@@drippingplatinum8715 I play hog eq with mighty miner, a card you will never have because you’re stuck at 5k with your ebarbs wizard mega knight mirror
Dude I’ve been inactive for a couple of months, hopped on a bit ago and I was so surprised LMFAOOO I sent a baby dragon and I watched as it not only was now unable to attack it, but it no longer even dropped its shitty two bats after dying, I was so shocked
The reason it's so unbelievably annoying to play against 2.6 is that sometimes, if the opponent is not braindead, your attack simply cannot touch the tower. With some decks, your only hope at SMELLING the enemy tower is just to HOPE AND PRAY the opponent makes a serious blunder, which is obviously not in your control. It just feels like you can't do anything, because the deck's defense is so brutally good. 80% of the deck is just defense, with the occasional hog rider or spell cycling.
I'd say atleast 20% of all decks cant touch the tower (except for spells) if hog 2.6 player plays perfectly, I'm part of that 20% and I never won against hog 2.6 unless they made a mistake
I started out playing mega knight hog and eventually switched to logbait because you can actually outplay counters. Same goes for any cycle deck really.
Hog chip damage is definitely the worst part about this deck. In order to prevent the hog from doing any damage, you usually need a negative elixir trade. And you likely won't have the same cards for the next hog, because he's already halfway to the next one. So unless you have a cycling deck of your own or have a deck built to handle this, its just going to be a pain.
@@Sauce_Senseibefore your push gets over the bridge there's already a cannon and a musketeer shooting them down lol. Then you look at the other side, another Hog is already wacking your princess tower
When I played CR, Hog 2.6 was always annoying, but it felt like I was getting outplayed. Ice Bow was the deck that really pissed me off. Eventually I learned the matchup pretty well, and I could play around it with my deck, but every time someone spammed the laughing emote at me while dropping Tesla and X-Bow at the bridge made my blood boil.
I hate playing against 2.6 Hog Cycle, but I have mad respect for Hog Cycle players as a single misplaced card can mean a push-defense-fall and thus, not being able to save the match
On contrary. 2.6 players can make the most absurd mistakes and still just defend everything with musketeer and cycle cards. Its also hard to make mistakes with it since you always defend and attack with the same cards
@@caralho5237that is not true at all. I can tell you don’t play 2.6. Placing the wrong card on accident or accidentally placing your cannon/ice golem 1 TILE further to the side usually spells the end of the game
@@atomiumjae yeah true, but there are so many different variations and seeing the history of how all the different variations came to be and why could be really cool
@@atomiumjaer wrong there are many other good logbait players that could survive on top ladder. y aren't even playing too ladder don't say that☠️. fake bana probably better than riley at log bait
One of my biggest problems with this deck is literally just how popular it is. It isn’t as bad right now, but a few months ago I would be going up against a hog2.6 player like every other game. I have screenshots of my battle log after I had faced 4 hog 2.6 players in a row on ladder. Some games I won, some games I lost - my problem isn’t really the deck itself, it’s just that it’s so common to see and really takes a lot of the fun out of the game. With billions of possible decks people could make that I could play against, why on earth do I keep seeing the same one over and over again?
I think its the cannon for me. Imo buildings make for pretty stagnant and annoying matches, especially if you have a beatdown deck. Its especially true considering how much of a no-brainer choice cannon is, considering how much you can do with it for so little elixir
Back in 2017 when skeletonarmy cost 5 and arena 8 was just released, this deck dominated. Stalling really is the universally hated playstyle no matter where you go.
Fun fact the name of the fourth skeleton was Ledoom and since Ledoom got removed from skeleton card Ledoom joined the skeleton army buffing the skeleton army from 14x to 15x a little bit
Yeah there’s so much other Clash Royale TH-cam channels that try to have that oversaturated humor that every other CR TH-camr has but one of the only channels that can pull that off is SolarFury
My least favourite thing about 2.6 is that they'll defend my entire push with no matter what it is with 0 damage and get a counter push going, and when you think something might actually connect they'll pull 4 elixir out of their ass and fireball all your hope away. But my least, least favorite thing is when you wait for their counter to get out of cycle, push right at that instant, and then they just spam random stuff down untill they get back their counter in like 4 seconds aaaand you get fireball cycled and lose the game.
There are 2 ways to beat 2.6 with a beatdown: First one is a strong and snowbally push in double or triple elixir where you can place cards faster than 2.6 can kill them. Mainly good for elixir golem decks and some golem decks with lightining and tornado to kill the muskteer. 2.6 has very little dps so if you have a lot of tanky cards it just cant keep up against your elixir generation. Second one is a fast push. Giant double prince with zap for skeletons style. Earthquake is also incredibly good, since its a great counter to cannon. You want to get so close to the tower that 2.6 doesnt have space to kite.
@@alex2005z here is the issue with your suggestion then i literally have to keep in mind that my opponent will use 2.6 hog cycle and i am making counter for it. Most of the people who like to make an overall working deck won't be able to beat hog cycle. Personally what i do is I wait as much as possible and try to pressure them to make some mistakes from their part which I capitalize. But if they are experienced and play perfectly then I got no chance.
One thing that wasn't mentioned and I think its important to also know is that 2.6 does NOT work the second you have just 1 card that's lower lvl than the opponent. every single interaction HAS to be perfect for the deck to win all the way to the top. for example, ice golem and ice spirit have to kill skeletons and bats, if they don't.. you lose
THATS WHAT MOST PEOPLE SEEM TO FORGET. Hog 2.6 requires a complete even matchup. Just a single level advantage messes up key card interactions that’ll make you more likely to lose. I know I’ve lost a match when my musketeer can’t even 1 shot goblins.
@@moriartyarchive4033 but, 2.6 does not have epic cards,the only card that is hard to level is log. It is extremely easy to max out how 2.6deck, so you don't need to worry about it most of the time
@@ДюсековИльяс IMO as a 2.6 player rares are the hardest to max out. I'm 50k gold off of max Log, but my hog and fireball are lvl 12&11 respectively, the lowest in my deck
Two 20+minutes videos in a row! And you put so much effort into every single video, for me you are for sure the most underrated CR content creator! Keep up the amazing work and I think you'll reach 100k subs in no time.
the main problem here is that you NEED to rely on the other player making a mistake. you can't outplay it, or outsmart it. you just have to hope they screw up in one way or another.
@@BigOllieSpin How is it wrong? Ok I guess if you have a way to guarantee a damage to the tower you could technically win. but even if my deck did have that, doing that while not loosing more damage to the hog is an actual nightmare.
I don't even play Clash Royale anymore but I'm always up to see some documentaries. It's a much needed channel in an era when everybody's just making content for the kids. Hope you won't end up like them. Though I just found your channel, I've already watched all of your videos and I can't wait for more. You're doing an amazing job, keep it up!
A video on the miner would be fun. We know what notoriously happens, but we can all collectively relive his fall into oblivion. Loving the uploads btw!
Yeah, I don't know the Miner's history and I still try to understand why a tip makes a joke about nerfing it. It feels like an average card to me, maybe there was a time when it was OP?
@@gianluco At its prime, the Miner dealt 40% of its normal damage to crown tower and had 6% more health than today, so cycling Miner alone was an actually viable win condition. And because its effectively a scuffed Knight that can be placed anywhere on the map, it was (and still is) the most versatile troop in the game. Update : the Nerf Miner meme became real lmao
Did he really get nerfed that bad though? Genuine question, it seems he isnt a win condition like he used to be but he is still an extremely powerful card to play. I feel that supercell wanted him to be a different take on support troops and they nailed that.
Miner poison is everywhere now. At this point,miner is so versitile that you can literally put anything in any decks. Also it's great when the card that supposed to be tank and not a win condition become what it used to.
Funny that you said that. Miner has always been one of the most consistent win condition regardless of the meta. I dont really know where you get that notion that the miner have fallen into oblivion. Case in point, during that time wherein the monk and phoenix are literally in almost every game, there were 2 decks that was in top 10 that did not use those cards. Both were miner decks.
Now that I think about it, it was a high-skill deck back then and now it's kind of a simple but powerful deck. All the more I still hate it but I sometimes do admire seeing a giant pushed stopped by a metal tube, walking bones, and a purple lady
@@harigopaladamus9481 have you tried and used it? thats my first thought about this deck when i hate it and never used it, then i try the deck and whoa, its a complete different experience, took me 3 days to understand it 3 weeks to get the win streak, 2 months ive been using this deck and yet my winning chance its still 50:50 if this deck are easy why people dont use it, i mean mega knight are easy and MK use rates are the high
@harigopaladamus9481 thats only true if you're facing one troop at a time (like one pekka or megaknight or bandit, etc). As soon as you play a real player, you realize that you wont always have the cards you need and that timing is important too. Plus, when multiple troops are coming, there often is no fixed placement for it.
I can already see you hitting 100k subs the amount of research and effort you put into these "documentary" style videos of clash royale is the type of content I have been seeking for a while now keep it up 👍
As autistic as MK players are, I find the fatso to require more skill than hog rapist. I also don't dislike the mk as much as the hog rapist, not only because it actually targets everything it can but because it's white.
i believe cannon was recently nerfed so that should help a bit, I honestly think 2.6 deck's weakness is just a strong beatdown. Their spam tactics is only effective against bridge spam but if you can delete the cannon fast enough (like with an earthquake), then getting through shouldn't be that hard. Also keep in mind that musketeer is basically their main damage source, if you can find a way to deal with that (like with a tornado or smth), you're good and they're screwed
I played with this deck just a few times, but really liked the idea that you have to place a lot of cards in one time so you have to focus a bit. Yeah it was annoying to get cycled, but I felt more disappointed when someone just placed like five cards (golem deck for example) and I didn't have cards for counter push and he three crown me. Also I don't blame 2.6 players (or log bait and x-bow), because as F2P player I know how hard it is to max a deck, this deck has a lot of common and rare cards and was "nerf proof" so I understand their choice. These type of decks were more stable in terms of balance changes and possible counter decks.
@@mercamiaI feel the same way, back when I used to play clash like a year ago, x-bow, and hog 2.6 were literally my best friends lmao. I personally didn't like the bridge spam decks that I'd face, so I liked the challenge of using cheap cycle decks to win matches against impatient players. And like you say being f2p makes these cycle decks very affordable to level up and push as a lot of opponents in what now is considered low arena to low mid ladder had a bunch of over leveled players. My all time high was beating some dude that was level 14 with MK EB bridge spam at level 10 with barely level 10 3.0 x-bow cards. I could tell he was just relying on the level advantage to win him the game easily so I had to lock in from the very start, and by 2x elixir he actually started to try because I was breaking through and got the damage lead on him. I ended up barely winning and it's the most satisfying win I've ever had playing 😂
Anyone with an Xbow or a hog has 0 respect from me. Normally my goal is to have fun but if I see someone playing with either card, my only hope is to destroy so badly that they want to rethink their lives and change deck
2:59 it should also be noted OG posion was insane offensively because it had 30% slow, unfortunately using spells on defense wasnt a concept back then.
i never thought of 2.6 as a no skill JUST SPAM THE HOG deck i tried it a few times and i was like "but oj has defended 50 mega nights and 100 night witches with a cannon and ice golem how come i lost🥹" and after that i started respecting the skill it takes to defend 20 elixir pushes with an ice golem and musketeer
I’ve been a 2.6 main the entire time i’ve played this game. It can be really frustrating playing with this deck because it’s so easy to mess up and lose instantly. There’s never a chance to 3 crown someone and comebacks are near impossible.
@@formlismy take on 2.6 is that playing against it makes it seem skilless, cuz you just see the opponent spamming cards and defending your pushes and it's frustating. On the other hand, playing it is pretty difficult, cuz if you mess up your cannon/musketeer placement once you have a high chance of losing, making it a high skill deck that's pretty hard to master
I remember when hog rider was first put in the game, it was the first card I ever used mirror on, and the combo was simple,you use hog rider, and then mirror a version directed at the other tower so the opponent had to choose what tower to defend. It usually was never good,but if you can get 1000 or more damage from one or 2 hog rider using 9 elixir,you were guaranteed to destroy a singular tower back then as long as you have spells to cycle. Do not use mirror, it’s a trap. Though it is funny as hell.
Ahhhh, good old times. I used a variant of this deck where skeletons were substituted for an ice wizard, and a few times I substituted fireball for valkyrie. This allowed me to deal with certain beatdown decks a little more easily. Ice wizard especially was devastating against the enemy tanks.
On a side note royal giant and sparkie were the reasons I raged quit and never played again. Hog rider always felt easy as long as you knew how to build a counter push or go all in other lane
You can best building easily with cycling 2 hogs, one at back of the king tower and second one at the bridge, but remember when you release hog at back of king tower, next card should be ice golem, ice spirit, musk and sks in your hand
As someone who played and still plays 2.9 Xbow I have respected how hard it can be to counter pushes with cycle decks. My main frustration with the game has always been upgrading cards, as it was what ended up getting me walled (especially with how important levels are for Log and Ice Golem).
2.6 is a great deck to learn how to play the gam efficiently. Problem comes when people don't apply what they learned and keep playing the exact same deck. Therefore i love draft, it may be rng mess but it really helps having the knowledge of how various interactions work
Very effective beginner deck. And if this was a lan game it'd probably be relatively useless. The problem comes when you get to mid ladder and ever low upper ladder. It's an easy deck to level up so they'll probably outlevel you. Hog has next to no spawn delay and little to no positive elixir counterplay without perfect placement. Which is a major issue when you introduce lag and get things like your card playing late and dead hogs doing damage. This deck wouldn't even be usable if hog had double the damage but double the spawn delay and hit speed. Which makes you feel like you're being scummed all game with nothing you can do. Combine this with the fast cycle in defence where even worse hog cycle players can just play enough cards to stop some decks it makes it a nightmare deck for the health of the game.
so its been around 3 years since I stopped playing Clash Royale but I found your channel and now I kinda want to come back lol and yes, there was a time when I also played 2.6, it was pretty good
i love how monk breaks this deck completely as a counter. just active the ability the second musketeer or cannon is on the field because it will always be value because hog 2.6 will always need to play more cards to defend a push. i can’t explain how many people have just straight up rage quit.
@@whatamidoing8266 Not really? I built a deck specifically to beat 2.6 decks so I don’t loose to them often. It’s simply the most unfun deck to battle against. Like all other rapid cycle decks only extra disgusting. Hog rider has the least amount of positive elixir counters in the game. A deck built around him is like cancer built by cancer for cancer.
OG Goblin barrel/princess bait was my main deck for years, such a fun and versatile deck if you knew how to play it properly. There was a lot of counterplay though, I would regularly run into double small spell decks, as well as good players knowing that my princess was the absolute cornerstone of my deck and killing it would severely gimp my ability to defend pushes
I used to play hog cycle 2.6. It takes skill, but holy jesus it’s not fun to play against it. Especially when you’re facing a player that actually knows how to play the deck.
As an experienced cycle player (mostly mortar but started off with hog), I can say that 2.6 taught me so much about the game, but there are way better cycle decks. 2.6 is still relevant bc of reputation and fun, but it’s actually super weak, having a bad matchup against almost every meta deck. And yes, it’s high skill bc it’s the deck that taught me about micro interactions, cycle fundamentals, and building placements.
Yet haters say this deck is OP lmao, not even Oyassu the best 2.6 hog player in the world can finish in top 50 ladder with it. It goes to show how many bad matchups this deck has in top ladder
@@sharjinalaviantik9688 Nope, the deck itself is fundamentally flawed. If you got 2 ways to deal with the hog, you win easily. If you can cycle as effectively as him, you win. One mistake is all he need to commit and you win.
The deck is not op, it's just annoying, played well it makes you sweat for 6 minutes straight to get a win. One mistake and you are lost. Xbow wasn't op either, it was very high skill, but they nerfed it nonetheless, actually killing it completely, due to people saying it was op. It wasn't, you just can't play the matchup because so different from any other deck. Hog 2.6 should be next, at least for consistency. No win condition has ever been as iconic as the hog rider, anyway the xbow was killed while the 2.6 is still found very often, even in 2v2s and special modes. It's annoying. I can't stand it, I've been playing since launch and I'm just tired of it, just like everyone else was frustrated facing the xbow, which got killed.
@@cinderburn2660 if you face a decently skilled player though, and if it's literally any different situation than you mentioned, it's just a frustrating matchup. Sometimes, when I face this kind of people, I just close the game and let them win. It's just frustrating, they suck away my desire to play the game.
I took the deck and altered it into a less offensive more balanced deck with a big Pekka, focused on chip damage and more defense, then executed an attack when the opponent made the slightest mistake or by building a strong offense after delaying a weaker defense. Worked so well I was able to climb several arenas in like 1-2 days consistently. Haven't played in like years tho BC to me it felt like the game changed too much.
I'm a little nostalgic seeing the thumbnail and early parts of the video. I haven't played in a few years, but I was highly skilled with hog cycle decks. I'm kind of happy to see people still use it
Awesome video! You should do a more in depth video about why it’s annoying/what each card specifically does etc, your documentary style would go great with topics like that and with all sorts of other decks. You should also leave some of the longer Reddit posts on screen to fully read but I understand it with the flow of the video
thank you . i used to be a semi pro player specialized at hog decks and it was my fav and i stopped playing the game have another channel giving tips about it . used to be playing when most of us got banned at top ladder but ladder these days became absurd and looking from another phone to snipe ur opponent's deck and elixir sucks no skill atm but i have to give u some credit for talking about us who makes solid def or offense vs hardest counters and slick moves lol . stay awesome man
@@yamoneteru Skills =/= Power Log Bait requires a medium level of skill but it's power is different because you can *customize/change up* cards in it. *2.6 is Just 0 Skill Spam* It's there to annoy/p!ss off opponents.
@@yamoneteru Reread My Last Comment. What part of *Skills =/= Power & 2.6 is Just No Skill Spam. It's there to annoy/p!ss off opponents* did you not understand?
also how someone can come back to a deck after 5 years and still use it. Shows how little skill it takes to run. Hard for current players to make their own deck and have to use a premade.
Such high quality love your videos please keep it up! Would love to see this as a serious for other decks like pekka bridge spam, log bait, 3.0 Xbox or maybe even splashward
As much as I hated this deck, I actually used 2.6 to counter it and was able to beat it with bridge spams and beat downs consistently. I can respect the defensive skill it takes to master this deck as well, and this is one of my main 3 decks now
honestly i would like to see history of once two really popular and similar decks, golem beatdown and lavaloon, it was fascinating to see how once really easy and op deck (golem) became so unpopular over the years while lava from a really skilled deck that tons of pros used went to a really easy to use deck. for me these decks are some of the most iconic decks of all of clash royale
On the flip side of the coin, cycle players with perfect micros (as in top ladder) can abuse the game mechanics to get unfair advantages which is annoying for beatdown players because it only comes down to when the cycle players makes a mistake which rarely happens at the top.
@@Meet_Your_Death If people play with far more risk and manage to play perfectly, shouldn't they be rewarded with greater reward? In the current build, if the beatdown player makes a mistake, they get some chip damage. If the cycle player makes a mistake, they get instantly destroyed. This means that making no mistakes as a beatdown player while exploiting the far greater window for failure of a cycle player gives the cycle player no chance to win, unless the beatdown player makes a massive mistake. Part of the skill of the game is creating more opportunities for mistakes to be made.
@brianlam5847 I was only referring to top ladder. At lower down cycle shouldn't really be a problem because one plays like Remieli or Nate. You can just go Gob giant sparky and half of the cycle players in mid ladder would surrender
As a six year vet and top ladder player (by that I mean top 1k) I fully agree with this video. There are some things I would like to add/clarify. Hog cycle at the top has the same win rate as any other deck, and that’s because it’s about the players, not the deck. One of the biggest reasons that it thrives is not because it is unskillful or broken, but it is simply very easy to learn. The placements are not too difficult and as you said, the sequences for playing them are the same almost every time. There is a much larger skill gap between lower and higher arenas for 2.6 than other decks, and it is why you won’t often see anyone playing it consistently at the top, because they’ve mastered the placements for hog decks that are objectively harder to play (I say this relatively speaking, as decks such as mortar hog and hog executioner typically do better there, but it really just depends on the current state of the game). The best way to put it is that hog 2.6 is simple. Many other decks are not. In top ladder, when you have the correct counter to hog (such as any deck including tornado and/or cannon), you will win the matchup a reliable percent of the time. The skill gap just isn’t there anymore. Another reason it does better in lower arenas is that skeletons, log, and ice spirit can be used Almost regardless of level. If you are having a particularly hard time playing against 2.6, try beating them at their own game. Play a cycle deck with cannon or tornado, and learn the optimal placements for them. If you are looking for a reliable win vs 2.6 I recommend this deck: Egiant-cannon-tornado-phoenix-barb barrel-lighting-golden knight-bomber. It is particularly strong right now, and unless large mistakes are made, you will not lose. Don’t ask how I know that, I definitely have never played it. Side Note: I do think it is funny you showed a clip of the egiant mirror cannon meta that lasted between spring to early summer of 2022. The deck consisted of mirroring egiant with golden knight (for three card cycle), which when the ability was used could surpass any defensive building. You could also play gk intermittently between egiant and mirroring the egiant, so you could defend pushes cheaply. Then if you were losing, as long as their tower had beneath 1300 hp you could rocket mirror rocket for the win. This was easily the most broken meta of all time and it lasted for several months. I believe the only thing that comes close is the early days of clash royale when royale giant could shoot the tower from the bridge, and ebarbs speed was “very fast.” Wish we could turn back time… Don’t go to my channel, I don’t actually post videos lol, feel free to correct anything you disagree with, and have a fantastic day.
I agreed with you, and i Say ( as a midladder prisoner) than miner control or deck with meganight are the top tier chioche to escaped t'ha hell. Miner control because of the High defense potenzial and meganight because he can counter Witch, wizard, ebarbs. Another thing Is the Fisher man Is Better than the tornado, i know ita harder to play, but It Is a solid defense card for 3 elixir than can counter a meganight, or various range card pretty easely. Hi i am italian
@@donkbonktj5773 Well I quit in January, but I believe at the time I last played it was the new ranked system. When I quit I had roughly 2600 medals I believe, and the maximum number of trophies was like 7500.
I only played the closed beta and some months after release, but I still remember how prevalent Hog Rider was in decks, it was basically the card that dealt damage to the towers, all offensives were made around it, and if anything else reached it was by sheer luck.
I have thought this since 2016, I genuinely think that there are some core issues with the hog rider. It doesn’t have a particular weakness, for example giant is slow, golem is expensive, giant skeleton is easy to distract, but hog rider isn’t really weak in any particular aspect. It targets buildings, it has decent health, it does good damage, it’s very fast, etc. Because of this it requires very specific cards to counter it without significant negative trades, and since it’s so popular every deck is required to have some sort of answer to a hog rider which reduces deck diversity. Even if you do have counters, most of the counters to the hog rider have very easy ways to deal with them. Is there a single troop card besides skeleton army that completely counters the hog without a negative elixir trade? Hell many of the more expensive cards will fail to stop a hog rider, and skeleton army dies to any sort of spell, some you can even play reactively. This means you HAVE to have a building, but even then a spell like earthquake or fireball counters half of them pretty well. Yes, this increases the amount of elixir they spend, but I would argue it increases the amount of elixir you have to spend even more. Is there a way to counter this? Sure. But it often requires you to take tower damage or a negative elixir trade unless you have a specific combination of cards. And this wouldn’t be a problem if it took a significant amount of skill to play but the work done from the hog rider + support combo is almost entirely done by the cards instead of the player. So all the player has to do is put the card down and it does most of the work. Hog 2.6 just exploits these core issues with the hog to the absolute limit. Now am I saying it takes no skill to play hog in any situation? Of course not, but the reality is, is that this card almost always gives you great value just from playing it and just giving it basic support. The card itself has a high skill floor and low skill ceiling.
havent played clash royale in forever. back when i did, i always ran a variant of this, i had valk and inferno tower, and i always told my cousin that its a really great deck as a meme. i didnt know the deck is actually still used to this day. also something cool about using a deck of commons and rares in a world where theres even legendary tier cards
Very insightful! Ironically, I used to play cheap hog rider decks (not hog 2.6 specifically) but variations which would include cards like e-wiz, magic archer, firecracker, etc, but never knew people actually hated 2.6. I thought people hated golem, royal giant, e-giant, e-barbs, and mega knight decks (all decks which I hate myself).
Ya, I thought that people thought hog 2.6 was cool and no one hated it because it could defend pushes which weak cards, but instead that's the exact reason why they hate it. Plus I saw oyassu play it
The thing that most people (since most people are not at 7500 trophies or maxed out) dislike is playing any of these decks with a one or two card level disadvantage. Then your counters do not work and a hog, golem, or other card will just waltz in and take your tower. The reason mega knight and elite barbarians (when used as bridge spam) are hated is mostly when they over-leveled and spammed. Another reason that many people dislike these decks is because they have faced a toxic player who used one of these decks and we tend to remember negative experiences more than positive ones. Obviously a toxic player could play any deck, but chances are they are going to play a deck that is viewed by others as controversial to get their opponents tilted from the get go. This just so happens to be from a fixed number of decks which are easy/cheap to upgrade and easy or have a lot of resources to learn (not going to comment on skill for any deck since all decks require skill to win with, especially if you have under leveled cards). I don't really hate playing against any other decks specifically. Rather I hate it when the opponent is over leveled or toxic. As a golem player myself (not meta since mine uses Three musketeers) pushing into 5000 trophies. I often face X-Bow 3.0, 2.6 Hog, Log Bait, but mostly Mega Knight, Lava-Loon, or some other spam deck. These matchups are not one-sided if equally leveled, but when you mainly only face a few decks, ladder becomes a bit... boring and repetitive. It becomes a real pain when you face the so-called "Mid-ladder Menaces" right when you are about to progress. It then becomes difficult not to dislike these decks or cards (having rage or lumberjack supported lvl 13 elite barbarians rush you is no fun when your own cards are lvl 10 and 11).
Every person that cries about this archetype is a beatdown player. I don't blame them. They will never understand this is a game of strategy not just placing cards in the field. Great video. I'm trying now the royal hogs archer queen earthquake deck. Quite harder than 2.6 hog cycle ngl.
The problem of 2.6 is it has a fairly high skill floor and a relatively low skill ceiling - it’s not easy to pick up, and takes some practice, but it doesn’t take too much practice. Yes, you can meticulously memorize all interactions, but you really only need to memorize a handful of significant interactions and watch your elixir spending. I played it some time ago, and liked it for a time, but the gameplay got very repetitive, and I felt like I was better off just using other decks which centered around cards I really liked as opposed to ones that just “got the job done”.
yeah I agree with this 2.6 isn't bad by any means and the only things that need to be know are how far away you can place something to distract troops so you can get as much value out of every card. People talk about 2.6 taking "pixel-perfect gameplay" which is really not the case most of the time because cycling leads to so little elixir spent that you can use other cards to counter anything anyway. And with the meta there is now having many new cards to try it becomes kinda boring to go against and play because it's a deck that only exists because it "technically outplays any meta" because the niches of every card go well together even after patching the cards every time (and so you see this deck no matter what meta there is, every other game when pushing ladder or in a tournament). Maybe some ways that this can be dealt with in patches is by increasing the cost of hog rider to 5 elixir and ice golem to 3, but altogether that doesn't change the deck too much because the deck can be cycled out pretty easily. TL:DR, 2.6 isn't bad or good, but just draining to go against and boring to play (I've played it a few times before I got bored and tried other decks that are more fun to me - sure they have less win rates but at least they're more fun and I win with them anyway)
I've never used 2.6, I absolutely hate it though. I've never had so much trouble against one deck, well one card. The only cards I can't counter 100% of the time is hog rider and goblin barrel with my own deck which is kind of a problem when facing these players cause their main winning factor is chip damage. I can tell you though that if you can catch them off guard and get one of their towers before they do to you your chances of winning go up astronomically. Sometimes it's even enough that they'll stop playing thr match altogether. I've mastered most interactions against all the other cards but hog rider 2.6 there's no way I can consistently counter to bend them in my favor. Usually a fireball incinerates any kinda push I come up with then they drag my cards around the backfield and before I can compose my defense hog rider is already on the field again. Typically I try to just match whatever they push with and try to create randomness as best I can but it doesn't always work. If I could counter hog with more efficiency and not get punished for it I could probably win more against the deck. Typically though no one ever just sends out hog rider by himself. The only way I see this deck becoming obsolete is if hog riders speed or health is nerfed. His hit damage is too high I think too. Like bro is already gonna hit my tower regardless of how much I throw in front of him just nerf his hit damage already. Idk how supercell can take away baby dragons spread damage and dark princes shield health but can't do the same for hog rider. There more I go on I feel like I'm talking ab micheal Jordan or Derrick rose. My conclusion is that something needs to be done about him. Elixher cost won't do anything obviously if it's a small change cause like other dude said the other player can just cycle him back faster than my cars engine. If you have any clear counters or anything that works against him I'm all ears. Tbh I don't expect anyone to because your all I'm the same boat as me🤣🤣. That and don't say "look online" I already did, 2 or 3 times just to see people brag ab how good it is.
Hog has consistently been the 2nd or 3rd worst win condition in the game for a while now. It needs a buff more than a nerf. Use tornado, mini pekka, any of the 13 buildings, skarmy, fisherman(if u have king tower), goblins + ice spirit, goblin gang/guards+ ice/e- spirit, skeletons/bats + snowball barbarians, sparky(if you have time to prepare, rocket, ebarbs, or pekka
2.6 is a deck that's easy to learn the basics of it, but really hard to master. If you're not good enough with this deck, you're not going to win against splashyard, lavahound, miner mortar, miner wb, ice-bow, hog eq and any other hard counter (there are many).
@@danic2795 literally ask any top ladder player. You have no idea what you're talking about. You cycle multiple musk vs lava hound. I can tell you're not very high in trophies
@@luvleonorr it's not going to help against a huge lavahound push since it's just a 1 anti air, they have barbs + Tombstone against hog. It became slightly better since cannon could counter the loon, but it's still like a 70-30 to lava. Gtfo delusional kid, trophies have nothing to do with game knowledge, which clearly you don't have.
I started using 2.6 because I was so insanely tired of mega night spam in the lower arenas and 2.6 was the only deck I found to defend against it especially since it is a f2p deck and I kinda just kept using it since it works and I went from being stuck in arena 8 for 2 years to now being in arena 13
2.6 to me is a deck that can be respected when fighting against those menaces to society (i.e. those players that play the game for the sole reason of ruining the life of players who are in ladder with maxed out cards and decks that can counter almost anything despite their reworks, buffs or nerfs.). On the other hand, the deck is super duper controversial when its basically against a player that's actually taking the game seriously or plays the game competitively.
I agree with your statement. Skill level is in every deck. Golem and Lava hound is easier to play and learn but getting top of the world is hard with those decks. Golem especially is very skilled based at top since Golem isn't a good archetype in the Meta. But it is versatile in what you can counter. Even hard counters. Golem struggles with 2.6 but can outplay 2.6. (A tip, defend till double. And just keep up the pushes. Sometimes, letting a golem push die to start a new one will make them keep defending. They still have to defend the first one so They can't go in since they feed you 4 elixir into your second push and will allow you to use lighting on their units and kill musketeers and maybe the cannon too.
I like the fact that I picked back up on the game and didn't change my deck much since then I've been running variations of loon and mortar since early on. Right now I play archers, zap, loon, knight (evo) mortar, LP (I subbed it out for minions when it came out) lighting (or freeze) and electro wiz (ive loved this card for so long because i got it from winning the challenge they had on release)
Yeah, I think that's the number 1 issue with 2.6, the hyper-defensive turtling playstyle that bleeds you out with attrition instead of being based on flashy, risky gamble plays, and not having that much counterplay against it beyond essentially hard counter decks. Not to mention the fact that a number of the 2.6 players come off as unbelievably arrogant. A similar issue with hyper-defensive/passive playstyles arose in LOL, where minimizing mistakes and maximizing passively built advantages was the top strategy for years in the competitive scene, championed by the likes of SKT, making the competitive scene stale and boring. In League's case, though, there was an aggressive counterplay option to the minimize playstyle, shown beautifully by the player Khan, a very aggressive top laner that punished players for being too passive around him.
Whenever I played this deck it always felt pretty strong and I definitely got away with defending some heavy pushes I really shouldn't have. When I go against the deck I don't have a problem that often with it, if the person playing it isn't perfect then it's really not hard to win against them, it's very much so a high risk high reward deck where it's a game of whoever makes the first mistake generally loses. Despite what people think it is a skillful deck and it keeps the game tense the entire time. Also, I rarely ever spell cycled while playing it, I'd only use spells for positive trades and when I could hit a troop and the tower, never spamming the tower out by itself, I do see how the spell cycle part of it is pretty frustrating and annoying, I definitely hate that part of it myself, but the actual cycling of the hog and using cheap troops to defend I think requires some skill and good timing to pull off perfectly, which is what you need sometimes to successfully defend while still keeping up the offense.
This deck is the single biggest reason that made me stop playing CR. I felt extremely cornered into using the same few cards to counter it and eventually I just got sick of it all and uninstalled because I wasn’t able to enjoy it anymore
Actually, I think todays meta is doing pretty good against 2.6 hog (unless you are facing oyassuu), but this means that logbaits and xbow are getting stronger for literally no reason.
only logbaits are getting stronger, xbow was dead since it got his hit speed nerfed and Supercell started hating it, they nerfed almost every card: Xbow, tesla, fireball, log all received nerfs while I don't remember logbait ever facing a significant nerf, instead it got buffed numerous times: they buffed goblins, they buffed inferno tower, they buffed g.gang. You have actually more then a reason to dispite all kind of logbaits instead of 2.6 and 2.9\3.0 xbow. What are they waiting for to nerf dart goblin? A call from the pope himself? Instead of doing the right balance changes they rework the rage to strenghten E.Golem even more...
@@matteo054 They reworked Rage to be an actually useful spell and not a spell that makes you win harder 99% of the time, outside of E-Golem, Rage was just used to win matches faster : it had barely any advantages over other small spells on both defense and offense. Why bother raging up your building/tower when you could handicap or totally eliminate the threat with another 2 elixir spell ? With the rework, it can now eliminate the same troops as Zap and Snowball, but rather than stunning or knocking back troops/buildings, it will boost your own troops on top of eliminating those threats.
I didn't expect my deck to be there, played the OG Trifecta deck since the beginning of CR and still use it, I just swapped out some cards. My Deck nowadays consists still of Hog, Valkyrie and poison. I changed the rest over time to Bandit, Archer Queen, Inferno, bats and Electro Mage and it still wins lots of games! I just LOVE this deck and will probably never change it
I liked that u approach skill of every deck Even elixir golem looks easy I can't play it cuz I'm used to using cycle deck every deck has skill even most simple archetype deck has some core thing's to do
Amazing video! I really dislike going up against this deck lol I think it would be neat to see the history of The Heal and it’s evolution into the Heal Spirit. Keep up the great work!
@@RemiToast9 I actually still use him in my deck and maxed him out (Star levels too) with mini pekka as well (Star levels as well) and just maxed my witch’s troop level.
@@RemiToast9 I'd argue to say he's not very good right now. Everything he can accomplish is inferior to another card in some way. It's just not worth using right now.
first things first, great video! the cr community has needed commentary content like this for awhile now. but about the deck in question, i personally believe that 2.6 is a mixed bag when you begin to question the skill required to play it. on one hand, it requires a somewhat vast knowledge of interactions and matchups, but the end all be all defensive strategy and low elixir requirements make it seem very unfair and broken. personally however, i dont like the deck or playing against it. it’s just too cheap in my opinion. keep up the good work :)
I hate the usual 2.6, both playing it and going against it, but man, I found a 2.6 with evo Firecracker and it is pretty fun to play, also the feeling of "I don't know how , but I defended that 16 elixir push" is recomfortable
I think it would be amazing if you did a video on the history of logbait, it’s by far my favorite archetype and I feel it’s history I pretty interesting Amazing video, really enjoying the high effort content it does a great job on shedding light onto the games long history!
It's kinda hard not to hate this deck when your 25 elixer gets countered by someone spamming chucks of ice and lead shooters
What you mad that your mega nut got countered
This man 100% plays this deck 💀
@@drippingplatinum8715 I play hog eq with mighty miner, a card you will never have because you’re stuck at 5k with your ebarbs wizard mega knight mirror
@@SteakWasTaken bro got a crush of 2.6 if your defending it so hard💀
@@SteakWasTaken No way you called someone a 5k hardstuck when your pb is 5600
"Can't nerf a card because it's so good in one specific deck"
Supercell with night witch: "Watch me"
Dude I’ve been inactive for a couple of months, hopped on a bit ago and I was so surprised LMFAOOO I sent a baby dragon and I watched as it not only was now unable to attack it, but it no longer even dropped its shitty two bats after dying, I was so shocked
@@culleno872 God loves you
@@culleno872 the same thing happens to me, I used her with Baloon 😔
lol supercell with mirror too
That’s so true she was the main part on a deck I created to circle giant esqueleton
The reason it's so unbelievably annoying to play against 2.6 is that sometimes, if the opponent is not braindead, your attack simply cannot touch the tower. With some decks, your only hope at SMELLING the enemy tower is just to HOPE AND PRAY the opponent makes a serious blunder, which is obviously not in your control. It just feels like you can't do anything, because the deck's defense is so brutally good. 80% of the deck is just defense, with the occasional hog rider or spell cycling.
That’s because you’re a mid ladder noob
For that case it would be a skill issue, but i get why it is annoying
I'd say atleast 20% of all decks cant touch the tower (except for spells) if hog 2.6 player plays perfectly, I'm part of that 20% and I never won against hog 2.6 unless they made a mistake
@@viltautasYT that’s cause you’re garbage
I started out playing mega knight hog and eventually switched to logbait because you can actually outplay counters. Same goes for any cycle deck really.
Hog chip damage is definitely the worst part about this deck. In order to prevent the hog from doing any damage, you usually need a negative elixir trade. And you likely won't have the same cards for the next hog, because he's already halfway to the next one. So unless you have a cycling deck of your own or have a deck built to handle this, its just going to be a pain.
Survive till double, as soon as they commit, push opposite while having spell ready
@@Sauce_Senseidoesn’t work against good players, they can cycle back to musketeer and cannon faster than you can think
@@Sauce_Senseibefore your push gets over the bridge there's already a cannon and a musketeer shooting them down lol. Then you look at the other side, another Hog is already wacking your princess tower
@@johnpauljonesisabadass8134 ahhhh so true bruh
nah all you saying bs. from a decent 2.6 player, you just need a structure and play it good and i cannot win.
As someone who hasn’t played clash royale since 2017, this was a super interesting video and kept me watching the whole time. Nice job
Same I feel like clash went downhill since after 2017
@@od813 it was fun playing it while yelling as you and your friends were always comparing each other decks and scores
After 2017/2018 it wasn't as fun
@@od813not really, its actually in a good state
@@od813it’s doing pretty good rn ngl
I have fun memories of constantly raging in this game 🔥
If you say hog 2.6 every mid ladder player will immediately go into a panic attack
Mid ladder players dont use credit card in their deck
SO FUCKING TRUE!
@@jacob9583 That right, most of the parents are smart and are no giving their kids their credit cards
Fuck Logbait
It's cus midladder players often don't use buildings😂
When I played CR, Hog 2.6 was always annoying, but it felt like I was getting outplayed. Ice Bow was the deck that really pissed me off. Eventually I learned the matchup pretty well, and I could play around it with my deck, but every time someone spammed the laughing emote at me while dropping Tesla and X-Bow at the bridge made my blood boil.
ice bow has no tesla
@@pyrosorus9880ice bow back in the day did use tesla or inferno
@@pyrosorus9880 ice bow has tesla butt who the fuck uses x bow tesla at same time in 2023 it will be countered in a blink of an eye
@@bishesh9 My bad there are many types of ice bow some have tesla some dont
@@pyrosorus9880 .... lucky son of a bitch, i still have nightmares when valk nado and tesla were a legit combo
I hate playing against 2.6 Hog Cycle, but I have mad respect for Hog Cycle players as a single misplaced card can mean a push-defense-fall and thus, not being able to save the match
High speed skating on thin ice
On contrary. 2.6 players can make the most absurd mistakes and still just defend everything with musketeer and cycle cards. Its also hard to make mistakes with it since you always defend and attack with the same cards
@@caralho5237 Hell no,cycle decks are and always will be harder to use compared to decks like bridgespam,giant graveyard,lavaloon,rg
@@caralho5237that is not true at all. I can tell you don’t play 2.6. Placing the wrong card on accident or accidentally placing your cannon/ice golem 1 TILE further to the side usually spells the end of the game
@@caralho5237 Bro never played 2.6 in his life
The history of logbait could be cool seeing as it never really fades out of the meta and has so many variations
Edit: my wish has come true
my log is 10 elixer
@@atomiumjae yeah true, but there are so many different variations and seeing the history of how all the different variations came to be and why could be really cool
One time logbait gets hard counter by fire spirit. But it was a long time ago
@@mo7allas long as the elixir bar😊
@@atomiumjaer wrong there are many other good logbait players that could survive on top ladder. y aren't even playing too ladder don't say that☠️. fake bana probably better than riley at log bait
One of my biggest problems with this deck is literally just how popular it is. It isn’t as bad right now, but a few months ago I would be going up against a hog2.6 player like every other game. I have screenshots of my battle log after I had faced 4 hog 2.6 players in a row on ladder. Some games I won, some games I lost - my problem isn’t really the deck itself, it’s just that it’s so common to see and really takes a lot of the fun out of the game. With billions of possible decks people could make that I could play against, why on earth do I keep seeing the same one over and over again?
Tell me about it. I went into party mode and did 9 1v1 showdowns and it was literally all 2.6 hog.
Maybe if everyone wasn’t required to spend 6months maxing one deck, we’d see more unique play styles
It's not popular
I think its the cannon for me. Imo buildings make for pretty stagnant and annoying matches, especially if you have a beatdown deck. Its especially true considering how much of a no-brainer choice cannon is, considering how much you can do with it for so little elixir
If there are 109 cards that means there are around 1000000000000000000 card combinations.
Back in 2017 when skeletonarmy cost 5 and arena 8 was just released, this deck dominated. Stalling really is the universally hated playstyle no matter where you go.
Stalling is just not fun to play against it would also seem like to me it would be boring af to play.
It's the best "contingency" style. Just look at pokemon and yugioh, stall is very hated for being consistent at dragging games forever
4 elixir not 5
Same reason why people hate freeze (beside allowing tanks to get a few extra hits)
Skarmy was never 5 elixir
Fun fact the name of the fourth skeleton was Ledoom and since Ledoom got removed from skeleton card
Ledoom joined the skeleton army buffing the skeleton army from 14x to 15x a little bit
Its ledoot
His brothers must be so proud of him for joining the army
Lol@@kylezdancewicz7346
this channel is a perfect example of quality over quantity, which is pretty rare in the clash royale youtube scene. Props to you
I JUST FOUND A NEW DECK WITH A 100% WINRATE
@@MR_DUALITY yeah , winning just one game using a new deck isn't really the hardest thing
Yeah there’s so much other Clash Royale TH-cam channels that try to have that oversaturated humor that every other CR TH-camr has but one of the only channels that can pull that off is SolarFury
@@MR_DUALITYTELL ME ITS NOT GOLEM PUMP
@@Musketeer2.6 IT'S ELIXIR GOLEM LAVAHOUND BEATDOWN
My least favourite thing about 2.6 is that they'll defend my entire push with no matter what it is with 0 damage and get a counter push going, and when you think something might actually connect they'll pull 4 elixir out of their ass and fireball all your hope away. But my least, least favorite thing is when you wait for their counter to get out of cycle, push right at that instant, and then they just spam random stuff down untill they get back their counter in like 4 seconds aaaand you get fireball cycled and lose the game.
There are 2 ways to beat 2.6 with a beatdown:
First one is a strong and snowbally push in double or triple elixir where you can place cards faster than 2.6 can kill them. Mainly good for elixir golem decks and some golem decks with lightining and tornado to kill the muskteer. 2.6 has very little dps so if you have a lot of tanky cards it just cant keep up against your elixir generation.
Second one is a fast push. Giant double prince with zap for skeletons style. Earthquake is also incredibly good, since its a great counter to cannon. You want to get so close to the tower that 2.6 doesnt have space to kite.
@@alex2005z here is the issue with your suggestion then i literally have to keep in mind that my opponent will use 2.6 hog cycle and i am making counter for it. Most of the people who like to make an overall working deck won't be able to beat hog cycle. Personally what i do is I wait as much as possible and try to pressure them to make some mistakes from their part which I capitalize. But if they are experienced and play perfectly then I got no chance.
@@soumojitchowdhury151 well if your beatdown deck cant overwhelm or make a fast push then its a preety bad beatdown deck
run a building in your deck and use a win condition👍
@@wxckvro3215 that is infact, how to make a deck.
One thing that wasn't mentioned and I think its important to also know is that 2.6 does NOT work the second you have just 1 card that's lower lvl than the opponent.
every single interaction HAS to be perfect for the deck to win all the way to the top.
for example, ice golem and ice spirit have to kill skeletons and bats, if they don't.. you lose
THATS WHAT MOST PEOPLE SEEM TO FORGET. Hog 2.6 requires a complete even matchup. Just a single level advantage messes up key card interactions that’ll make you more likely to lose. I know I’ve lost a match when my musketeer can’t even 1 shot goblins.
@@moriartyarchive4033 but, 2.6 does not have epic cards,the only card that is hard to level is log. It is extremely easy to max out how 2.6deck, so you don't need to worry about it most of the time
@@ДюсековИльясtell me about it, I'm basically hard stuck 5300 right now since my cards are lower level
@@ДюсековИльяс honestly i find the rare the hardest to upgrade epic and legendary are far easier to upgrade
@@ДюсековИльяс IMO as a 2.6 player rares are the hardest to max out. I'm 50k gold off of max Log, but my hog and fireball are lvl 12&11 respectively, the lowest in my deck
2.6 Million views🥶🥶🥶🥶
2.7*
@@hyliwood8026 🤓👆
2.8
2.793009*
2,840,352 views at 2:41 AM June 13 2024
Two 20+minutes videos in a row! And you put so much effort into every single video, for me you are for sure the most underrated CR content creator!
Keep up the amazing work and I think you'll reach 100k subs in no time.
"Yes, who's there?"
@@Rogwul He is the danger, he is the one who knocks
Definitely but his PFP sell off a meme vibe should change I think(probably not going to be a big change tho)
This is the moment where Walter white became Heisenberg
@@snewp_e2139 Heisenburger
the main problem here is that you NEED to rely on the other player making a mistake. you can't outplay it, or outsmart it. you just have to hope they screw up in one way or another.
Wrong
I find it simpler just to drop my mega knight on whatever placed down and divide my skarmy.
@@PoorEdwardHow do you know? Maybe he has a deck without a win conditioner. It's pretty common in CR :)
Wrong
@@BigOllieSpin How is it wrong?
Ok I guess if you have a way to guarantee a damage to the tower you could technically win. but even if my deck did have that, doing that while not loosing more damage to the hog is an actual nightmare.
20:50 this caught me offguard so much 💀
Yeah that guy is not the joking type so that was sudden
💀 fr
only reason i liked ngl
Fr
Nothing is more satisfying than getting through a hog 2.6 defenses and finally 3 crowning them
You literally can't 3 crown a non npc 2.6 player
My deck works well in rhat 😂idk how but almost always
@@Nigga-linkAi The deck actually sucks tbh, one single mistake and the game is over
I love this History videos so much, you have so much potential in this area and i cant wait to see the Channel Grow :)
Great video, since you are doing history videos on decks, an interesting one would be the history of 3.0 Xbow.
X-Bow sounds like fun!
@@Gold_Gamer_100 until you hear the sounds of arrows from it hitting ur tower while they just cycled to another
@@The_Moodi no I meant an X bow video my bad💀
You mean 2.9 xbow then cuz it used to use ice golem isntead of knight
@@asdqwe_9381 3.0 bc it will be longe r
I don't even play Clash Royale anymore but I'm always up to see some documentaries. It's a much needed channel in an era when everybody's just making content for the kids. Hope you won't end up like them. Though I just found your channel, I've already watched all of your videos and I can't wait for more. You're doing an amazing job, keep it up!
"this is the most hated deck"
Kid named mid-ladder megaknight
A video on the miner would be fun. We know what notoriously happens, but we can all collectively relive his fall into oblivion. Loving the uploads btw!
Yeah, I don't know the Miner's history and I still try to understand why a tip makes a joke about nerfing it. It feels like an average card to me, maybe there was a time when it was OP?
@@gianluco At its prime, the Miner dealt 40% of its normal damage to crown tower and had 6% more health than today, so cycling Miner alone was an actually viable win condition. And because its effectively a scuffed Knight that can be placed anywhere on the map, it was (and still is) the most versatile troop in the game.
Update : the Nerf Miner meme became real lmao
Did he really get nerfed that bad though? Genuine question, it seems he isnt a win condition like he used to be but he is still an extremely powerful card to play. I feel that supercell wanted him to be a different take on support troops and they nailed that.
Miner poison is everywhere now.
At this point,miner is so versitile that you can literally put anything in any decks.
Also it's great when the card that supposed to be tank and not a win condition become what it used to.
Funny that you said that. Miner has always been one of the most consistent win condition regardless of the meta.
I dont really know where you get that notion that the miner have fallen into oblivion.
Case in point, during that time wherein the monk and phoenix are literally in almost every game, there were 2 decks that was in top 10 that did not use those cards. Both were miner decks.
Now that I think about it, it was a high-skill deck back then and now it's kind of a simple but powerful deck. All the more I still hate it but I sometimes do admire seeing a giant pushed stopped by a metal tube, walking bones, and a purple lady
it still high skill deck, supercell had to make monk just to make this deck out of the meta
@@rafialfaridzi8160 eh you have to memorize placements and thats it. Wheather you take that as skill is different based on the person
@@harigopaladamus9481 have you tried and used it? thats my first thought about this deck when i hate it and never used it, then i try the deck and whoa, its a complete different experience, took me 3 days to understand it 3 weeks to get the win streak, 2 months ive been using this deck and yet my winning chance its still 50:50 if this deck are easy why people dont use it, i mean mega knight are easy and MK use rates are the high
@@rafialfaridzi8160 yup it's really hard to play I've been playing it for 6 years and always hate to go against egolem or maga knight
@harigopaladamus9481 thats only true if you're facing one troop at a time (like one pekka or megaknight or bandit, etc).
As soon as you play a real player, you realize that you wont always have the cards you need and that timing is important too. Plus, when multiple troops are coming, there often is no fixed placement for it.
I can already see you hitting 100k subs the amount of research and effort you put into these "documentary" style videos of clash royale is the type of content I have been seeking for a while now keep it up 👍
It’s so funny that when you’re talking about countering other decks with skillful plays, it’s always playing against Megaknight
As autistic as MK players are, I find the fatso to require more skill than hog rapist. I also don't dislike the mk as much as the hog rapist, not only because it actually targets everything it can but because it's white.
i believe cannon was recently nerfed so that should help a bit, I honestly think 2.6 deck's weakness is just a strong beatdown. Their spam tactics is only effective against bridge spam but if you can delete the cannon fast enough (like with an earthquake), then getting through shouldn't be that hard. Also keep in mind that musketeer is basically their main damage source, if you can find a way to deal with that (like with a tornado or smth), you're good and they're screwed
Until they cycle back to it and you can't coz your playing beat down
It's true😆😆😆😆, poor beat down decks
@@tawsifking9336 Yeah, u trade towers, but they trade towers, so much faster,
That you barely 1 crown them, and they 3 crown you
I’ve always found u have to play defensively until they mess up letting u get one push through and then it’s game over
idk why people hate 2.6, it is fun to play against and requires a unique playstyle to beat, I never played it but it should be fun
I played with this deck just a few times, but really liked the idea that you have to place a lot of cards in one time so you have to focus a bit. Yeah it was annoying to get cycled, but I felt more disappointed when someone just placed like five cards (golem deck for example) and I didn't have cards for counter push and he three crown me. Also I don't blame 2.6 players (or log bait and x-bow), because as F2P player I know how hard it is to max a deck, this deck has a lot of common and rare cards and was "nerf proof" so I understand their choice. These type of decks were more stable in terms of balance changes and possible counter decks.
as an f2p, it feels rewarding when you're winning by a landslide against higher leveled opponents using cycle decks
there is 2 types of 2.6 the braindead losers and the slightly smarter braindead losers
@@mercamiaI feel the same way, back when I used to play clash like a year ago, x-bow, and hog 2.6 were literally my best friends lmao. I personally didn't like the bridge spam decks that I'd face, so I liked the challenge of using cheap cycle decks to win matches against impatient players. And like you say being f2p makes these cycle decks very affordable to level up and push as a lot of opponents in what now is considered low arena to low mid ladder had a bunch of over leveled players. My all time high was beating some dude that was level 14 with MK EB bridge spam at level 10 with barely level 10 3.0 x-bow cards. I could tell he was just relying on the level advantage to win him the game easily so I had to lock in from the very start, and by 2x elixir he actually started to try because I was breaking through and got the damage lead on him. I ended up barely winning and it's the most satisfying win I've ever had playing 😂
Anyone with an Xbow or a hog has 0 respect from me. Normally my goal is to have fun but if I see someone playing with either card, my only hope is to destroy so badly that they want to rethink their lives and change deck
@@tomas.lambert if you want to destroy them, you should use a deck where MK is not the only win condition
Your commentary and editing is superb! you deserve 1million+ subscriber mate!
its so amazing to be taken back to 2016 i remember the hog arena was a big deal. seeing those decks still trigger me, they were a nightmare back then
2:59 it should also be noted OG posion was insane offensively because it had 30% slow, unfortunately using spells on defense wasnt a concept back then.
i never thought of 2.6 as a no skill JUST SPAM THE HOG deck
i tried it a few times and i was like "but oj has defended 50 mega nights and 100 night witches with a cannon and ice golem how come i lost🥹" and after that i started respecting the skill it takes to defend 20 elixir pushes with an ice golem and musketeer
@@Lion50-86 its still annoying af.
@@Lion50-86 I returned to clash royale and guess which deck was the 1st one i faced
Thats right. 2.6 NI-
@@bruhchannel1216 🤣ni-
I’ve been a 2.6 main the entire time i’ve played this game. It can be really frustrating playing with this deck because it’s so easy to mess up and lose instantly. There’s never a chance to 3 crown someone and comebacks are near impossible.
@@formlismy take on 2.6 is that playing against it makes it seem skilless, cuz you just see the opponent spamming cards and defending your pushes and it's frustating. On the other hand, playing it is pretty difficult, cuz if you mess up your cannon/musketeer placement once you have a high chance of losing, making it a high skill deck that's pretty hard to master
I remember when hog rider was first put in the game, it was the first card I ever used mirror on, and the combo was simple,you use hog rider, and then mirror a version directed at the other tower so the opponent had to choose what tower to defend.
It usually was never good,but if you can get 1000 or more damage from one or 2 hog rider using 9 elixir,you were guaranteed to destroy a singular tower back then as long as you have spells to cycle.
Do not use mirror, it’s a trap.
Though it is funny as hell.
This deck is basically a troll deck
You’ll lose, but its funny when you win. Like all spells/buildings
Mirror came out way later dude
@@PoorEdwardboth hog and mirror were in on release
@@PoorEdwardclearly you haven't play clash royale in the early day
Ahhhh, good old times. I used a variant of this deck where skeletons were substituted for an ice wizard, and a few times I substituted fireball for valkyrie. This allowed me to deal with certain beatdown decks a little more easily. Ice wizard especially was devastating against the enemy tanks.
I really don't understand why you don't have more subs. Your videos are always high quality and interesting. Keep up with the good work !
To be fair he started posting like 5 months ago,so he probably would have more as time goes on!
Ah, the good old days when cards actually started at level 1
On a side note royal giant and sparkie were the reasons I raged quit and never played again. Hog rider always felt easy as long as you knew how to build a counter push or go all in other lane
That probably cause your that good
I like to believe I'm average and this deck just kills anyone who isn't running a building
You probably played against people who didn’t know how to use the deck.
You can best building easily with cycling 2 hogs, one at back of the king tower and second one at the bridge, but remember when you release hog at back of king tower, next card should be ice golem, ice spirit, musk and sks in your hand
@@thedudecalledalan9095 i always run buildings but they have fucking ice golem that tanks for hog and fireball that gets rid of my building i hate it
i like this guy. good presentation. no bullshit dragging. clear and concise information. 10/10
As someone who played and still plays 2.9 Xbow I have respected how hard it can be to counter pushes with cycle decks. My main frustration with the game has always been upgrading cards, as it was what ended up getting me walled (especially with how important levels are for Log and Ice Golem).
thats right. Only players that uses 2.6 or 2.9 knows how hard it is to counter big pushes. Coz a misplay of a tile can literally coz you the game
I hate your kind of Players... Just shitting elixir out of your ass spamming cards can defend a 30 elixir push how...
@@A909-g7gi am playing this for a year and wow
I thought i was too noob that I can’t count elixir or card but misplaced once a d game gone.. 🤯
subbed at this point. Your channel is doing a great job of preserving the history of a game and its meta that I never would've considered before.
2.6 is a great deck to learn how to play the gam efficiently. Problem comes when people don't apply what they learned and keep playing the exact same deck. Therefore i love draft, it may be rng mess but it really helps having the knowledge of how various interactions work
Very effective beginner deck. And if this was a lan game it'd probably be relatively useless.
The problem comes when you get to mid ladder and ever low upper ladder. It's an easy deck to level up so they'll probably outlevel you.
Hog has next to no spawn delay and little to no positive elixir counterplay without perfect placement. Which is a major issue when you introduce lag and get things like your card playing late and dead hogs doing damage.
This deck wouldn't even be usable if hog had double the damage but double the spawn delay and hit speed.
Which makes you feel like you're being scummed all game with nothing you can do. Combine this with the fast cycle in defence where even worse hog cycle players can just play enough cards to stop some decks it makes it a nightmare deck for the health of the game.
@@IVIRnathanreillyI don't think is that easy to level up bc are just almost special cards
@@IVIRnathanreillypretty much. You hit it on the nose
Takes no skill
@@devonsanford3269 No certain aspects take skill the problem is that it's difficult to counter and unfair to play against.
so its been around 3 years since I stopped playing Clash Royale but I found your channel and now I kinda want to come back lol
and yes, there was a time when I also played 2.6, it was pretty good
i love how monk breaks this deck completely as a counter. just active the ability the second musketeer or cannon is on the field because it will always be value because hog 2.6 will always need to play more cards to defend a push.
i can’t explain how many people have just straight up rage quit.
It's nice to have a counter, the problem is that it's hardest card to unlock in the whole game
I’ve used 2.6 literally since it was a thing and monk doesn’t break it
@@Neal942 That’s probably not something to brag about bro. 2.6 players deserve a bullet
@@smittywerbenjagermanjensen5963 someone is a little mad about other peoples' pixels beating their pixels 💀
@@whatamidoing8266 Not really? I built a deck specifically to beat 2.6 decks so I don’t loose to them often. It’s simply the most unfun deck to battle against. Like all other rapid cycle decks only extra disgusting. Hog rider has the least amount of positive elixir counters in the game. A deck built around him is like cancer built by cancer for cancer.
Words cant hate how much I describe this deck
Hate can't words how much I describe this deck
@@144ptroll6 describes can't deck how much i word this hate
@@raspmary decks cant word how much i describe this hate
Skill issue
The reply section 💀
I always preferred going against 2.6 than log bait, it was so versatile that it was almost impossible to win if the player only mained log bait.
I would rather play against 2.6 ten times over than go against LumberLoon or X Bow Tesla.
OG Goblin barrel/princess bait was my main deck for years, such a fun and versatile deck if you knew how to play it properly. There was a lot of counterplay though, I would regularly run into double small spell decks, as well as good players knowing that my princess was the absolute cornerstone of my deck and killing it would severely gimp my ability to defend pushes
dude that's so much info in one video. respect. great video!
As a former 2.6 player, you make 1 mistake and ur going back to the lobby. Also the deck was really fun to use after getting used to it
Everytime I beat someone with this deck I treat them like absolute shit in the game haha I love it when they make a mistake
@@Deadlydaniel you are a sadistic maniac you know that
2.6 taught me to be a good cycle player, so I moved on from it to better decks but I couldn’t have done that without the skill cap of the deck
Honestly, that's true you let the enemy get a lot of damage in 1 push and your done.
@@Deadlydaniel it's like another level of satisfaction
This video is really well made, im suprised you havent hit 50k subscribers yet. Keep up the good work.
Yo! I just discovered your channel the other day and the video quality is just on another level! Keep it up, I love to see it
I used to play hog cycle 2.6. It takes skill, but holy jesus it’s not fun to play against it. Especially when you’re facing a player that actually knows how to play the deck.
As an experienced cycle player (mostly mortar but started off with hog), I can say that 2.6 taught me so much about the game, but there are way better cycle decks. 2.6 is still relevant bc of reputation and fun, but it’s actually super weak, having a bad matchup against almost every meta deck. And yes, it’s high skill bc it’s the deck that taught me about micro interactions, cycle fundamentals, and building placements.
Yet haters say this deck is OP lmao, not even Oyassu the best 2.6 hog player in the world can finish in top 50 ladder with it. It goes to show how many bad matchups this deck has in top ladder
@@TheAnarchist99 actually hog players aren't that skilled. thats why your hog god oyassu can't finish in top 50
@@sharjinalaviantik9688 Nope, the deck itself is fundamentally flawed. If you got 2 ways to deal with the hog, you win easily. If you can cycle as effectively as him, you win. One mistake is all he need to commit and you win.
The deck is not op, it's just annoying, played well it makes you sweat for 6 minutes straight to get a win. One mistake and you are lost.
Xbow wasn't op either, it was very high skill, but they nerfed it nonetheless, actually killing it completely, due to people saying it was op. It wasn't, you just can't play the matchup because so different from any other deck.
Hog 2.6 should be next, at least for consistency. No win condition has ever been as iconic as the hog rider, anyway the xbow was killed while the 2.6 is still found very often, even in 2v2s and special modes. It's annoying. I can't stand it, I've been playing since launch and I'm just tired of it, just like everyone else was frustrated facing the xbow, which got killed.
@@cinderburn2660 if you face a decently skilled player though, and if it's literally any different situation than you mentioned, it's just a frustrating matchup. Sometimes, when I face this kind of people, I just close the game and let them win. It's just frustrating, they suck away my desire to play the game.
Fantastically well made video, really rare among CR content creators who mostly just use 1 take/take stream highlights
You put so mush effort into your videos and you as a viewer can feel it.
I would love to see a video about Pekka Bridge Spam (or BS in general)
I took the deck and altered it into a less offensive more balanced deck with a big Pekka, focused on chip damage and more defense, then executed an attack when the opponent made the slightest mistake or by building a strong offense after delaying a weaker defense. Worked so well I was able to climb several arenas in like 1-2 days consistently. Haven't played in like years tho BC to me it felt like the game changed too much.
I'm a little nostalgic seeing the thumbnail and early parts of the video. I haven't played in a few years, but I was highly skilled with hog cycle decks. I'm kind of happy to see people still use it
Awesome video! You should do a more in depth video about why it’s annoying/what each card specifically does etc, your documentary style would go great with topics like that and with all sorts of other decks. You should also leave some of the longer Reddit posts on screen to fully read but I understand it with the flow of the video
amazing video! Would love to see you do a similar one on logbait either how it has evolved or how classic logbait rose and fell.
thank you . i used to be a semi pro player specialized at hog decks and it was my fav and i stopped playing the game have another channel giving tips about it . used to be playing when most of us got banned at top ladder but ladder these days became absurd and looking from another phone to snipe ur opponent's deck and elixir sucks no skill atm but i have to give u some credit for talking about us who makes solid def or offense vs hardest counters and slick moves lol . stay awesome man
Damn, bro. The way you edit and the way you present the information is just amazing, truly underrated
EMT EMT EMT
Great video, I always enjoy your stuff
Would love to see a similar video about logbait and 3.0 xbow
Both of those deck aren't as hated as 2.6.
Plus those decks require mid to high level skill while 2.6 requires 0 skill
@@darianclark3980 why don't you play this deck then if it's so powerful and requires 0 skill?
@@yamoneteru Skills =/= Power
Log Bait requires a medium level of skill but it's power is different because you can *customize/change up* cards in it.
*2.6 is Just 0 Skill Spam* It's there to annoy/p!ss off opponents.
@@darianclark3980 okay, then play it as you said, and let's see how far you can go
@@yamoneteru Reread My Last Comment.
What part of *Skills =/= Power & 2.6 is Just No Skill Spam. It's there to annoy/p!ss off opponents* did you not understand?
As a returning player from like a 5 year hiatus who plays a variant of hog 2.6, I for one appreciate that it hasn't changed much
also how someone can come back to a deck after 5 years and still use it. Shows how little skill it takes to run. Hard for current players to make their own deck and have to use a premade.
@@deputyduck1112 lavahound counters it, so I’m fine 😂
Guys, guys. Hear me out. Triple prince.
Lol
Such high quality love your videos please keep it up! Would love to see this as a serious for other decks like pekka bridge spam, log bait, 3.0 Xbox or maybe even splashward
As much as I hated this deck, I actually used 2.6 to counter it and was able to beat it with bridge spams and beat downs consistently. I can respect the defensive skill it takes to master this deck as well, and this is one of my main 3 decks now
damn actually someone who doesnt contradict themselves by insulting or complementing on how op/broken it is and not using it
honestly i would like to see history of once two really popular and similar decks, golem beatdown and lavaloon, it was fascinating to see how once really easy and op deck (golem) became so unpopular over the years while lava from a really skilled deck that tons of pros used went to a really easy to use deck.
for me these decks are some of the most iconic decks of all of clash royale
I love how this guy explains everything with detail, keep up the good work😁
cycle will always be more skillful than beatdown because of the potential for misplay on the cycle player's end
On the flip side of the coin, cycle players with perfect micros (as in top ladder) can abuse the game mechanics to get unfair advantages which is annoying for beatdown players because it only comes down to when the cycle players makes a mistake which rarely happens at the top.
all you have to do is get a beatdown player on the defensive and it’s an easy w
pretty easy to do when your deck is chip damage
Cycle decks are beatdowns nightmare
@@Meet_Your_Death If people play with far more risk and manage to play perfectly, shouldn't they be rewarded with greater reward? In the current build, if the beatdown player makes a mistake, they get some chip damage. If the cycle player makes a mistake, they get instantly destroyed. This means that making no mistakes as a beatdown player while exploiting the far greater window for failure of a cycle player gives the cycle player no chance to win, unless the beatdown player makes a massive mistake. Part of the skill of the game is creating more opportunities for mistakes to be made.
@brianlam5847 I was only referring to top ladder. At lower down cycle shouldn't really be a problem because one plays like Remieli or Nate. You can just go Gob giant sparky and half of the cycle players in mid ladder would surrender
As a six year vet and top ladder player (by that I mean top 1k) I fully agree with this video. There are some things I would like to add/clarify. Hog cycle at the top has the same win rate as any other deck, and that’s because it’s about the players, not the deck. One of the biggest reasons that it thrives is not because it is unskillful or broken, but it is simply very easy to learn. The placements are not too difficult and as you said, the sequences for playing them are the same almost every time. There is a much larger skill gap between lower and higher arenas for 2.6 than other decks, and it is why you won’t often see anyone playing it consistently at the top, because they’ve mastered the placements for hog decks that are objectively harder to play (I say this relatively speaking, as decks such as mortar hog and hog executioner typically do better there, but it really just depends on the current state of the game). The best way to put it is that hog 2.6 is simple. Many other decks are not. In top ladder, when you have the correct counter to hog (such as any deck including tornado and/or cannon), you will win the matchup a reliable percent of the time. The skill gap just isn’t there anymore. Another reason it does better in lower arenas is that skeletons, log, and ice spirit can be used Almost regardless of level. If you are having a particularly hard time playing against 2.6, try beating them at their own game. Play a cycle deck with cannon or tornado, and learn the optimal placements for them. If you are looking for a reliable win vs 2.6 I recommend this deck: Egiant-cannon-tornado-phoenix-barb barrel-lighting-golden knight-bomber. It is particularly strong right now, and unless large mistakes are made, you will not lose. Don’t ask how I know that, I definitely have never played it.
Side Note: I do think it is funny you showed a clip of the egiant mirror cannon meta that lasted between spring to early summer of 2022. The deck consisted of mirroring egiant with golden knight (for three card cycle), which when the ability was used could surpass any defensive building. You could also play gk intermittently between egiant and mirroring the egiant, so you could defend pushes cheaply. Then if you were losing, as long as their tower had beneath 1300 hp you could rocket mirror rocket for the win. This was easily the most broken meta of all time and it lasted for several months. I believe the only thing that comes close is the early days of clash royale when royale giant could shoot the tower from the bridge, and ebarbs speed was “very fast.” Wish we could turn back time…
Don’t go to my channel, I don’t actually post videos lol, feel free to correct anything you disagree with, and have a fantastic day.
I agreed with you, and i Say ( as a midladder prisoner) than miner control or deck with meganight are the top tier chioche to escaped t'ha hell.
Miner control because of the High defense potenzial and meganight because he can counter Witch, wizard, ebarbs.
Another thing Is the Fisher man Is Better than the tornado, i know ita harder to play, but It Is a solid defense card for 3 elixir than can counter a meganight, or various range card pretty easely.
Hi i am italian
How much trophies do you have (roughly)? Since you are top 1k
@@donkbonktj5773 Well I quit in January, but I believe at the time I last played it was the new ranked system. When I quit I had roughly 2600 medals I believe, and the maximum number of trophies was like 7500.
@@grapefruitcr2374 Wow, well done!
I only played the closed beta and some months after release, but I still remember how prevalent Hog Rider was in decks, it was basically the card that dealt damage to the towers, all offensives were made around it, and if anything else reached it was by sheer luck.
It has always been the card that is hated and loved at the same time. Its viable but makes you a lifetime virgin for using it.
I have thought this since 2016, I genuinely think that there are some core issues with the hog rider. It doesn’t have a particular weakness, for example giant is slow, golem is expensive, giant skeleton is easy to distract, but hog rider isn’t really weak in any particular aspect. It targets buildings, it has decent health, it does good damage, it’s very fast, etc.
Because of this it requires very specific cards to counter it without significant negative trades, and since it’s so popular every deck is required to have some sort of answer to a hog rider which reduces deck diversity.
Even if you do have counters, most of the counters to the hog rider have very easy ways to deal with them. Is there a single troop card besides skeleton army that completely counters the hog without a negative elixir trade? Hell many of the more expensive cards will fail to stop a hog rider, and skeleton army dies to any sort of spell, some you can even play reactively.
This means you HAVE to have a building, but even then a spell like earthquake or fireball counters half of them pretty well. Yes, this increases the amount of elixir they spend, but I would argue it increases the amount of elixir you have to spend even more.
Is there a way to counter this? Sure. But it often requires you to take tower damage or a negative elixir trade unless you have a specific combination of cards.
And this wouldn’t be a problem if it took a significant amount of skill to play but the work done from the hog rider + support combo is almost entirely done by the cards instead of the player. So all the player has to do is put the card down and it does most of the work.
Hog 2.6 just exploits these core issues with the hog to the absolute limit.
Now am I saying it takes no skill to play hog in any situation? Of course not, but the reality is, is that this card almost always gives you great value just from playing it and just giving it basic support. The card itself has a high skill floor and low skill ceiling.
havent played clash royale in forever. back when i did, i always ran a variant of this, i had valk and inferno tower, and i always told my cousin that its a really great deck as a meme. i didnt know the deck is actually still used to this day.
also something cool about using a deck of commons and rares in a world where theres even legendary tier cards
Very insightful! Ironically, I used to play cheap hog rider decks (not hog 2.6 specifically) but variations which would include cards like e-wiz, magic archer, firecracker, etc, but never knew people actually hated 2.6. I thought people hated golem, royal giant, e-giant, e-barbs, and mega knight decks (all decks which I hate myself).
Ya, I thought that people thought hog 2.6 was cool and no one hated it because it could defend pushes which weak cards, but instead that's the exact reason why they hate it. Plus I saw oyassu play it
People are willing to hate mega knight and hog rider but not cards like graveyard
The thing that most people (since most people are not at 7500 trophies or maxed out) dislike is playing any of these decks with a one or two card level disadvantage. Then your counters do not work and a hog, golem, or other card will just waltz in and take your tower.
The reason mega knight and elite barbarians (when used as bridge spam) are hated is mostly when they over-leveled and spammed.
Another reason that many people dislike these decks is because they have faced a toxic player who used one of these decks and we tend to remember negative experiences more than positive ones. Obviously a toxic player could play any deck, but chances are they are going to play a deck that is viewed by others as controversial to get their opponents tilted from the get go. This just so happens to be from a fixed number of decks which are easy/cheap to upgrade and easy or have a lot of resources to learn (not going to comment on skill for any deck since all decks require skill to win with, especially if you have under leveled cards).
I don't really hate playing against any other decks specifically. Rather I hate it when the opponent is over leveled or toxic.
As a golem player myself (not meta since mine uses Three musketeers) pushing into 5000 trophies. I often face X-Bow 3.0, 2.6 Hog, Log Bait, but mostly Mega Knight, Lava-Loon, or some other spam deck. These matchups are not one-sided if equally leveled, but when you mainly only face a few decks, ladder becomes a bit... boring and repetitive. It becomes a real pain when you face the so-called "Mid-ladder Menaces" right when you are about to progress. It then becomes difficult not to dislike these decks or cards (having rage or lumberjack supported lvl 13 elite barbarians rush you is no fun when your own cards are lvl 10 and 11).
Every person that cries about this archetype is a beatdown player. I don't blame them. They will never understand this is a game of strategy not just placing cards in the field.
Great video. I'm trying now the royal hogs archer queen earthquake deck. Quite harder than 2.6 hog cycle ngl.
Average cycle player
We not gonna talk about the 11 elixir 3 musketeers 3:35 💀
The problem of 2.6 is it has a fairly high skill floor and a relatively low skill ceiling - it’s not easy to pick up, and takes some practice, but it doesn’t take too much practice. Yes, you can meticulously memorize all interactions, but you really only need to memorize a handful of significant interactions and watch your elixir spending. I played it some time ago, and liked it for a time, but the gameplay got very repetitive, and I felt like I was better off just using other decks which centered around cards I really liked as opposed to ones that just “got the job done”.
yeah I agree with this 2.6 isn't bad by any means and the only things that need to be know are how far away you can place something to distract troops so you can get as much value out of every card. People talk about 2.6 taking "pixel-perfect gameplay" which is really not the case most of the time because cycling leads to so little elixir spent that you can use other cards to counter anything anyway. And with the meta there is now having many new cards to try it becomes kinda boring to go against and play because it's a deck that only exists because it "technically outplays any meta" because the niches of every card go well together even after patching the cards every time (and so you see this deck no matter what meta there is, every other game when pushing ladder or in a tournament). Maybe some ways that this can be dealt with in patches is by increasing the cost of hog rider to 5 elixir and ice golem to 3, but altogether that doesn't change the deck too much because the deck can be cycled out pretty easily.
TL:DR, 2.6 isn't bad or good, but just draining to go against and boring to play (I've played it a few times before I got bored and tried other decks that are more fun to me - sure they have less win rates but at least they're more fun and I win with them anyway)
2.6 Requires 0 Skill Throughout! Period!
I've never used 2.6, I absolutely hate it though. I've never had so much trouble against one deck, well one card. The only cards I can't counter 100% of the time is hog rider and goblin barrel with my own deck which is kind of a problem when facing these players cause their main winning factor is chip damage. I can tell you though that if you can catch them off guard and get one of their towers before they do to you your chances of winning go up astronomically. Sometimes it's even enough that they'll stop playing thr match altogether. I've mastered most interactions against all the other cards but hog rider 2.6 there's no way I can consistently counter to bend them in my favor. Usually a fireball incinerates any kinda push I come up with then they drag my cards around the backfield and before I can compose my defense hog rider is already on the field again. Typically I try to just match whatever they push with and try to create randomness as best I can but it doesn't always work. If I could counter hog with more efficiency and not get punished for it I could probably win more against the deck. Typically though no one ever just sends out hog rider by himself. The only way I see this deck becoming obsolete is if hog riders speed or health is nerfed. His hit damage is too high I think too. Like bro is already gonna hit my tower regardless of how much I throw in front of him just nerf his hit damage already. Idk how supercell can take away baby dragons spread damage and dark princes shield health but can't do the same for hog rider. There more I go on I feel like I'm talking ab micheal Jordan or Derrick rose. My conclusion is that something needs to be done about him. Elixher cost won't do anything obviously if it's a small change cause like other dude said the other player can just cycle him back faster than my cars engine. If you have any clear counters or anything that works against him I'm all ears. Tbh I don't expect anyone to because your all I'm the same boat as me🤣🤣. That and don't say "look online" I already did, 2 or 3 times just to see people brag ab how good it is.
Hog has consistently been the 2nd or 3rd worst win condition in the game for a while now. It needs a buff more than a nerf. Use tornado, mini pekka, any of the 13 buildings, skarmy, fisherman(if u have king tower), goblins + ice spirit, goblin gang/guards+ ice/e- spirit, skeletons/bats + snowball barbarians, sparky(if you have time to prepare, rocket, ebarbs, or pekka
@@eddie992 Hog Rider Does NOT Need or Deserve Any Buffs!
2.6 is a deck that's easy to learn the basics of it, but really hard to master. If you're not good enough with this deck, you're not going to win against splashyard, lavahound, miner mortar, miner wb, ice-bow, hog eq and any other hard counter (there are many).
Just shows you don't know what you're talking about. 2.6 counters lavahound🤣
@@luvleonorr ah yes lemme just destroy a whole lavahound push with a musky, defenitly can't be killed with FB + zap/Miner + arrows/Miner + zap. Gtfo.
@@danic2795 literally ask any top ladder player. You have no idea what you're talking about. You cycle multiple musk vs lava hound. I can tell you're not very high in trophies
@@luvleonorr it's not going to help against a huge lavahound push since it's just a 1 anti air, they have barbs + Tombstone against hog. It became slightly better since cannon could counter the loon, but it's still like a 70-30 to lava.
Gtfo delusional kid, trophies have nothing to do with game knowledge, which clearly you don't have.
@@danic2795 how many trophies are you? Ask any top player about the mu with 2.6 vs lava hound lol
I started using 2.6 because I was so insanely tired of mega night spam in the lower arenas and 2.6 was the only deck I found to defend against it especially since it is a f2p deck and I kinda just kept using it since it works and I went from being stuck in arena 8 for 2 years to now being in arena 13
Dude your commentary and overall video is so good man can’t wait to see what you got coming out next…Keep up the amazing work 👊
2.6 to me is a deck that can be respected when fighting against those menaces to society (i.e. those players that play the game for the sole reason of ruining the life of players who are in ladder with maxed out cards and decks that can counter almost anything despite their reworks, buffs or nerfs.). On the other hand, the deck is super duper controversial when its basically against a player that's actually taking the game seriously or plays the game competitively.
I agree with your statement. Skill level is in every deck. Golem and Lava hound is easier to play and learn but getting top of the world is hard with those decks. Golem especially is very skilled based at top since Golem isn't a good archetype in the Meta. But it is versatile in what you can counter. Even hard counters. Golem struggles with 2.6 but can outplay 2.6. (A tip, defend till double. And just keep up the pushes. Sometimes, letting a golem push die to start a new one will make them keep defending. They still have to defend the first one so They can't go in since they feed you 4 elixir into your second push and will allow you to use lighting on their units and kill musketeers and maybe the cannon too.
I like the fact that I picked back up on the game and didn't change my deck much since then I've been running variations of loon and mortar since early on. Right now I play archers, zap, loon, knight (evo) mortar, LP (I subbed it out for minions when it came out) lighting (or freeze) and electro wiz (ive loved this card for so long because i got it from winning the challenge they had on release)
That goblin barrel will never leave my nightmares. I always feel stupid after I throw the log over their heads. 17:55
Yeah, I think that's the number 1 issue with 2.6, the hyper-defensive turtling playstyle that bleeds you out with attrition instead of being based on flashy, risky gamble plays, and not having that much counterplay against it beyond essentially hard counter decks. Not to mention the fact that a number of the 2.6 players come off as unbelievably arrogant.
A similar issue with hyper-defensive/passive playstyles arose in LOL, where minimizing mistakes and maximizing passively built advantages was the top strategy for years in the competitive scene, championed by the likes of SKT, making the competitive scene stale and boring. In League's case, though, there was an aggressive counterplay option to the minimize playstyle, shown beautifully by the player Khan, a very aggressive top laner that punished players for being too passive around him.
Whenever I played this deck it always felt pretty strong and I definitely got away with defending some heavy pushes I really shouldn't have. When I go against the deck I don't have a problem that often with it, if the person playing it isn't perfect then it's really not hard to win against them, it's very much so a high risk high reward deck where it's a game of whoever makes the first mistake generally loses. Despite what people think it is a skillful deck and it keeps the game tense the entire time. Also, I rarely ever spell cycled while playing it, I'd only use spells for positive trades and when I could hit a troop and the tower, never spamming the tower out by itself, I do see how the spell cycle part of it is pretty frustrating and annoying, I definitely hate that part of it myself, but the actual cycling of the hog and using cheap troops to defend I think requires some skill and good timing to pull off perfectly, which is what you need sometimes to successfully defend while still keeping up the offense.
Haven't played clash royal in two years. Your video made me download it again. Dang the changes in this game
This deck is the single biggest reason that made me stop playing CR. I felt extremely cornered into using the same few cards to counter it and eventually I just got sick of it all and uninstalled because I wasn’t able to enjoy it anymore
just play icebow very well and you will win and annihilate most users of this deck 95% of the time. its almost comedic.
i played hog rider for all 7 years of the game. idc if it's a hated deck, i find it fun and effective
Actually, I think todays meta is doing pretty good against 2.6 hog (unless you are facing oyassuu), but this means that logbaits and xbow are getting stronger for literally no reason.
only logbaits are getting stronger, xbow was dead since it got his hit speed nerfed and Supercell started hating it, they nerfed almost every card: Xbow, tesla, fireball, log all received nerfs while I don't remember logbait ever facing a significant nerf, instead it got buffed numerous times: they buffed goblins, they buffed inferno tower, they buffed g.gang. You have actually more then a reason to dispite all kind of logbaits instead of 2.6 and 2.9\3.0 xbow. What are they waiting for to nerf dart goblin? A call from the pope himself? Instead of doing the right balance changes they rework the rage to strenghten E.Golem even more...
@@matteo054 well, I assume next time they'll make arrows don't kill stab goblins😃
@@matteo054 They reworked Rage to be an actually useful spell and not a spell that makes you win harder 99% of the time, outside of E-Golem, Rage was just used to win matches faster : it had barely any advantages over other small spells on both defense and offense. Why bother raging up your building/tower when you could handicap or totally eliminate the threat with another 2 elixir spell ?
With the rework, it can now eliminate the same troops as Zap and Snowball, but rather than stunning or knocking back troops/buildings, it will boost your own troops on top of eliminating those threats.
I didn't expect my deck to be there, played the OG Trifecta deck since the beginning of CR and still use it, I just swapped out some cards.
My Deck nowadays consists still of Hog, Valkyrie and poison. I changed the rest over time to Bandit, Archer Queen, Inferno, bats and Electro Mage and it still wins lots of games!
I just LOVE this deck and will probably never change it
8 elixir E-Giant was something else...
I liked that u approach skill of every deck
Even elixir golem looks easy I can't play it cuz I'm used to using cycle deck every deck has skill even most simple archetype deck has some core thing's to do
I think 2.6 is perfected , it’s easy to use and very accessable but there is a big skill gap between good and new player😊
Amazing video! I really dislike going up against this deck lol
I think it would be neat to see the history of The Heal and it’s evolution into the Heal Spirit.
Keep up the great work!
Yeah when you see skeleton i spirit and a musket you know its gonna be a pain in the ass and a long match.
@@Scongi same but with archers instead of musk
Maybe you can do Giant Skeleton next and talk about the usage rates over the years
Went from a nuclear bomb to troops to dead card to a great versatile card (high health, dmg and deathbomb yo tower and still scratches countertroops)
@@RemiToast9 I actually still use him in my deck and maxed him out (Star levels too) with mini pekka as well (Star levels as well) and just maxed my witch’s troop level.
@@RemiToast9 I'd argue to say he's not very good right now. Everything he can accomplish is inferior to another card in some way. It's just not worth using right now.
first things first, great video! the cr community has needed commentary content like this for awhile now. but about the deck in question, i personally believe that 2.6 is a mixed bag when you begin to question the skill required to play it. on one hand, it requires a somewhat vast knowledge of interactions and matchups, but the end all be all defensive strategy and low elixir requirements make it seem very unfair and broken. personally however, i dont like the deck or playing against it. it’s just too cheap in my opinion. keep up the good work :)
I hate the usual 2.6, both playing it and going against it, but man, I found a 2.6 with evo Firecracker and it is pretty fun to play, also the feeling of "I don't know how
, but I defended that 16 elixir push" is recomfortable
I think it would be amazing if you did a video on the history of logbait, it’s by far my favorite archetype and I feel it’s history I pretty interesting
Amazing video, really enjoying the high effort content it does a great job on shedding light onto the games long history!
I'm so glad I have mastered to beat 2.6 and trust the bm I do everytime I beat the satisfaction is something else
What deck do you use against it