General Strategies for Battle Royale

Official Battle Royale Rules from Pennypop (as at 17th June, 2015)

General Advice/Strategy:


1. Start of the Event

An approximate start time is usually provided on the official Battle Camp page.  The event will officially start about an hour before the first match.  Troop admins will need to schedule their troop for matches in the same manner as Troop Wars during this time.  In order to have a defensive team in place for the first match, it must be submitted within this same window of time.


2. Submitting a Defensive Team

To submit a defensive team, click on the new Ranger who will appear in the troop hall next to the throne.  All monsters that you wish to submit must be in your inventory, not in storage or in a team.  Without submitting a defensive team, yours will be allocated to be a team of commons with a power rating of 8.9k - virtually any team will be better than this! Note: You will not have access to these five monsters until the end of the event, unless you pay 10 gold to retrieve them.

When Battle Royale was first run as an event, Pennypop officially recommended that defensive teams consist of a combination these abilities: sacrifice; healers; counter; and barrier.  (Note however that within a 60 second battle sacrifice may not actually be triggered in time, but causes significant damage if it does).   Using multiple barriers (preferably of different elements) appears to be a solid strategy when combined with a healer.  If you don't have many monsters to spare, consider retrieving your Arena team for the duration of Battle Royale.  An increasingly common alternative approach is to place a highly offensive team as your defensive team.  This team will have high attack combined with the double health boost for defensive teams.

If you have Battle Royale defensive monsters, they will need to be included in your initial team in order to win bonus trophies from the first match. If you win a BR defensive monster during the event and wish to add it to your defensive team, you can change your team at the Ranger in troop hall (where you first submitted your team) at a cost of 10 gold.

The only information provided to your opposing troop about your defensive team will be the avatar of your defensive "leader" and the Power Rating (PR) of your team.  It can be a good idea to attract people to fight your team by making your "leader" (first monster submitted in your defensive team) the one that looks least intimidating.  Some people take this to the extreme of making their leader a Cromagma (fire common used to represent default common teams) in the hopes that people won't check the PR and will assume it'll be an easy match.  Lots of people are aware of this trick now though!  The power rating of your defensive team can be viewed at the time you're submitting it (click on "stats" above the row of monsters in your team) or by ordering your troop members by "Defensive Team" once the servers update the listing.  There is an advantage of having a higher PR defensive team (see below), setting it too high above your teammates though may result in people choosing to fight easier teams.

All defensive monsters will have doubled health during the BR matches.

(Cromagma - Found in Camp)

4. Battle Royale Environment

When you walk into the Battle Royale area at match time, you will see a circle of five possible opponent defensive teams before you, each represented by the avatar of that team's leader.  Clicking on any of these leaders will display the Power Rating of that defensive team and the amount of trophies you will win if successful.

The five teams have been drawn randomly from the opposing troop.  Initially, the defensive team with the highest PR of these five will award 3000 trophies/energy for a win, the next highest will award 2000, with the lowest three awarding 1250, 1000 and 750 trophies respectively.  Note: if you have a Battle Royale offensive monster in your regular team, these base trophy levels will be increased accordingly.

For maximum trophies, play against the team with the highest power rating that you feel you can beat.  (A common rule of thumb is to choose one roughly 30% lower than your attack team's power rating, but this depends on your playing ability). If you win, you'll be awarded the stated number of trophies. If you lose, you'll be given a small percentage of that number and your opponent will be awarded a larger percentage of trophies.

After your first win, then number of trophies available for playing that same defensive team reduces down the scale by one position. e.g. 3000 trophies reduces to 2000 trophies. After playing that team again, the trophies reduce further and until after the third win only 1 trophy can be won.  General strategies are to use the most energy you can against one defensive team in a single match to get the maximum number of trophies and never hit the same team more than twice.

You can change your selection of defensive teams by clicking on the Ranger to the left of the screen.  The first "refresh" is free, subsequent refreshes will cost 10 gold.  Refreshes are useful to reset the maximum amount of trophies that can be won from each team, or to swap opponents.

Element boosters work during Battle Royale to increase your attack.  As far as I'm aware they won't help your defensive team during that time though.


5. Attacking

If you have offensive event monsters, make sure to place them on your current team before selecting a defensive opponent.  Your maximum amount of trophies won per energy will increase accordingly in the display when you click on an opponent team.

Once you select an opponent, you'll be matched against them for a 60 second battle with Battle Camp automatically playing the defensive team.  Your goal is to defeat all five monsters before 60 seconds are exactly up.  The battle will be declared as a loss for you if any defensive monster remains when time is up - even if you have a combo bonus animating that would have destroyed them.

Within a 60 second match against a defensive team, most people concentrate on filling their team with attacking monsters.  Useful abilities: blast/wound will attack all 5 monsters for maximum total damage; lacerate/wound will prevent defensive monsters from healing; vampire will heal as it attacks.

Basic gameplay: Match 5 gems (in a straight line, "L" or "T" shape) whenever possible to attack all defensive monsters at the same time.  Matching another 3-combo of the same element in the same move will double this attack.  Once a monster reaches 0 health, it no longer contributes to the match - keep your monsters alive while taking out each of theirs in turn (you can direct your attack by clicking a monster prior to matching gems each turn).


6. Results from your Defensive Team

To see how your defensive team is performing, click on the "E" for event in the top left corner of your game screen.  Then click the log button on the top right of the screen that appears.  If the log says "empty" then no one has chosen to play against your defensive team yet.


7. Troop Matching

As per troop wars, your opponents will be matched according to the troop trophy tally prior to the match.  For the first match, everyone has 0 trophies and the matching will be random.  Note: This matching system does not take the power ratings of each troop into account, only the trophies they've each won.


8. Match Results

The amount of trophies won by both troops can be viewed by clicking on the Ranger on the left of the screen.

The troop with the highest amount of individual trophies will be awarded three times this amount for troop trophies.  The troop that loses, will be awarded only 70% of the individual trophy tally as troop trophies.  Note: Troop trophies affect only the troop tier for prizes.  (Leaving a troop mid-event will leave behind your earned troop trophies).


9. Event Monsters

Event monsters from Battle Royale are (so far) recurring from one event to the next.  They can be won through the event spin or the 3x lucky event spins that pop up sometimes during the matches - these will either be leveled up fully or halfway when won.  Defensive event monsters have barrier or group heal as their active and award you bonus trophies each time your defensive team (containing that monster) wins.  Offensive event monsters have blast or lacerate and give you bonus trophies each time your offensive team (containing that monster) wins.  You can use any number of event monsters on your respective teams.  Battle Royale monsters currently have high trading value, especially the offensive event monsters.


10. Spending

Battle Royale is the event that favors spenders more than any other event.  Choose to spend on energy in matches where your opponent troop is sufficiently weak that you feel you can beat the highest trophy defensive teams repeatedly.

If you're choosing to spend on energy there are two common strategies to consider...

Method 1: Use 10 energy against the opponent with the highest trophies, then pay to refresh the opponents (10 gold) and hit the opponent with the highest trophies with another 10 energy.  Repeat.

Method 2: Use 10 energy against the opponent with the highest trophies, then use 10 energy against the opponent with the next highest trophies (or the team that you just beat as the trophies will now be the same). Then pay to refresh the opponents (10 gold) and repeat.

Simulations published by a troop on BC Global showed that in the long run (5k gold) these two strategies provide almost the same number of trophies, with the first strategy slightly ahead on trophies with less energy used.  A third simulation, where method 2 was expanded to hit both teams with the second highest trophies, performed noticeably worse on trophies and energy used.

Spending on event spins (50 gold/spin) can be beneficial if you win event monsters, as they will retain their event bonus each Battle Royale.