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FIG is back…as usual. Now, as a heavy duty miner user, I thought I would write up a guide talking about this card that I absolutely love! Some quick knowledge, I got miner from a giant chest I won in battle in arena 7. I started using miner in all my ladder decks for the past 5 months. I have gotten to Frozen Peak, Legendary Arena, and broke 4000 trophies with miner decks!
Along the way, I have also have read guides on Reddit and CRA and watched youtube videos on the miner to help me understand it better so that I could master the legendary and climb up trophies more easily with this card.
Now, I wanna share my experience with the miner and what I have learned about the miner with you in this in-depth guide. This guide will cover both tips for players who are new to the miner and will also provide some information for more advanced players as well. If you find the miner a pesky troop to deal with, I will also talk about how to counter the card. Orange juice made a video on using and countering the miner a while ago which I will link at the end of the guide.
Table of Contents
- Miner Statistics
- Main Purpose of the Miner
- Why the Miner is such a great Card/Legendary
- Legendaries that Compliment the Miner well
- How to NOT use the Miner
- Basics/Fundamentals to using the Miner
- The psychological aspect of the Miner
- How the Miner fits into different Archetypes
- Miner: Tournament vs Ladder
- Common Offensive Strategies with the Miner
- Miner's Defensive Capabilities; When to use the Miner of Defense
- Miner Placement: Placement on tower and Placement on Elixir Pump
- How to Counter the Miner: Common counters and understanding what to counter in a Miner push and When to Counter the Miner
- The Miner Throughout the meta
- Miner Deck examples
- My Miner Decks
Miner Statistics
Click
here for the daily card discussion of the Miner
The stats of a lvl 1 (tourney standard) miner is:
hitpoints: 1000HP
damage: 160
dps: 133
Crown tower damage: 64
Main Purpose of the Miner
The miner serves as a mini tank. We probably all know the miner does reduced damage to crown towers, so using it as a damage dealer isn't the best of options. The miner is mainly used to distract for high dps dealing units that are fast and can quickly shred a tower if left ignored. In some cases, miner will be used as a chip damage dealer, but with its little crown tower damage, it isn't the best of moves.
In Short: Miner is MAINLY (with exceptions) used as a mini tank for high dps units.
WHAT MAKES THE MINER SUCH A GREAT CARD/LEGENDARY?
Reasons why miner is so great
- Gets 99% guaranteed chip damage
- Can be put into many different archetypes
- ATM a very balanced legendary card, so no expected nerfs or buffs anytime soon!
- Can really be deadly when tanking for high dps troops because many defenses rely on the tower helping out, which won't be available if it's already locked on the miner
- In most cases, provides lots of fast gameplay
- Works great in both ladder decks and tournament decks.
Legendaries that Compliment the Miner well
A lot of miner decks are legendary heavy (though one of my main ladder decks only uses the miner as a legendary) so I decided to make a list of legendary cards that work well with miner going from best on the top and up to the worst at the bottom of the list. Also, check out the guide on buying legendaries and the best legendary card
here:
- Princess
- The Log
- Lava Hound
- Graveyard
- Lumberjack
- Ice Wizard
- Inferno Dragon
- Electro Wizard
- Sparky
How to NOT use the Miner
- Using the miner as a main defensive tool
- Using the miner as a lone damage dealer
- Using the miner as a tank killer
- Using the miner on hard hitting units like mini pekka, lumberjack, or elite barbarians
- Placing miner on the side of the tower that is closer to the king tower everytime (This'll cause both towers to target it)
- Trying to take out the king tower with miner (unless you're trolling)
- Using miner on huts IF you have better answers to them
- Using miner to tank for low threat cards such as 1 elixir skeletons or ice golem
Basics/Fundamentals of the Miner
- The miner costs 3 elixir
- He can be placed anywhere in the arena
- The miner acts as a mini tank
- The miner does 512 damage to a tower at tourney standards, 19 damage more than a tourney standard rocket
- Always focus first on what the miner is tanking for, then if possible, counter the miner
- The miner is a single target melee troop, so it is weak to swarm units.
- Miner is usually placed to the side of the tower far from the king tower or at the back of the tower.
- Only use miner on defense in case of emergency
- Miner works great with high dps swarms on offense
The Psychological Aspect of the Miner
Using and facing the miner is like a mind game at times. You have to guess where the opponent will play the miner, how the miner user will place it himself, miner on elixir pumps, and even sending a prediction miner to take out a troop that would counter what the miner is tanking for (e.g. miner minions combo, if the opponent knows the opponent will use princess to counter the minions, he/she can send the miner to the spot where the opponent most likely will play the princess)
Conclusion: Miner placement is the main psychological aspect of the miner How the Miner fits into Different Deck Archetypes
The miner is most commonly found in chip cycle decks. However, it is pretty common in three musketeer decks, control decks, hog decks, and spell bait decks too. Here is a list of every archetype the miner fits into
Chip/Fast Cycle: The most common one. Here, miner acts as a mini tank for constant small pushes that slowly chip away the tower.
Control Decks: Here the miner, combined with a spell in alot of cases (poison, lightning, rocket) does act as the main damage dealer, it can also act as a mini tank for the troops you used to defend with (Remember: Control decks are really defensive)
Beatdown: Here, you can use the miner in three ways
- to act as a chip damage dealer as the tank protects the miner+other support troops
- to act as a mini tank for small chip pushes when not trying to snowball your opponent
- For split lane pressuring (attacking both lanes to pressure your opponent to choose to defend which one)
Three Muskies cycle: To act as a tank/mini tank for one side of the split muskies (if you split them)
Spell Bait: Acts as a mini tank for spellable swarm units that can do massive damage (e.g. gob barrel, minion horde, skeleton army), especially if the counter(s) to these troops are baited out.
Miner Tournament/Challenges vs Ladder
Overall, the miner proves to better in tournaments/challenges due to the fact that the miner's slow chip damage proves much useful in tournaments/challenges with the total 6 minute length rather than the 4 minute length in ladder. However, miner is great in both situations as miner isn't a card that relies much on levelling and the miner isn't usually used as a damage dealer and can also provide fast paced gameplay, great for ladder!
Common Offensive Strategies with the Miner
The offensive playstyle of the miner is tanking for a high dps troop while dealing some chip damage from the miner at the sametime. Using the miner on offense varies based on the deck archetype you’re using him in.
In control, you wanna play very defensively then counterpush from the defense or slowly chip out the tower with a miner combo’d by a spell (lightning, rocket, or poison)
In beatdown, you wanna use the miner for chip while tank protects it and any other support cards (e.g. musketeer, wizard, witch, etc.).
In spell bait it acts as a mini tank for spellable units, but the opponent baited out the counter spell on another unit
In three musketeers, it tanks for the musketeer(s) on one lane while the other lane is usually protected with another mini tank/tank (knight, ice golem, giant, etc.)
The miner has many offensive capabilities which all depend on the archetype of the miner deck, whether it is control, beatdown, or more! However, the most common miner decks are the tradition miner cycle as many cards in those decks combo the miner well. So what are those cards? Here they are:
-Fire spirits
-Goblins
-Spear Goblins
-Minions
-Minion Horde
-Musketeer
-Mini Pekka
-Elite Barbarians
-Hog Rider
-Three Musketeers
-Goblin Barrel
-Lumberjack
These are the more common combos with miner, there are some other very deadly ones here.
-Ice Wizard
-Archers
-Electro Wizard
-Prince (Including dark)
-Skeleton Army
-Guards
-Ice spirit
Almost any damage dealing unit can pose a threat when a miner is tanking for it. These are just the more common ones you see on a routinely basis. Cards such as wizard, witch, bomber, and barbarians are examples of uncommon cards in miner decks but work great when a miner is tanking for them
Miner's Defensive Capabilities: When to use the Miner on Defense
Because the miner can be placed anywhere in the arena, it isn't the best strategy to consistently use him on defense if you want to use the card to its fullest potential. However, in a majority of situations, it is always best to defend with whatever you have. If they have a push coming your way and you've got nothing for defense except a miner. NEVER hesitate to use it. A defensive miner is considered bad, however I would rather you defend and defend from some or no damage at all rather than take a bunch of damage that could very easily cost you the game.
Remember The best offense is a good defense.
On defense, you wouldn't really wanna use it on a tank unless you have no other choice. The best interactions with a miner on defense is versus ranged support units such as witch, musketeer, wizard, bomber, etc. The miner can take these troops out on its own. Another reason this is great is because if you have a tank push coming your way, and you have nothing for the support troops, a good defense is a tank killer for the tank then using the miner to kill/hold off the support troop(s).
A miner can also quite significantly reduce damage from a hog rider if you have no other defensive options. A lone hog rider can almost take out a tower at tourney standards, dealing 264 damage for 9 total shots before it dies off, dealing 2376 damage to the tower. A miner reduces that to 3 shots, or 792 damage total. So don't hesitate to miner a hog if there is no other option.
Another quick defense tip with miner: For a NEGATIVE elixir trade, a miner+fireball can wipe out lone elite barbarians.
Miner Placement Strategy: Both Miner on Tower and Miner on Elixir Pump
Miner placement is a big part of playing the miner and the main psychological aspect of the miner. Look at
this document for miner placement.
A quick sum up, when minering a tower, you most usually would wanna place it to the outer side of the tower or at the back of the tower. Placing the miner on the inner side of the tower results in causing the other tower to target it, reducing the damage of the miner by half. You wanna once in a while change up miner placements to trick your opponent. Put the miner in unusual spots when in need of necessary chip damage.
How to Counter the Miner: Common Counters and Understanding what to Counter in and when to Counter a Miner/Miner Push
The Miner at tournament standards gets 8 shots on the tower. Therefore, at tournament standards, a miner does 8*64 damage to the tower, or 512 damage in total. As you can see, the miner left alone does more damage than a tourney standard rocket so letting it alone everytime isn't the best of ideas. However, the miner can be occasionally left alone but not always (especially when your tower is in critical hp)
A miner usually isn't sent alone. The miner's main role is to act as a mini tank. Therefore, it will probably be tanking for some sort of high dps troop. Those troops tend to be the real threat in a miner push. In almost every situation where the opponent sends a miner push, you will want to first defend whatever the miner is tanking for, then attack the miner if you can maintain an elixir advantage or can't afford the chip damage. Or else leave it.
Common counters and counters that offer the most value against the miner are low cost swarm units like guards, goblins, skeleton army, and the soon-to-come goblin gang. The next best counters are glass cannons such as knight, mini pekka, lumberjack, elite barbarians, etc. If you have no choice, you can use fairly expensive heavy damage dealing units such as barbarians or minion horde to counter the miner. If you have sights on a strong counterpush, you cards that can compliment the counterpush well when defending a miner. If you're looking to mitigate some damage from the miner with cheap troops, minions, skeletons, ice spirit, and fire spirits all do well.
Predicting miner placement is a big key. You will want to try to figure out where your opponent will place the miner. Skilled miner players will play the miner in different locations, making predicting it tough. If you can't afford any chip damage from the miner, you will want to try finding a pattern in your opponents miner placement if possible. If your opponent plays miner in the same spot over and over, you should know where to put your troop to counter it next time he/she sends a miner.
The Miner throughout the Meta
The miner, when it first came out wasn't a very good card to many people. Only skilled players noticed the potential in the miner (most notable being chief pat's really old video on miner mirror=broken). After the buff, the miner gained some decent respect. You saw Royale Giant Miner, Hog Miner, Miner Cycle, Classical Payfecta, and Lava-Miner.
After miner started being respected more. You constantly saw the very legendary heavy, annoying payfecta being used everywhere from legendary arena up and in tournaments 24/7!
Then the miner started to come in variations of miner cycle decks, including hog miner decks. You would also commonly face the annoying miner royal giant combo.
When giant poison started being introduced into the meta during and after the Shanghai Tournament. A few earlier giant poison decks saw miner implemented into them.
Then Lava Miner came into action, with the miner's main role being to tank for the lava pups that pop once the lava hound dies.
And after the skeleton army buff, zap bait became heavy and many zap bait decks included the miner.
And I have no idea when miner three musketeers was introduced, but it is a good deck type and has been used for a while now.
I am giving you this info just to help you get an idea of how the miner has been played and the strategies used around it based on popular decks consisting of the miner. Many of these decks still work well and even if they don't, it shows how the miner is used in the competitive deck scenery.
Miner Deck Examples
All of these decks are from this list (arena 10):
http://statsroyale.com/top/decks/ladder
1)Miner, Princess, The log, Bowler, Goblin Barrel, Furnace, Skeleton Army, Minion Horde
2)Miner, Princess, The log, Inferno Tower, Skeleton Army, Minion Horde, Goblin Barrel, Zap/Fireball
3)Miner, Princess, The Log, Furnace, Inferno Tower, Minion Horde, Skeleton Army, Goblin Barrel
4)Lava Hound, Miner, Minions, Skeleton Army, Mega Minion, Tombstone, Fireball, Zap
My Miner Decks
I run two decks, both I use on ladder for trophy pushing and one I use in tournaments/challenges too.
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Miner, Minion Horde, Skeleton Army, Fireball, The log, Princess, Inferno Tower, Ice Spirit (good for both ladder and tournaments/challenges)
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Miner, Elixir Pump, Elite Barbarians, Archers, Ice Golem, Fireball, Zap, Mega Minion (I use on ladder only)
Check out a guide by yours truly on the second deck
here!:
I hope this guide has greatly helped you with understanding how to play and counter the miner! (Tho I'm pretty sure most of you stopped after the first paragraph, lol I would too). The miner though truly is a great card! If you're saving up for a legendary in shop, then consider buying the miner! See you in the arena!
Here is u/yyarn video on the miner
Credit to:
FIGGY0023
