Clash Royale: Best Deck for Arena 16 (Executioner’s Kitchen)

By the time you get to Arena 16, you’ll have unlocked every non-Champion card in Clash Royale. Luckily, you’ll finally get access to the first two Champions in Clash Royale at Arena 16! These are some of the most powerful cards in the game, so you’ll definitely want to take advantage of them! To help maximize your potential, we’ll discuss the two Champions you just unlocked and then take a look at the 5 best deck builds for Arena 16 (Executioner’s Kitchen) in Clash Royale.

All New Cards Available in Arena 16

Unlike every other card type, you can only have one Champion in any deck. You won’t be able to make a crazy deck of all Champions like you can with Legendaries, but that’s probably for the best.

➡️ Champions: Golden Knight and Skeleton King

If there’s anything to expect thematically from Clash Royale, it’s at least a little bit of royalty (it’s in the name, after all). Golden Knight is a fairly generic tank, but his Champion ability allows him to double as crowd control too. But while he might be generic, that doesn’t mean he’s bad. In fact, he’s one of the most consistent and easy-to-use cards in the game, which makes him easier to optimize.

Skeleton King‘s ability is a bit more exciting, as it allows him to summon a horde of the undead. He’s also a strong tank that does splash damage to ground troops, so you can make some really unique decks around him.

The 5 Best Decks for Arena 16, Ranked in No Particular Order

Once you get access to Champions, you’ll usually want at least one of them in your deck. Since there are only two available in Arena 16, however, you might find yourself not really wanting either depending on the deck you’re using.

Either way, though, Champions (and Evolutions, to some degree) are very important in Arena 16. With that in mind, here are our picks for the 5 best deck builds for Arena 16 in Clash Royale.

Double Knight

All cards in this deck:

• Knight (Evolution optional)
• Golden Knight
• Flying Machine
• Rocket
• Hunter
• Goblin Gang
• Skeletons
• Snowball

Golden Knight’s ability allows him to dash forward and crash into all enemies in front of him, doing solid damage and clearing out swarms with no problem whatsoever. Golden Knight’s less golden brother, the Knight, is usually just a cheap, reliable tank, but his evolution makes him much stronger.

With the evolution, Knight gains bonus armor and melee damage while moving, which turns him into a much stronger tank with higher DPS. The two knights make a fearful duo, with the non-golden Knight distracting and tanking for days (and doing a lot of damage with the evolution), while the Golden Knight takes care of swarms and much more!

We also have the Rocket in this deck as a way to do huge chunks of tower damage or counter certain dangerous troops. Rockets are obviously great against towers since they do so much damage, but it’s often underrated as a counter. Against Elite Barbarians, Balloon, or other high-danger threats, a Rocket can be a life saver.

The rest of this deck focuses on defense and support, but there isn’t anything too crazy to know. There are a lot of great counters here, and this deck is able to make really strong counterpushes thanks to Golden Knight and Flying Machine.

Champion Replacement: Valkyrie or Bandit.

Let’s Go Bowling

All cards in this deck:

• Firecracker (Evolution optional)
• Golden Knight
• Bowler
• Giant Skeleton
• Magic Archer
• Ice Wizard
• Tornado
• Log

Bowler is one of the more unique cards in Clash Royale. He rolls large boulders around the arena, which knock back enemies and deals respectable damage. This attack can stop some slower-moving troops in their tracks, rolls over swarms with ease, and combos really well with a number of other cards.

Specifically, Bowler is one of the best cards to pair with Tornado. Since Tornado moves enemies to wherever you want them, you can use it to line up a perfect strike for the Bowler!

In addition to Bowler, Tornado can also be used really well alongside every other card in this deck. Golden Knight and Giant Skeleton both benefit from grouping up enemies to hit as many as possible with their abilities (the dash attack and bomb, respectively).

Then you have the support/defense cards, including Magic Archer, Ice Wizard, and Firecracker. Each one of them do AoE or splash damage, so Tornado is the perfect card to make sure you get the maximum usage out of each of them! And of course the Log is always strong, especially since it’s effectively hoping to accomplish the same thing as the Bowler’s attacks.

Champion Replacement: Valkyrie.

Skeleton King Swarm

All cards in this deck:

• Royal Recruits (Evolution optional)
• Skeleton King
• Goblin Barrel
• Arrows
• Tombstone
• Royal Delivery
• Bats
• Skeletons

Skeleton King is a really strong Champion, but he does require a deck built specifically around him. His ability allows him to spawn a bunch of skeletons around himself, but the amount spawned depends on how full his meter is beforehand.

To fill this meter, Skeleton King just needs to be on the battlefield when other troops die. He gains power by harvesting their souls, which he then transforms into undead skeletons. However, don’t be quick to judge the soul-harvesting King. According to his in-game description, he’s just summoning his undead friends since he’s lonely. So it’s okay, we guess.

Goblin Barrel is this deck’s main win con, but you can also ultimately win a lot of games by making huge swarm-based pushes. But if that isn’t working, the Barrel is a great way as well. It also leaves behind a few souls for the King to harvest, which definitely helps out.

To back up the King, you’ll want to have multiple support troops that will help add to the soul meter. Since it counts both your and your opponents’ troops for the meter, defensive swarms are your best tool when playing the King. Royal Recruits, in particular, stand out right now thanks to their evolution. But even if you don’t have that, you can still use them.

Champion Replacement: None. Skeleton King is really required for this strategy to work, but you could make similar decks with these cards if you don’t have it.

King of the Graveyard

All cards in this deck:

• Barbarians (Evolution optional)
• Skeleton King
• Graveyard
• Miner
• Arrows
• Barbarian Barrel
• Bats
• Mega Minion

This Skeleton King deck is similar to the other one on this list, but it features the Graveyard as the win con instead of the Goblin Barrel.

Graveyard pairs perfectly with Skeleton King, as their names would suggest. You can place Graveyard right on top of your opponent’s tower, then use Skeleton King as a tank to absorb both tower damage and skeleton souls. Once the Graveyard is out of skeletons (if they all die), just activate the King’s ability to spawn a second wave to help take out any tower or threat!

To defend while all this goes on, Barbarians are your best tool. With or without their evolution, Barbarians are a perfect counter to any troop that can’t clear swarms. Plus, once they do die, that’s five more souls for the Skeleton King to harvest.

This whole deck is about generating as many skeletons as possible, then using Skeleton King or Miner to distract towers. Even against opponents who do have good swarm counters like the Log or Mother Witch, you can make a large enough swarm to break through. They’ll run out of counters long before you run out of skeletons if you use Skeleton King correctly, and it’s also a ton of fun to do.

Nothing is better than a 3-crown win thanks to an unstoppable swarm, which is exactly what this deck is capable of, perfect for Arena 16 in Clash Royale.

Champion Replacement: None. Skeleton King is just too unique to be replaced.

X-Bow Control

All cards in this deck:

• Knight (Evolution optional)
• X-Bow
• Ice Wizard
• Tesla
• Archers
• Skeletons
• Log
• Fireball

This is a classic deck, and it doesn’t even have a Champion. X-Bow Control is centered around playing an X-Bow, then protecting it at all costs.

X-Bow is a building that, if placed correctly, can damage enemy towers from your side of the arena. To place it correctly, just make sure it’s not too far in the middle, and make sure it’s as close to the river as possible.

The downside to X-Bow is that since it’s so oppressive, it’s very easy to counter. Opponents just need to have troops placed down to distract it, and they don’t need to be too tanky to accomplish this. However, when you successfully get an X-Bow locked onto a tower, it’s 100% worth the trouble.

Luckily, protecting X-Bow isn’t really that hard of a task with the right deck. Tesla is the best card for defense, as you can place it beside the X-Bow to defend from both ground and air attackers. It also serves as a hard counter for cards like Hog Rider and Balloon so it has multiple purposes as well.

Then you can use Knight (with or without the evolution), Ice Wizard, and Archers to defend against everything else! Plus we have both the Log and Fireball to defend from surprising attacks or to counter other troops.

All in all, this deck is one of the more annoying ones to play against, which is great to hear if you’re the one playing it. If you’re not too keen on relying on Champions yet, this is the perfect deck for beating Arena 16 in Clash Royale.