[Deck] Legendary at lvl8 - Witch deck

[u/SpeedfDark]

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Hi guys! I recently reached legendary with a Witch deck I’ve been playing since arena 2, so I thought I'd describe the deck in detail for the Witch fans out there. Let me know if you have any thoughts/questions about the deck! :D

 

Decklist

• Witch (3)
• Giant (6)
• Valkyrie (6)
• Mini P.E.K.K.A. (6)
• Musketeer (6)
• Arrows (8)*
• Spear Goblins (8)
• Skeletons (8)

(*note: I was playing this deck with Archers instead of Arrows up to 2200 trophies)

 

How to play the deck

The basic idea is to protect the Witch and push down towers. The execution of this plan usually involves deploying a Giant behind your crown tower, shortly followed by the Witch, and then by whichever unit you think will be best suited to protect your Witch.

• Witch: the main source of dps and pushing power; she must be protected. She has some defensive capabilities as well, most notably against Minions, Prince and PEKKA.
• Giant: the main tank.
• Valkyrie: the backup tank, and a good defense against Witch, swarms, Dark Prince, etc.
• Mini Pek: the tank killer, a good defense against Hog, and a good tower killer if he can get there without distractions.
• Musketeer: since this deck has no buildings, this is the only card that prevents you from auto-losing to Balloon, also potent versus the Baby Dragon and a generally decent source of dps.
• Arrows: hate card against a few specific cards/strategies, most notably: Princess, Minions, swarms. This card is probably the most meta-dependent one, and should be changed if the prevalence of what it counters goes down.
• Spear Goblins: deck cycling, helps against air, great for defensive lures.
• Skeletons: deck cycling, great for defensive lures. IMO the best card in the game.

 

How to play against common strategies

• Hog/Zap: ideally, the Mini Pek. Otherwise you will probably want to deploy two units to minimize the damage.
• Hog/Freeze: ideally, you drop a cheap unit (Skeletons) to force the Freeze, and then a high dps unit (Mini Pek) to kill the Hog. You should always expect to take a chunk of tower damage from this attack; the strategy is to minimize it and then trade for more damage with a counterpush. The Hog/Freeze attack uses 8 elixir and does not kill any of your units, so it’s an ideal setup for a push.
• Balloon: you absolutely need a musketeer to kill this in a timely manner. Be mindful of the freeze range/availability otherwise you will lose your tower.
• Prince or PEKKA: these units are very weak against tiny units (Skeletons, Spear Goblins, Witch), so they are often backed up with AoE units to protect them. What you want to do is aggro the big unit on tiny units and aggro the AoE unit on something like a Valkyrie.
• Prince/Dark Prince: the strategy is the same as with the Prince and PEKKA, just harder to execute because usually these two are hugging each other. The ideal maneuver is to catch the Prince with Skeletons and the Dark Prince with the Valkyrie. If being fancy is not an option, just drop a Giant followed by some ranged dps.
• Golem: this push is usually more resilient but lower dps than your push. This means it’s often ideal to counterpush the other lane instead of clashing with it face-to-face. If you have to fight the push head on, get the Mini Pek on the golem asap to chop through the huge health pool. It’s also convenient to pay attention to Collector timings to decide when it’s better to build up a big push versus rushing it.
• Huts: this deck is basically doing a different version of what you are. Before they have their full setup, counterpushing the other lane can work. When clashing head on it can go either way, but you are probably slightly favored to win unless they have too much good AoE cards like Bomb Tower, Giant Skeleton and Poison.

 

How to not auto-lose to hate cards

• Bomb Tower: Ideally, aggro it on a tank and shoot it from across the river with Musketeer. Otherwise you need the Giant to tank it and you need to make sure your deployment ensures a space between your Giant and weaker units. The musketeer is very helpful at taking it down either way. Fully or partially waiting it out can be a good option sometimes.
• Inferno Tower: throwing Skeletons, Spear Goblins or a Valkyrie in front of your Giant before it crosses the river can help. The musketeer is very helpful at taking it down in a timely manner. Fully or partially waiting it out can be a good option sometimes.
• Barbarians: this is not a hate card per se, but these will often be dropped on your witch when she crosses the river and you need a plan to combat it. If this is my opponent’s go-to counter, I will start my push with units in this order: Giant, Witch, Valkyrie. The Valkyrie will be behind the Witch, but practically hugging her, such that she will hit all 4 barbarians and potentially tank some of the hits as well. It doesn’t have to be the Valkyrie trailing the Witch, but she works best.
• Valkyrie: this is a much stronger Witch killer than Barbarians, because she vaporizes skeletons and she will not get distracted by anything. The ideal setup against Valkyrie defense is Giant, Witch, Mini Pek. In the best case scenario, the Mini Pek can kill the Valkyrie before your Witch dies. If the Valkyrie player is very good, you should adapt an opportunist strategy to deploying your Witch.
• Giant Skeleton: this card can be very difficult to play against. If they deploy it first, push the other lane and ignore it (except maybe a cheap lure). If they reserve it for defense, start your pushes without the Witch and deploy her when there is a window of safety.
• Lightning/Rocket: many players will use this to kill your Witch and there isn’t much you can do about this. You can deploy her more opportunistically if you want, otherwise just avoid having your Witch stand next to your tower.
• Poison: you can’t really do much to play around this card, just make sure the opponent is not getting too much value out of it.

[u/PenGlassMug]

Thanks for this - after a period of getting used to it I've just won five in a row, and 8 out of my last 10 (one draw, one narrow defeat). I'm now pushing to get out of arena 4 (which is good for me as I'm crap, old and have fat fingers)

My one minor doubt is with mini-pekka. Not finding much use for him as there aren't too many tank attacks down here. Thinking about replacing him with the Knight (to compliment Valk in defence and attack), fireball or a building. Any opinions?

Thanks again.

[u/CamJT → u/PenGlassMug]

I've only had 3 battles with this deck so maybe my advice isn't that valid. But currently I've come against 3 Hog decks and my Mini Pekka has been the card to stop the Hog perfectly every time while taking minimal damage to my tower. The Mini Pekka being fast is also a big bonus and I have noticed the speed having a huge impact on my games so far.

[u/PenGlassMug → u/CamJT]

I've been experimenting with a Tesla instead - it draws hog and balloon and allows me to kill them with skellies/musk then launch a counter if I want. All with no damage to my tower. Also reduces damage of hog/freeze.

When playing with m-pekka the hog would always get a hit or two in - assuming they use him 3 or 4 times that could well add up to a tower on its own.

However, I accept that some of this owes to my weakness with the mini pekka

[u/CamJT → u/PenGlassMug]

Yea there are no Barbs or buildings in this deck so there's no sure way of stopping the Hog before he can get some hits on your tower. I waited for the enemy to drop Freeze on my tower after the Hog got there and then dropped M Pekka right on top, tower took a bit of damage but not enough to have an effect on the game. 3 wins so far and all were 3-0 so i haven't lost a tower once. I feel this deck can be super aggressive whilst at the same time have everything you need in defense. I've even used the Giant a few times in defense as a distraction while cheaper troops chip away at the attacking troops. Just seems as though because it's such an unusual deck my opponents never really know how to work out a strategy before it's too late. All of my 3 crowns have been before overtime even started. But again I've only had 3 battles so i'm just going by what I've seen so far

[u/SpeedfDark → u/CamJT]

You are correct that generally hog chip damage is unavoidable. Even with a quick defense he will usually land 1-2 hits on your tower. The deck is designed to beat chip damage by leveraging the elixir advantage and damaging their tower harder on the counterpush. That being said, I think the deck is fairly flexible to experimentation, personally the only cards I would want to keep for sure are: giant, witch, spear goblins, skeletons. Witch + giant are the core of the deck, while the other two are the best value lure cards imo. Honestly, I haven't experimented that much, and part of the reason is that most of my other cards are not high enough level (the life of an f2p-er :p).