Battle Royale is an event where you'll be matched against an opposing troop for one hour every four hours. Within each match you will individually play one minute battles against one of the other troop's submitted defensive teams (automatically played by the game for them). You'll also be able to submit your own defensive team. Trophies (and random amounts of stone) are won by winning offensive matches, or when your defensive team wins (trophies only, no stone).
Battle Royale location
Battle Royale summary from Pennypop
Let's start this guide with the official summary provided by Pennypop themselves (as at 14th January, 2016).
Source: pennypop.com/help
The Event Environment
When you first walk into a Battle Royale match, you'll be presented with five defensive teams from your opposition troop, each marked with the label "Enemy". Each of them will have different monsters, different power ratings, and a different number of trophies available if you win your match. There will also be a Ranger standing on a platform on the left of your screen.
Ranger standing on the left platform & a ring of 5 defensive teams
The five teams are a random selection of defensive teams from the opposition troop, and are each represented by avatar of the "leader" of that team. You can click on any of these teams to find out the power rating of the defensive team and how many trophies you will win if you beat them during the one minute battle you'll face. The highest power rating team of those randomly displayed will give you 3000 trophies per energy you use in battle. The next highest will give you 2000, then 1250, 1000 and finally 750 trophies for the lowest power rating. If you have offensive Battle Royale event monsters on your team, these trophy levels will be raised significantly higher.
Clicking on a cromagma has verified that this is a default common team with 9k power rating. If the power rating listed is more than this, it's a hidden sneaky team trying to trick you with an 'innocent' leader.
Where a troop has a missing player or someone hasn't submitted a defense team, they'll be represented by a "default common team", comprised of level 1 commons from the camp section of the game map. The leader is always a cromagma and the power rating is around 9000. Keep in mind that some tricky players intentionally place a cromagma as their leader, hiding a far stronger team than the expected commons. The power rating for a sneaky team like this will always be far above 9000, so make sure to check this!
Cromagma - leader of default common teams
Battling a "default common team"
Within the battle screen, as shown in the screenshot above, you'll have one minute to fight your opponents defensive team. Battle camp will automatically play their team for them in the same way that Arena battles are automated. In order to win your battle, you need to entirely defeat every monster within their team during that minute. As each monster reaches 0 health, they will disappear from the battle screen. If any monster is left with even the smallest remaining health at the end of the minute, the match will be recorded as a loss to you. You'll receive a significantly reduced amount of trophies compared to a win, and the player who owns that defensive team will be rewarded with trophies for their defensive win.
The choice of which team to play against is very much a personal, subjective decision. One rule of thumb is to only play against defensive teams that have a power rating that's below 75% of yours. However, in doing so you may risk missing out on other battles that you may have won for higher trophies.
After a successful battle win, the amount of trophies awarded for playing that same defensive team reduces. After three wins against them, you'll only receive 1 trophy for any further wins - definitely not a battle worth trying! For this reason, most players use the maximum amount of energy they have in a single battle for the highest trophy team they believe they can win. You are given one free "refresh" each match that will give you a new random selection of defensive teams to play with the full initial trophy values restored. You can refresh more than this for the cost of 10 gold each time. To refresh your opponents, click on the Ranger to the left of the Battle Royale screen and click the "refresh" button. (The 10 gold cost will only appear after your first free refresh). This is shown in the screenshot below.
Current trophy tallies for our troop and our opposition troop. I have used my free refresh and if I click the refresh button again it will cost me 10 gold
Element boosters, as well as health/recovery boosters, will all work during your offensive Battle Royale battles. Stone finder boosters will also double the random amount of stone that you will receive for offensive wins. (Note that the random amount of stone is always multiplied by the amount of energy you use in your battles too).
When the event first begins
As soon as you're aware that Battle Royale has begun as an event, head into your troop hall to submit a defensive team. It's important to have as many players in your troop do this before the first match starts so that your opposition troop in the first match faces some good competition, and possibly give you an early head start into the event! You'll usually have 1-2 hours to submit your teams before the first match begins.
If you're unable to play at the start of the event, you can always submit a defensive team in the same manner as soon as you're able to.
Admins will also need to schedule your troop for matches in the same manner as Dominion and Troop Wars. (Click on the event "E" in the top left corner of your screen and then scroll down to the "Manage Schedule" button. Sign your troop up for every match to ensure you allow for maximum participation).
Admins need to click on "Manage Schedule" to sign their troop up for matches
Submitting a Defensive Team
The defensive team that you submit will have its regular health doubled and will be automatically played on your behalf by the Battle Camp servers, in much the same was as the Arena works.
If any of your troop mates do not submit a defensive team, or you have empty places in your troop, those players will be represented by a team of level 1 commons with a power rating around 9k. This creates a great opportunity for easy wins for your opponents, so it's best to rally around your troop mates and encourage everyone to submit a team. (Any team will be better than a default team of level 1 commons!)
To submit a defensive team, click on Phil Nye who will appear as a new ranger in your troop hall, to the left of the troop hall throne. Click on "pick team" to open up a "Battle Royale Team" screen containing 5 empty team slots. Click on 5 monsters to add them into your defensive team. All of the monsters you want to select must be in your inventory, and not in a current team or in storage. If you have previously won Battle Royale defensive event monsters, make sure to include them on your defensive team so that you will win the bonus trophies they offer. Once you've selected your defensive team click "Save" in the top right hand corner of the screen. Choose wisely as you will not have access to these monsters until the end of the event. For the price of 10 gold however, you can claim your monsters from Phil Nye early to use them elsewhere in the game or to change your team over.
Click on Phil Nye in your troop hall to pick your defensive team monsters
The ordering of the monsters in your defensive team is not important, however most players choose to make the leader of their team the least intimidating in an effort to encourage players to select their team to play.
Within a few minutes of submitting your defensive team, it will begin to fight for your troop at the start of the next match. You can check on your team at any time by clicking on Phil Nye in troop hall to see your teams summary. Within an hour (usually) of submitting your team, it's power rating will appear in the troop listing for all of your troop to see. To bring this up, open your troop screen and click on the Ranger tab. Change the sort option to "Defense PR" and your troop's defensive teams will be listed in order of descending power ratings. Any player who has a power rating of around 9k has not yet submitted a defensive team (or is subject to the update delay). Your troop admins can can a real-time listing of submitted teams by logging onto support.pennypop.com and selecting "Battle Royale" from the top menu. Note, however, that the power ratings are notoriously numerically incorrect in this listing though!
Sorting my troop Rangers by "Defense PR"
What monsters to choose for Defensive Teams?
When Battle Royale was first introduced, the official advice for defensive teams was to make them up from barriers, counters, healers and sacrifice monsters.
These choices can be effective for low power rating troops playing other low power rating troops and are a great starting place for beginners. They are not effective at higher levels of play though. Healers are ineffective if the offensive team has lacerate. Barriers are mostly only available as supers with first evolutions, which aren't strong enough against high power rating opponents. Sacrifices take 5 turns to activate, which can be too long for a high paced battle.
Many high power rating defensive teams are now comprised of offensive actives that hit multiple targets with a short cool down (turns until activation). Examples include blast and lacerate. Alternatively relying on a team with high health passives is another option. I'll readily admit that forming a successful Battle Royale team is not a strength of mine and at the end of this post I will leave you with first hand opinions from other players as to their best defensive team combinations.
If you have previously won some Battle Royale defensive event monsters, make sure to place them on your submitted defense team, if you're wanting to make use of their bonus trophies. They will each cause an increase in the amount of trophies you will win if your defensive team is successful. For example, a defensive event ultra will give you an additional +100% trophies, doubling the trophies your defensive team wins. If you had two of these on your team, the effect would be additive and you'd win an additional +200% trophies compared to a non-event team win.
If you submit a zodiac matched team, all of your passives will turn on just like in normal play.
Offensive Battles
If you have offensive event monsters, make sure to place them on your current team before selecting a defensive opponent. Each offensive event monster will give you an additive effect on the amount of trophies you can win. Your maximum amount of trophies won per energy will increase accordingly in the display when you click on an opponent team, so that you know before the battle exactly how many trophies to expect if you win.
In my example offensive Battle Royale team below, I have two supers who each give me +50% trophies each, two evolved supers who give me +120% trophies each, and one epic that gives me +150% trophies. For every offensive win, I will gain an additional +490% trophies compared to a non-event team's offensive win. For me, this turns my maximum trophy opponent from 3k trophies per energy per win, up to 17.7 trophies. A 10 energy battle changes from giving me a maximum trophy haul of 33k, to become 194k trophies. Many experienced Battle Royale players have teams far stronger than mine, full of evolved ultras or even evolved epics. As such, it's a difficult event for non-spenders to compete within!
Example of my offensive BR team
2 supers, 2 evolved supers and one epic
33k max without event monsters (left)
194k max with my example BR team shown above (right)
194k max with my example BR team shown above (right)
Always make sure to check the power rating of the team that you're thinking about battling. Many players "hide" their team behind a weak monster to try to trick you into playing them. The standard trick is to farm a cromagma from camp and place it as your leader, however players will also use other monsters for this. In the screenshot example below, the defensive team has a common as its leader however it's hiding a team with a power rating over 400k. Be wary and always double check the power ratings!
When you've chosen a defensive team to battle, and have checked the team's power rating, adjust the slider to however many energy you wish to use in the battle and then click the "Battle" button. A screen will open up with the full defensive team displayed and your minute will begin immediately. As any of the defensive monster's health reaches 0, they will disappear from your battle screen. In order to claim the win, all defensive monsters must have reached 0 health within that minute.
Beginning of a battle
At the end of your minute, a screen will appear declaring your Victory or Defeat. The percentage of health that you and your opponent had at the end of the minute will be shown above this banner. Remember that you need to reduce your opponent down to 0% in order to claim the victory. You will also be shown how much experience you won (10XP per energy used, unless you're at level 70 like me), a random amount of stone that's already been multiplied by how many energy you used, and the trophies that you've won. The trophy count here will exactly match the amount you were shown prior to commencing the battle.
Victory Screen after the minute battle ends
Most players use a completely offensive team to play against the defensive teams. Multi-target offensives are useful to attack multiple monsters at the same time, however high powered single-target offensives can help when there are fewer monsters remaining in the defensive team. Useful actives include: blast/wound that will attack all 5 defensive monsters for maximum total damage; Lacerate/wound to prevent purely defensive teams from healing; vampire/drain to help heal you at the same time as being offensive with high attack.
Beginner's Basic Gameplay: Whenever possible, match 5 gems (in a straight line, "L" or "T" shape) 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 defensive monster reaches 0 health, it will disappear from the battle and won't be able to be 'healed' back into existence.
Event Log - Results from your Teams
To see how your teams are performing, click on the "E" for event in the top left corner of your game screen. Then click the log button (looks like a newspaper) on the top right of the screen that appears.
To view your event log, click on the "newspaper" button in the top right corner
Every time your defensive team has a win, the amount of trophies that it won you along with the opposing player's username will be shown. Defensive losses will be shown here in the same manner. Every time your offensive team has a win, the name of the player you beat will be added to an ever growing list of players that you've defeated throughout the event so far. Offensives losses will also be displayed here.
Example event log
In the example event log above, reading from the bottom you can see that my defense team failed against Timmertje but won me 11k trophies when it beat Tinnywood. My offensive team then beat Timmertje. I then went on to beat Robinjo, Catmiay and then Guderol, so all of their names are added to the displayed list of offensive wins that I have. (This list will grow increasingly longer throughout the event!).
By clicking on the avatar of the player shown in the log, you will be able to bring up information about that player as per the screenshot below. This can be useful to identify why your defense teams may be losing battles - the opponent may have a higher power rating or certain monsters on their regular team that give them an advantage over your defense team.
By clicking on Robinjo's avatar on the event log, I can find out more about this player, their level, regular power rating, current team, and can even message or friend them.
End of Match Results
At the end of the match, the troop who won the highest amount of individual trophies will be declared the winner. That troop will be awarded "troop trophies" (that determine their troop tier) equal to triple the individual trophies won. The losing troop will receive only 70% of the individual trophies as their troop trophies. There's a definite advantage to winning!
After the hour long match has completed and the results processed, you'll see a screen pop up to announce your troop's victory or defeat, along with the total number of trophies that you earned individually that match.
My troop won and I earned a total of 194.7k trophies during the match
Note that players who leave a troop mid-event will take with them their individual trophies, however all troop trophies that were earned by that player remain with the troop.
You can see the results of your troop mates by looking in the "Event" log within your troop's news feed. A summary will appear here for each player who participated in the event showing the number of wins (W), losses (L) and defensive wins (D). Note that the recording of losses seems to be erroneous, or has a meaning other than that which I've attributed to it!
Troop Matching
Just like in Troop Wars and Dominion, your opponent troop will always be the troop who is either one place ahead or behind you on the troop trophy tiers. Effectively you are matched according to the troop trophies won and this has nothing to do with the power-ratings of the troops. (For example, a very active low power-rating troop may find themselves matched with a low-activity but high power-rating troop if they have each earned similar levels of troop trophies.
For the first match, everyone has 0 trophies and the matching will be random.
Event Monsters
Event monsters from Battle Royale are recurring and will always receive an event bonus in Battle Royale. Event monsters can be won through the event spin (in the event "E" screen or in the event grab in the store), or through 3x lucky spin opportunities that randomly pop up after battles within the Battle Royale environment only.
There are two sets of event monsters: defensive and offensive. Defensive event monsters need to be placed on your defensive team to increase the amount of trophies that can be won from defensive wins. Offensive event monsters need to be placed on your regular team to increase the amount of trophies won through the battles you play yourself. Offensive event monsters have significantly higher trade value than the defensive monsters, and many players have "Battle Royale" teams made up of the best offensive event monsters they can find.
Battle Royal Event Monsters from bcrank.us
Note: Top listed monster of each rarity is defensive, other is offensive
(e.g. Megadrone is defensive, Dynoflight is offensive)
Battle Royale monsters will increase the amount of trophies that your offensive or defensive teams can win (provided those monsters are in these teams!). The effect is additive, so two offensive supers that each give you +50% bonus trophies will have the effect of giving you +100% (or double) trophies if they're both in your offensive team. Higher rarities provide higher bonuses, as do evolved event monsters.
To find out whether your Battle Royale monsters are offensive/defensive and what percentage of bonus trophies they'll earn you, click on the monsters within your inventory. Examples of an offensive evolved super and a defensive ultra are shown below. The blue "E" in the top corner of their image indicates that they're event monsters for the current event - which was Battle Royale when these were taken. In the blue bar immediately below their image, you'll see "+120% Atk Trophy" on the left screenshot and "+100 Def Trophy" on the right screenshot. This means that if I place the punch-o-matic on my offensive team, I will earn an extra +120% (attack) trophies when I win battles. If I place the wardog on my defensive team, then whenever it wins I'll receive an extra 100% defensive trophies.
(Note that the super is evolved)
Every time the event is run, the active ability of both the offensive and defensive event monsters is rotated. For example, one event may have blast as the active for all of the offensive event monsters spun, and another event they will have lacerate. If you're choosing to spin event monsters, make sure to check whether you will be happy playing with the active that is being offered - some are better than others!
Spending
Battle Royale is the event that favors spenders the most! In its early days as an event, spending for energy was the means to gain high prize tiers. Now you'll find that you need both an offensive event team as well as a degree of spending. (More of each for higher trophies and tiers!)
As a moderate example of the advantage of having offensive event monster teams, my current team is able to earn me 194k trophies from a 10 energy match against the highest power rating defensive team. A regular player without event monsters would only be able to earn 33k trophies from the same match. There are players with far better Battle Royale teams than mine who will earn even more trophies than this from each battle! When you add that to spending on energy to complete more battles, the earning potential of these teams is significant!
If you're choosing to spend on energy there are two common strategies to consider. In both cases, spend on energy in matches where your opponent troop is sufficiently weak that you feel you can beat the highest trophy defensive teams repeatedly.
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.
Player advice on creating a successful BR defensive team
Thank you to the following players, from the Battle Camp Global facebook group, for their freely given advice on creating successful defensive teams. The advice given here is unedited and your own judgement should be applied to their recommendations.
IGN: ChrisMC4
