INTRODUCTION
Hi guys,
Welcome to my quick, short guide to Champion League. I hope to share my experience going up the Champion's League starting from bottom (presumeably Gold League) up to the glorified top. Its definitely a challenging one, but not impossible.

REQUIREMENTS

I've seen plenty of TH10 up at the Champion League, a few TH9 and very rarely, TH8 and TH7. While its not surprising to learn that TH10 would definitely hog the league, it is a bit crazy to see even the lower level bases are also able to climb up here. To be frank, I have no actual idea to how is this possible. Maybe they snipe TH, maybe they raided 24/7 non-stop, maybe they cheated, etc. What I'm sharing here is merely on TH10 guide to Champion League and probably applicable to some TH9. With that, these are some of the requirements:-

1. SPELLS
While its still possible to climb up in Crystal League without using any spells, its very difficult to climb Masters without using them and almost impossible in Master l. So always ensure you have with you spells to bring to the raid. Depending on your raid style, you might want to bring some rage spells for your Balloon+Minion (BaM) raid or Lightning spell for your Barbarian+Archer (Barch) raid. Personally, I prefer to bring 5 lightning spells.
Why? Its fast to prepare, easy to use and simple to manage in the heat of the battle. I can't remember how many times I am stuck at 42% raids with all my troops are killed and no heroes to use. Left with 5 spells, I can actually accumulate enough % to complete the 50% minimum destruction to earn me 1*. At most TH10 bases, you need to destroy about 30-40 structures to earn that 50%. So 5 lightning spells can actually contribute to about 8% of that destruction. Use them last against buildings you can destroy with just one lightning spells. Those are...


Occasionally, you might also use the Lightning Spells on mortars so that they won't easily kill you barch lumped in one group. You only need 2 lightning spells to take out one mortar, so 4 lightning spells allow you to take out two mortars. Big difference in your raid if Barching is your style.

TH9 can also use the same method with just four lightning spells.

2. TROOPS

While I do see a lot of people prefers to use GOWIPE to climb, its not a sustainable method in the long run because of the high cost of training the troops. Not forgetting the expensive rage/freeze/heal spells required to support such raid. Choose only one of these two style:
Balloon+Minion (BaM)
Barbarian+Archer (Barch)

BaM takes between 30 - 40 minutes to train, depending on the amount of Balloon:minion ratio to use and requires minimal to zero spells to be effective.
Barch takes between 20 - 30 minutes to train and can be easily customized to add in a few different troops like Witch or Giants.

For BaM, you can use 16 balloons and rest minions in Crystal League lll. Its fast to train and good enough to 1* or 2* most TH9 bases. Once you hit Crystal ll, raise the amount of balloons to minimum 20 and the rest minions. Don't bother using Lava Hound as they're pretty useless, not to mention damn expensive. In Master league, you can either stick with 20 balloons, or add up to 30 balloons. The rest as usual....minions.

For Barch, I personally train 80 barbarians and the rest archers. Feel free to adjust the ratio to suit your style, but never too much barbarians because they only act as tank for the archers or destroy the structures outside the walls. I used this ration starting from Gold League all the way to Master ll, and this was the exact reason why I could sustain myself going up to Champion without putting my resources at critical level. At Master l, I added in two witches in my raid to allow my troops to penetrate deeper into enemy base and tank my BK at the beginning of the raid. Know the purpose of your troops and it'll make a difference in your raid.

Yes, there are so many other raiding style that can earn you 50%. Hog, dragons, giants+healers combo....but are they sustainable? You might not feel the pinch at first, but when you reach Master with only 100k of elixir left in your storage, you would've regretted not coming with a cheaper method. If you only started Barching or BaM in Masters, chances are you will fail 80% of the time. Practice from Gold and you'll know which layout best works for your troops and which point-of-entry should you start with, and where are the big bombs, air bombs, seeking air mines might probably be. Experience will get you further than any other guide can, so just keep going at it with either BaM or Barch. I've reached Champion League with 5m gold and 3m elixir in my storage. I started with 2m gold and 3m elixir back in Gold league. While its not an impressive number by farmer's standard, our objective isn't farming for resources in the first place. And while my elixir didn't raise by much, it never went below 2m despite getting raided constantly everytime I went offline.

RAIDING METHOD

Unfortunately, since I don't use BaM method... I can't share much guide about its style. But basically, you release the balloons first and the minions later. Depending on the enemy's base layout, you either spam the balloons in a straight line closest to the Air Defense or spread them in several strategic angles where it can take out AD and wizard towers. AD and Wizard towers are BaM worst enemy, so the prime objective is to take them out.

For Barching, the prime objective is to earn 50% destruction. That means you only need to worry about destroying as much structures as possible. Different with BaM, Barching has no penetrative qualities due to its squishy troops that can easily be killed by mortars, wizard towers and the nefarious Inferno Tower. Meaning that, Barching only requires you to achieve 1*. If you successfully earn that, then congratulations! You've mastered the Barching skill to climb your way to Champion League!

So what layout to look out for if Barching is your style? Normally, I observe the Heroes, namely Archer Queen. She alone can disrupt my entire raid. If I'm being very picky, I simply skip any bases with a Queen actively defending. Unless she is either sleeping or sitting very near the TH at the core, I'd rather waste my 1000 gold and hit NEXT.

Secondly, observe the mortar. Barching worst enemy is splash damage, and nothing has a bigger damage than a nuke bomb from mortar. If they're located at the core, faraway from the outer walls....GOOD news. If they're too near to the outer walls that your archers can easily take them out....GOOD news. If they're too far from the walls to reach, or close enough that they can kill your troops from a great distance....BAD news. Well, you have two options here....either you can take them out with 2 strike of your lightning spells, or you can just hit the NOPE button. I mean NEXT.

Third, identify the layout.
Is it a compact base where all the structures are packed in a small areas? SKIP.
Is it a moderate base with so many small compartments made up of level 9 walls? SKIP.
Is it a wide base with open walls and lots of isolated structures? ITS GO TIME!

Of course its not that simple. Some open wide base are too tricky with too many trap spots and big bomb sites. So again, use your experience to know.
If you're being very technical, you can even count all the structures at the outer walls. If you're confident of taking out 30 of them, chances are you can get 1* from that base.

Some things to remember....
- Be very selective. Its okay to hit NEXT 100 times just to find the base you're confident of hitting. Don't force yourself to raid a base you're not confident with.
- try to raid bases that give 21-33 trophies on perfect win. If you win 1*, you stand to earn between 7 to 11 stars, which is A LOT if you're in Master! But not only that, the risk of losing also is minimal because these bases that offer lots of trophies on a WIN also takes very few trophies on a LOSS. Getit? Sometimes, they only take 17 trophies or even just 7 trophies if you lose. And that isn't such a big loss. Imagine if you lose 28 trophies instead? That really hurts, and sometimes makes you lose your motivation to climb. So be patient and choose a base that you know will earn you 1* safely. Do not risk on a seemingly easy base only to fall for its trap. Example...


I seen a lot of this layout up in Master with the difference that the TH is at the center. While it does looks easy at the bottom, but rest assured your troops will be lured into the death kill zone near the wizard tower. Avoid such tempting base!


Another seemingly weak layout. If you're not familiar with these open bases, don't try them! Its better to raid a harder base, but one that you're familiar with.

3. DEFENSIVE TROPHIES

Yes, you can actually climb the league with defensive method! But I think this method is reserved to TH10. Inferno Tower is a MUST to defend any raid. The main objective is to prevent the enemy raid to get even 1* from your base. That means you need to have....
1- very solid layout
2- active BK and AQ on defending
3- CC troops
4- traps and skel traps

Having less than one of the above will result in your base getting pummeled for an easy 1*.

So how do I defend?
Well first you need to save your CC troops and heroes active for DEFEND instead of ATTACK. You can use this method anywhere from Crystal League all the way to Master l. You can use this method if you don't have much time throughout the day to raid for trophies, so leave your base on defend. BUT....DON'T LEAVE YOUR BASE UNATTENDED.

Huh, what that means?
Imagine this scenario. Up in those league, your base will be RAIDED almost instantly after you go offline. Why? Because 1* isn't very difficult to earn even on the strongest base, yours included.

But I have lego walls!
Zzzz...ever heard of jump spells? Plus, air raids don't even care about your friggin walls. Walls are overrated at most. And barch doesn't even need to break your walls. Archer only need to snipe past the outer walls and be done with your base before you realize anything.

Now lets just say you wanna go offline. You got your cc troops filled, all your traps secured and both your heroes are alert. Then you go OFFLINE.
The first raider that visits your base tried his luck......and failed. Easy 24 trophies for you. But, you didn't earn any shield!
Why?
Because he only manage to destroy 33% of your base.
And that is bad because.....
Because you dimwit, now your base is exposed to a SECOND raid, but now your CC troops is empty, your traps are sprung and both your heroes are sleeping!

Hence, why you need to be alert and re-login and check if you've been attacked. And if you do, check to see that your CC troops are refilled, traps re-secured and heroes wide awake.

A few tips to remember...
- use your resources to lure unsuspecting raiders. Most raiders up in the league are poor. They climbed up the league with their most expensive troops and forget that they're not rich enough to gem their resources. So the minute they stumbled upon a base with fat gold/elixir/de, they'll take the risk of raiding that base and ignore the points I mentioned about choosing the perfect base to raid.
- of course, you need to be willing to part with your resources in return for trophies. I lose 1.2m gold and eli in just 20 minutes (4 def raid), but in return I earn a good 80 trophies. That is equivalent to about 8 raids I need win.
- its a boring method, because you don't have to do anything, only be on your toes when going offline and making sure your heroes are awake.
- since you don't earn anything from winning defensively, your resources will deplete in the long run. So while defensive method is a viable method of earning trophies, it shouldn't be the only option. Vary them between your winning raid 1* and defending your base.
- don't expect your base to 100% win from defending. There's a lot of good raiders out there. So probably out of 8 defence, 6 will earn 1* while the other two will give you trophies. If you lose more than you earn, chances are your layout and defending needs better improvisation. BTW, this is my layout...



4. WHAT ELSE?

Haha, ok so actually there's still a lot to tell, but I'm having a hard time to arrange them all in a proper order. So I'll just leave these infos into simple point form. I'll try to edit and improve the rest in the future.

- Be online constantly.
Oh boy, the worst requirement EVER! But yes, you lose trophies from getting attacked, so how do you prevent yourself from getting raided? NEVER BE OFFLINE
Easier said than done! Haha, but yea....its up to you to decide what time in your day you wanna sacrifice to the CoC gods. Its the school holiday, so I have that luxury to spend 12 hours straight a day raiding and earning trophies. As long as you earn trophies more than you lose, how soon you can reach Champion League is entirely up to you.

- Active donation is a MUST!
CC troops is compulsory, be it at defending or attacking a base. Even as a maxed TH10, 240 troop space sometimes isn't enough to take out a strong base. If you're seriously going for Champion, do inform your clanmates that you require constant troops in your CC. Don't be ashamed or embarrassed to ask. If you are, you're simply putting yourself in a harder position. If your clan isn't giving you enough clan troops, consider moving to a more active clan, one that donate a lot of high level troops at a constant level.
OR if you have a dupe base, you can donate to yourself at your own time. Why ask for others when you have yourself right? haha....well, its up to you guys.

- Champion league requires COMMITMENT
If you're playing casual CoC, don't force yourself doing something you can't or refuse to commit. Its just sad when someone is complaining about how Champion's league are for cheaters and nerds when you're not even trying at all to do your best. Yes, everyone has life, family, career, pets, girlfriends to take care of. So no one is forcing you to do this, but if you seriously wanna reach the Champion's League, then get ready to be shunned by your family, kicked out of job by your boss, hated by your girlfriend, despised by your cat, and disowned by your own mother. GAMERZ for LAIF!!

- Lastly, have fun and bask in the glory once you reach the top.
Otherwise, what's the point of living? amirite?


p/s: please don't take my points too seriously. Some of them are just banters and jokes.

This post has been edited by funnyTONE: Dec 3 2014, 02:02 PM

All hail to our Champs League Funnyboss

My Sifu

Congrats being a Champion...

And Great article

Haha, thx!
I couldn't do it without my dear clanmates.
What are you waiting for? Quickly go TH10 already! The sooner the better while you still have the motivation. After a while, you'll be bored of raiding too long for your lego walls mang.

Bro, you're definitely going to Champion soon right?
When you do, call me up and we'll go again together. Its a lonely road up here. Much more fun with a friend.

Hounds are not useless. Have u tried them?

To be fair, I've been raided by two of them that took 2* from my base.
Yes, they aren't useless, but if your priority is sustainability, then its always possible to BaM without Lava Hound, just as its easier to include Giants replacing a few Barbarians in a Barch raid.
For me, Lava Hound guarantees that your raid has better survivability to break the core and go for TH. But if your general objective of raiding is to earn 50% destruction, then your BaM can do without Lava Hound. Do consider that its costly to train them and takes a while longer to queue them up alongside your Minion.
But yes, Lava Hound is a solid troops to combo with your BaM.

Hounds are meant for three starring Th10. LavaLoon or GolemLavaLoon Is way stronger than gowipe.

I didn't pick hound for sustainability. If i'm being cheap, i'll use Balloonion without spells and just trying to get 50% without taking TH.

but yeah, seems like u're a Barch player. The new update to Archer Towers gonna make Barching tougher.

This post has been edited by 2890: Dec 10 2014, 05:24 AM

What you're saying isn't wrong at all, but lest you forget, this topic is meant for pushing trophies up to Champion League.
As I mentioned in my first post, unless you're a gemmer, GowIpe or BaMHound will seriously put a dent in your progress as well as on your resources.
I've used both Barch and the occasional BaM along the way, and generally speaking, BaM has a slightly higher damage output compared to Barch. Only reason why I prefer Barching is for its super cheap cost (yes, I'm cheap) and relatively fast time to cool spells and train troops. Also, I was trying to see if it was even feasible to farm in Master and Champion league compared to Gold. Well surely enough, I can see it being possible.
Strategy-wise, both style of raiding requires you to constantly scan your options and choose the best layout that suit your troops.
As for 3-starring TH10 bases, apart from the BaMHound, GowipeHog also a good strategy of late.

Yea, the new update probably going to sux hard for barchers, but if the rumours about Lvl 7 Giants is true, then including them in the troops should circumvent the archer tower new aspd.

CC full of minions or wizards and a rage will take out any level queen on the outside

IMO barch can bring you to champs, but not far into champs. with balloonion you can be more flexible with your targets

Dunno about GoWiPe but i pushed to champs when i was a th9 and that time only choice was Ballonion. The trick is to pick bases like what you said but try not to use spells if possible. I understand resource will be a problem if every attack use 5 spells. But yeah, don't have to be a gemmer if u wanna push to champs using loons and minions only.

I couldn't agree more.
Though I went quite far into Master league with just Archer and Barbarians, somewhere along the way I decided to add in two witches. Further up I decided replacing some barch with a few giants would be more effective than pure barch. I wouldn't say barching wont get you far into Cahmpion's league because personally the real challenge comes not from your troops quality, but also on other issues like your luxury of time and patience. I bet you if you're willing to hit NEXT without stop, you're bound to find a TH outside the walls. Its obviously not fruitful for TH10 to do so much NEXTing, but for TH7, that is how they do it. Check out the clan Savage Seven. All champion leaguers made up of TH7 bases.

Yes, your second sentence is what makes any raid style feasible to go up the Champion league. I hope I'm not trying to disregard your unique method, its just that I still lack that experience of using BaM for trophy pushing. True enough, before SC introduced level 7 barbarians and archers, Barching could probably go up to Master lll before they fail misereably. I'll be going back to Champion league again with my friends someday. Maybe I'll use BaM for that.

Two of my fellow clanmates and myself made it to champions league - it was a tough journey especially the last 100 throphies before champions.

Three of us made it with go wipe or gowiwi atk

we made it to the top 200 and one of my fellow clanmate is currently in the top 100

anyway anyone wanna join my clan - we are only taking in strong th9

This post has been edited by JasonJenn: Dec 11 2014, 04:26 PM


Attached thumbnail(s)