hog Mountain, Electro Valley, Spooky Town, and The thirteenth arena, with each arena corresponding to a certain trophy range. A player reaches leagues after reaching 4000 Trophies.
Cards
Playable troops, buildings, and spells are represented as cards. Prior to each battle, players construct a deck of eight cards which they use to attack and defend against their opponent's cards. At the start of each game, both players begin with four randomly chosen cards from their deck of eight, except Mirror and Elixir Collector.Each card costs a certain amount of elixir to play. Players start the battle with 5 elixir points, and one elixir point is replenished every 2.8 seconds, with a maximum of 10 elixir points. Once a card is played, a new card is automatically drawn from the player's eight card deck.
Clash Royale first launched with 42 cards, there were 14 cards for each of the three rarities that existed at that time: Common, Rare, and Epic. The February 2016 update added a new rarity: Legendary, with the introduction of two new legendary cards to the game., there are 99 cards in the game, coming in four rarities: Common, Rare, Epic, and Legendary. The September 2018 update changed card levels as not to confuse new players. All cards now cap at level 13, with common cards starting at level 1, rare cards starting at level 3, epic cards starting at level 6, and legendary cards starting at level 9. All cards are level 9 for all tournaments. The December 2018 update added Star Points to unlock special golden cosmetics for Max Level cards.
The June 2018 update added the emote deck, allowing players to use up to eight emotes from their emote collection. Players start with 4 free King emotes, but they can get more from the shop or challenges.
Trade tokens were introduced in the September 2018 update. They can be used to trade common, rare, epic, and legendary cards with clanmates so players can get more of the cards they need and get rid of the cards they don't want. They can be won from challenges, clan war rewards and purchased from the Shop in special offers.
In October 2019, a free emote became available to anyone who links their account to their email through Supercell ID.
Clans
Starting from Experience level 1, players can join or form clans. Joining or forming a clan enables the player to engage in friendly battles and clan wars. It also unlocks the feature of trading and requesting cards from clanmates after becoming level 2. Clan members can also chat and share emotes with their clanmates. A clan has a maximum player limit of 50.Clan Wars
On April 25, 2018, Clan Wars were added. A clan war is separated into two days: 'Collection Day' and 'War Day'. To play in a Clan War, a Clan must have a minimum of ten players that are level 8 and above. On Collection Day, each player in a Clan gets to do 3 battles in a variety of game modes, which rotate every month. Upon completing a battle, the player earns cards, which go into their Clan's card collection. More cards are awarded upon winning a battle, and players earn more cards in higher Arenas. For the Clan War to progress to War Day, a minimum of 10 players need to do at least 1 battle each. On War Day, a Clan is matched with 4 other Clans with a similar number of participants and Clan Trophies. Each participant gets to build a deck using only the cards that their Clan unlocked on Collection Day. Card levels are limited to the player's card level and the amount of duplicate cards gained on Collection Day, with the lowest level having priority. Players also must have a card unlocked in their own collection to use it. Players use the deck they built in 1 battle. Each clan is ranked from 1st to 5th place based on the amount of wins they have, with the rank decided by the number of Crowns each Clan has in the event that two Clans have the same amount of wins. At the end of the War Day, all players that participated in the War receive a War Bounty containing Gold and sometimes Gems or Trade Tokens. Based on the War rank, Clans lose or gain a certain amount of Clan Trophies. Clans progress through Clan Leagues by gaining Clan Trophies, and higher leagues result in better rewards. Clan Seasons last 2 weeks, and at the end of each season, a chest is awarded to every player that participated in a war during the season, with the amount of cards in the chest being determined by the highest war rank the Clan had during the season and the highest league the Clan was in during the season.Tournaments
In July 2016, Supercell introduced a new Tournament feature. Tournaments are similar to normal battles, but all cards are capped at level 9. This feature is unlocked at player experience Level 5, but can only be played from experience level 8. Tournaments can only be created by using gems, and the creator can choose to make it password protected or open. Based on tournament performance, players are rewarded with tournament chests. As well as tournaments, there are two types of Victory Challenges, one in which the goal is to win twelve times while losing no more than two times and the other's goal is to play until you finish the entire challenge by winning all crowns or battles, regardless of losses. A Grand Challenge costs 100 gems to enter, and a Classic Challenge costs 10. Completing a Grand Challenge gives you 22000 gold and 1100 cards, and completing a Classic Challenge will give you 2000 gold and 100 cards. Supercell has also added various event challenges, for limited periods of time, that add special features to the battles, or allow players to receive special cards. These event challenges can also sometimes be played in Friendly Battles. As of the October 2017 update, players would no longer get a refund on gems if no matches take place in their custom tournaments. In December 2018 update added Global Tournaments while Custom Tournaments is renamed to Private Tournaments which removed the prizes but added more options.Leagues
In March 2017, "Leagues" were added to the game. Once above 4000 trophies, players are placed in one of nine different leagues ranging from Challenger I to Ultimate Champion. At the end of each season, players receive rewards based on the highest league achieved during that season. After the season ends the player is reset to half of the trophies they gained above 4000 trophies. So if they got to 6400 they would be reset to 5200 trophies at the end of the season. Another feature that was introduced is Clan Battles. Two players get to battle side by side with another member of their clan facing off against two other opponents from another clan. This is the first update to include a new game mode. As of November 2018, clan battles have been transferred into clan wars as 2v2 battles.Quests
Quests were added in the October 2017 update as a set of achievements where some players have to complete certain tasks to receive rewards. The Quests section also includes a free reward which is given to the player every 4 hours, up to three times a day. This was added when the developers decided to remove standalone free chests from the game.Release
The game was soft-launched in Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, and New Zealand for iOS platforms on January 4, 2016. The game was soft-launched on Android for those same countries on February 16, 2016 in the form of an Android application package. Both platforms received a global release on March 2, 2016.Upon its release, Clash Royale became the most downloaded and top-grossing app on the U.S. iOS App Store.
Reception
Clash Royale mainly received positive reviews, with TouchArcade Eli Hodapp calling it "absolutely phenomenal" in his five-star review. Pocket Gamer Harry Slater gave the game a score of 9/10, summing up "It's an incredible amount of rewarding fun, it's nail-biting at times, and there's content here that will keep you busy for weeks if not months." Writing for Geek.com, James Plafke criticized "Clash Royale for being genuinely fun—more so than Clash of Clans—while the developer chronically interrupts the player from enjoying it." Clash Royale has received a very positive response from its players, with an average score of 4.5 out of 5 on the Google Play Store and an average score of 4 out of 5 on the Apple App Store.Clash Royale League
The Clash Royale League is the official team esports world championship on a league format, developed by Supercell. It consists of 5 leagues: North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia, and China. It started on August 20, 2018 kickstarting Season 1 of the CRL. After the regular season which consisted of 15 games per team the playoffs were held in each region. After the playoffs ended the World Finals were held in Tokyo, Japan on December 1. The Finalists consisted of Nova Esports, KingZone Dragon-X, Vivo Keyd, Team Queso, Immortals, and Ponos Sports from Japan. Ponos got 2nd in Asia and was allowed in the World Finals because they were hosting them. A seeding tournament was then held which ranked the teams. After that the top 2 teams from the seeding tournament got a bye for the Quarter-Finals and automatically made it into the Semi-Finals. After the Quarter Finals it was the Semi-Finals then the Finals. The Season One World Champions are Nova Esports.| Edition | Date | Venue | Champions | Runners-up | Prize money | Ref |
| 1 | December 1, 2018 |  Makuhari Messe Hall 6, Tokyo, Japan |  Nova Esports |  Vivo Keyd | $1,000,000 | |
| 2 | December 7, 2019 |  The Shrine Expo Hall, Los Angeles, California | Team Liquid | W.EDGM | $400,000 |
Crown championship
The Clash Royale Crown Championship was the official esports world championship of the game, developed by Supercell. The tournament connects the best players all over the world from North America, Asia, Latin America, Europe, and more. The first edition had over 28 million participants all over the world, becoming the world's largest Clash Royale event. The first world champion was Sergio Ramos who beat MusicMaster by 3 games to 1 on the Crown Championship World Finals. The 2018 Clash Royale Crown Championship is scheduled to be held in Asia.| Edition | Date | Venue | Champion | Runner-up | Prize money | Ref |
| 1 | December 3, 2017 |  Copper Box Arena, London, England |  Sergioramos |  MusicMaster | $400,000 |