X-Bow

X-Bow (6 Elixir Cost)

  • The original rage machine, the X-Bow gained an infamous reputation during the soft launch as an infuriating card to play against and counter. With the ability to hit a tower from across the map, the X-Bow will slowly plink away at your tower while you watch helplessly. Players that run X-Bow will build their entire deck around protecting it, so countering X-Bow isn’t as much about taking out the X-Bow as it is about dealing with the entire deck. The first part to dealing with X-Bow is recognizing when you’re against an X-Bow deck. There’s a quick and easy tell – if they play a defensive structure right up against the river, 99% of the time they’re setting up for X-Bow. Once you recognize the X-Bow deck, it’s time to deal with it. You have two options – counterpush it, or split push the other lane. The X-Bow itself actually does very little DPS (damage per second), but once it locks on to your tower it is relentless. Having a defensive matrix of Teslas, Cannons, and Inferno Towers set up makes it difficult for you to break and often forces players to panic and overcommit to taking it out. Once an X-Bow player gets a defense down, they will often play X-Bow in conjunction with a troop like Barbarians or Minion Horde at the same time, making it difficult to take out the X-Bow. Your best bet is to not panic and Lightning or Fireball the X-Bow and take some chip damage on the tower, while taking out the troops and defenses they put down to support the X-Bow. Then, since they’ve just committed 11 elixir to X-Bow + support troops, they’re relatively open to being counterpushed. Another weakness of X-Bow players is that they get tunnel vision on one lane. Therefore, if you have a deck with hefty tank such as Giant, Golem, or PEKKA, it’s actually really easy to split push the other lane. The neat part is the X-Bow AI actually prioritizes troops in its range over buildings (or at least I think it does) so instead of attacking your tower, it will actually attack your tank. Since it does poor DPS, and they’ve committed heavily to one lane, it’s often easy to take the other tower with very little contest. In summary, when facing an X-Bow deck, don’t panic, look at your hand, and make a smart play. Don’t be afraid to take tower damage, or even trade tower for tower.