Hey there! My name is Sam. I am a level 9 currently sitting at 3100 trophies in hog mountain and I am here to give you a guide on how and when you should use the balloon inside of Clash Royale.

The balloon is currently a really strong and commonly used card in Clash Royale and is able to be used in many different kinds of pushes.

The balloon is a very effective troop for offence because it only targets buildings so it is harder to distract. It can be difficult to get it to reach the enemy tower due to low movement speed and health but once it reaches the tower it can do insane damage.

For most pushes which include the balloon, it is important to have a tank in front of it because it does not have enough movement speed to deal big damage alone. The most favourable tank is a lava hound because it is also flying so their ground targeting troops cannot do anything against the push. It is also a building targeting unit so it will not be distracted by anything and has insane health (3000 at tournament standard). It also moves slowly which compliments the balloon because it won't speed ahead. Also once they have reached the tower, the lava pups can deal much more damage.

The most obvious counter to the above push would be minion hoard. However, this is not so much of an issue. If the minion hoard targets the lava hound, the hound and pups can tank for long enough for the balloon to reach the tower and do huge damage. If instead they target the balloon, the bomb dropped from the balloon will take out the minion hoard so the lava hound can take down the tower (it does much more damage when it has exploded into the pups.

Other counters would include inferno tower and inferno dragon but these will most likely lock onto the lava hound. When the lava hound splits it can take out either of the inferno troops quickly. However, if they target the balloon then you may be in trouble.

Other possible tanks for the balloon are limited to ground troops so they are less favourable but the giant or golem can work too.

It is also possible for the balloon to work alone but this requires a rage spell. The balloon + rage spell push is probably the most used push for the balloon as it allows the balloon to reach the tower quickly and attack much faster to deal massive damage. The only way an opponent can beat this push is either to bait the balloon out with a building or use a high DPS counter (such as minion hoard. If they use troops like musketeer or archers then the balloon is guaranteed some hits.

The balloon should almost never be used on defence. The only time that I can think that you would use it on defence is if you have nothing to counter the minion hoard because the bomb that is dropped takes most of the minions out.

Here are some basic rules to follow when using the balloon:

• Place it as close to the side of the arena to reduce the chance of it being baited by a building
• Only make a balloon push when you have an elixir advantage
• If you are making a push with nothing taking for the balloon, you need a rage spell

I will go through every card (with the exception of a couple of spells and the elixir collector) and how big of a threat they are to archers. These will go in order of low to high threat.

In conclusion, the balloon is really strong right now and has a lot of potential. It is almost necessary for a flying deck. Just be careful for some of its counters!

btw mods if you see this and want to remove it pls contact me first so i can save it somewhere and post is somewhere else because i spent lots of time on it ;(