Clash Royale: Best Decks for Arena 3 Barbarian Bowl (2024)

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Human Made

Penned by Brett Moss

I've been playing video games pretty much nonstop ever since I got my first 360. I love arena shooters, MMOs, and MOBAs, but I'll pretty much try any kind of game.

Reviewed by Benjamin Barr

Clash Royale is all about the decks you use. As you progress further into the game and unlock new arenas, you’ll also unlock new cards. Arena 3 (Barbarian Bowl) is still early on, but you start unlocking some very powerful cards. Some of these will remain meta all the way to the Legendary Arena, while others get lost in the shuffle. In this article, we’ll start out with all the cards available in Arena 3, then move on to decks. With 5 different options to choose from, we’ll ensure you have the best deck to tackle Arena 3 (Barbarian Bowl) in Clash Royale!

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Clash Royale: Best Evolutions, Ranked

All Cards Available in Arena 3

Arena 3 brings several new cards into the game. Barbarians are the first truly powerful swarm you get access to, and they’re great! You also get the second “real” win con so far: Battle Ram. All the new cards in this arena are worth looking into, even if some of them get better in higher arenas (Cannon, specifically).

Here are all the cards you can use (without buying them from the shop) in Arena 3!

➡️ Troops: Minions, Archers, Knight, Mini P.E.K.K.A., Musketeer, Giant, Spear Goblins, Goblins, Bomber, Skeletons, Valkyrie, Barbarians*, Mega Minion*, Battle Ram*

➡️ Spells: Arrows, Fireball

➡️ Buildings: Goblin Cage, Goblin Hut, Tombstone, Cannon*

*These cards are new to Arena 3.

The 5 Best Decks for Arena 3 in No Particular Order

Here are 5 great Clash Royale decks for Arena 3, using only the cards you can get naturally in-game by this arena. You can of course get cards from higher arenas from the shop occasionally, but we aren’t going to factor those into this article.

They’re out there if you want them, but we aren’t going to say you should go buy them all. You don’t need to spend real money to win games in Clash Royale, so here are 5 decks to try out with only the Arena 3 cards!

Battle Ram Aggro

All cards in this deck:

• Battle Ram
• Valkyrie
• Musketeer
• Mini P.E.K.K.A.
• Archers
• Spear Goblins
• Tombstone
• Fireball

Battle Ram is one of the new cards to Arena 3, and it’s a much more fast-paced win con than the Giant. It’s nice to have a reliable way to win games other than the Giant (even though he is great and heavily featured throughout this list).

Battle Ram is similar to the Giant in that both only target buildings, but Battle Ram is much faster. When you drop it on the battlefield, it immediately starts moving towards the nearest building. Then, as it goes, it’ll pick up speed until it reaches a very fast charge. Whatever the Ram connects with while it’s charging will do a huge chunk of damage, then the Barbarians pop out and do even more damage.

Since Battle Ram turns into two Barbarians after connecting, it is a bit harder to do sustained tower damage than with the Giant. You can easily do a quick chunk if you connect with towers, but that’s not all there is to it. To do more than just the initial Battle Ram chunk of damage, you’ll have to utilize your support troops.

The trio of 4-cost troops here are able to take care of anything that might threaten you, so no worries there. Valkyrie counters ground swarms and can tank tons of damage, Musketeer counters air troops, and Mini P.E.K.K.A. counters tanks (mainly Giant at this arena). With all these cards and a stream of Battle Rams in-hand, climbing arenas has never been easier!

Giant Barbarians

All cards in this deck:

• Giant
• Barbarians
• Archers
• Arrows
• Knight
• Mega Minion
• Tombstone
• Skeletons

While the last deck focused on using some new win cons, this one is more of an evolution of the standard Giant decks in Arenas 1 and 2. The new cards added for this deck are Barbarians and Mega Minion, both of which have a specific purpose here.

Barbarians are the strongest ground swarm in Arena 3, so they’re worth making use of. They do cost quite a bit (5 Elixir), but the damage they’re able to do makes it worth it. Barbarians can quickly destroy any tank, as long as they don’t have a way to take out swarms. Against Giants, Knights, or even lower-HP units like Mini P.E.K.K.A., Barbarians are a top-tier counter.

Mega Minion is less powerful, but it’s cheaper and meant to counter other air troops. It can also deal good damage to tanks that make it across the bridge onto your side. Mega Minion is one of the strongest backup troops in Arena 3, as it’s hard to kill and doesn’t lose many engagements.

With this deck, you have access to great defense and support, all of which protects your towers and makes it easier to find good opportunities for a Giant push. Make counterpushes with your defensive units whenever possible, as it’s the best way to win with this deck. Just drop a Giant in front of a Musketeer or your Barbarians for a push that’s very difficult to stop!

Giant Hut

All cards in this deck:

• Giant
• Goblin Hut
• Mini P.E.K.K.A.
• Musketeer
• Goblins
• Bomber
• Mega Minion
• Arrows

This Giant deck centers around using Goblin Hut as a source of defense, support, and poke damage. Goblin Hut costs 5 Elixir and spawns a steady stream of Spear Goblins. These Spear Goblins will run aimlessly forward and do a decent bit of poke damage, but you can also use them to help support your Giants.

The combo of Giant and Goblin Hut is strong, but you don’t always need to use them together. Since the Spear Goblins don’t do a ton by themselves, they should be used along with other support troops. Goblin Hut serves many purposes, so don’t try and always do the same thing with it, or you’ll be very easy to predict.

The best support troop for the Giant in this deck is easily the Bomber. It’s only 2 Elixir and does enough AoE damage to deal with any ground troops with low HP. It’s especially good at taking out swarms, which are usually good against Giants. Use Bomber to support Giant or counter a low-HP push, and save the more expensive troops for bigger threats.

As long as you don’t over-commit to a push by using too many support troops, you should always have an answer for anything that comes up. Also don’t use Goblin Huts when you’re low on Elixir or when there’s a threat to deal with. This isn’t the easiest deck to learn, but it’s definitely worth learning if you enjoy the playstyle.

Battle Ram (With Even More Barbarians!)

All cards in this deck:

• Battle Ram
• Barbarians
• Knight
• Fireball
• Mega Minion
• Bomber
• Archers
• Goblins

This is the second Battle Ram deck on this list, and the main difference is the amount of Barbarians it has. While there are some different support troops here (Knight instead of Valkyrie, and Barbarians instead of Mini P.E.K.K.A. are the most notable), the deck still plays largely the same. You’ll want to use Battle Rams when you have enough Elixir to back it up, but use the rest for defense and backup. Battle Ram is a highly deadly but easy-to-distract troop, so don’t rely on it by itself.

Barbarians are a great addition to the Battle Ram deck (in addition to the free ones holding the battering ram). This deck really wants to cause chaos, and dropping 5 Barbarians on the field is a great way to do that. They’re strong enough as a swarm to take out Giants with ease, and they can handle most other tanks that might come your way as well. When the whole group is together, there are very few troops they can’t deal with. However, there are still a few.

The counters for Barbarians can be annoying to deal with, but they aren’t impossible to beat. Valkyrie destroys Barbarians with ease, and Bomber can take out at least a few of them before they get to it. The good news, however, is that you can split the Barbarians by placing them in the middle of the battlefield.

This means that a few will live if a counter gets played, but this maneuver does weaken their group strength. You can also rely on Fireball to take out counters, but it won’t be able to take out Valkyrie on its own. There are a ton of ways to utilize Barbarians, so try out a bunch of methods and figure out which are most effective for each situation!

Defensive Giant

All cards in this deck:

• Giant
• Musketeer
• Knight
• Goblin Cage
• Arrows
• Mega Minion
• Bomber
• Skeletons

Unlike most of the other Giant decks here, this one is intended to be played more defensively. To do this, you’ll want to save your Giants for your opponents’ pushes and use them to soak up damage.

If you have the Elixir, there are very few pushes in Arena 3 which can get past a Giant with Musketeer + Bomber behind it. This will necessitate a Fireball and a tank counter, and it’s unlikely they’ll have both up all the time.

Even if they do, though, this deck has so many counters that it won’t matter. Goblin Cage is a solid counter for air and ground troops (including ones gotten from higher arenas), and the Knight is effectively a cheaper, less tanky Giant that fights back.

The hardest part of playing this deck is learning what cards to use to counter all the different cards you might face. However, that gets easier as you continue to play. None of these cards are all too difficult to use, as long as you’re patient and know what kind of openings to look for.

If you find this deck too slow, maybe it just isn’t for you. And that’s fine! If a more aggressive playstyle is what you want, then focus on those kinds of decks instead. They all have their places, so there’s no reason to learn a style you don’t enjoy playing.

Join the High Ground!

Thanks for checking out this article on the best decks for Arena 3 in Clash Royale! There are tons of great deck combinations to try out, so test out all the new cards you unlock. Good luck unlocking the cards you want, and as always, make sure to keep the high ground!