Brett Moss / Supercell
I've been playing video games pretty much nonstop ever since I got my first 360. I love racing games, MMOs, and shooters, but I'll play just about anything.
Reviewed by Benjamin Barr
Every Clash Royale deck has to have a win con. Win cons are the main cards in your deck that you expect to win the game with. Most of the times you build your entire deck around one or two win cons, hoping they’ll carry you to a victory. In this article, I’ll discuss the 7 best win cons for Clash Royale decks in 2025 in no particular order, so let’s get right into it!
X-Bow
To be honest, X-Bow is probably my favorite card in Clash Royale. Its ability to attack enemy towers from the safety of your side of the arena is invaluable, and it makes for an incredibly frustrating deck to play against. X-Bow’s biggest vulnerabilities are decks that play Hog Rider or Balloon that can easily destroy it, but even those can be countered easily by the other towers X-Bow decks tend to play. X-Bow decks are very controlling and can take a little while to get good at, but it’s a very rewarding win con once you get good at playing it.
Balloon
Balloon is always a reliable win con. It’s the most dangerous flying win con for sure, and its high HP makes it really hard to deal with. The best way to support a Balloon deck is typically either a bunch of generically good support cards like Firecracker and Wizard or using a heavily flying-focused deck. Lavaloon decks (named after Lava Hound and Balloon) used to be really popular, using almost entirely flying cards to punish decks without solid air defense. Nowadays it’s more common to see Balloon in more general decks with the aforementioned support cards, but decks like Lavaloon still have a place.
Wall Breakers (Evolution)
Wall Breakers are better than ever now with their evolution. The evolved version allows them to continue attacking even after their barrel is destroyed, so they’re more consistently able to hit towers. They also do decent damage to enemies that are near them when they explode. Wall Breakers are a damage over time win con, so you have to spam them. They work great in decks that have lower average elixir costs so you can cycle back to them consistently. The only downside here is that they can be easily countered. Buildings obviously counter them, as do Log and Barbarian Barrel. A lot of troops are able to kill them, but between spamming them and their evolution, it’s not hard to get them to connect at least most of the time.
Goblin Barrel (Evolution – Not Required)
Goblin Barrel is one of the best win cons to build a deck around. When you throw them onto a tower, it spawns three Goblins that deal a ton of damage together against them. If you don’t counter the Goblin Barrel, it only takes two or three to get a win. However, they are very easily countered with the right cards. The Log, Barbarian Barrel, and Snowball all counter Goblin Barrel effectively. But you can get around that. Barbarian Barrel and Snowball aren’t super common, and The Log can be played around. You can bait opponents into using it against other cards then use the Barrel, or you can just hope to spam them more frequently than they’re able to keep up with. The evolution is good but not necessary, since you want to focus on a single tower anyway and the evolution allows you to hit both at the same time. It’s good, but not a requirement.
Royal Giant (Evolution)
Royal Giant is one of the best high-HP win cons. He only targets buildings and does massive chunks of damage on each shot. The best method with him is to just drop him right on the bridge and hope your opponent doesn’t have Mini P.E.K.K.A. or Inferno Tower. The best Royal Giant decks typically only use him as a win con, and the rest of the deck is support cards and spells. He pairs well with troops like Firecracker, Electro Wizard, Archers, and others that are cheap and clear out dangerous counters. His evolution is also one of the strongest in the game, as it knocks back and deals damage to troops near him after every shot. This makes swarms an ineffective counter against him, limiting the ways he can be killed. The best troops against him (like Mini P.E.K.K.A.) are hard to counter, but even then he’ll probably get a shot or two off at worst.
Mortar (Evolution)
Mortar by itself has always been a pretty strong card, and there have been decks heavily featuring it for years. With the new evolution, though, it’s much stronger. Mortar’s evolution functions the same way as the original version, but leaves behind a Goblin where the mortar hits. This makes it significantly better in every way. The Goblin is able to put extra damage onto towers, and it also helps out a bit when the Mortar targets enemy troops. Mortar decks have seen a big resurgence in reliability since the evolution was introduced, and it’s honestly still pretty good if you don’t have it as well.
Hog Rider
Hog Rider is probably the most iconic win con in Clash Royale. He only targets buildings, can jump over the bridge to get there faster, and does a lot of damage on each hit. He might have been nerfed some over the years, but he’s still really strong. The Hog Cycle deck that still gets used a lot is one of the best Clash decks of all time as well, as it pretty much entirely focuses on cycling through cheap cards to spam as many Hogs as possible. There are a lot of cards that can counter Hog Rider (buildings and swarms mainly), but cards like Earthquake and The Log can largely take care of them. He’s one of the easiest win cons to support primarily with spells, and you should be able to cast enough Hogs to overwhelm opponents even when they have the best possible counters.
Clash Royale Navigation
- Clash Royale: Best Tower Troops
- Clash Royale: Best Cards for Draft Battles
- Clash Royale: How to Win Mega Draft and Best Cards
- Clash Royale: All Champion Abilities Ranked
- Clash Royale: All Spell Cards Ranked
- Clash Royale: Best Evolutions, Ranked
- Clash Royale: All Champion Cards Ranked Worst to Best
- Clash Royale: Best Legendary Cards, Ranked
- Clash Royale: Best Decks for Arena 18 Silent Sanctuary
- Clash Royale: Best Deck for Arena 17 (Royal Crypt)
- Clash Royale: Best Deck for Arena 16 (Executioner’s Kitchen)
- Clash Royale: Best Decks for Arena 13 Rascal’s Hideout
- Clash Royale: Best Decks for Arena 11 Electro Valley
- Clash Royale: Best Decks for Arena 8 Frozen Peak
- Clash Royale: Best Decks for Arena 7 Royal Arena
- Clash Royale: Best Decks for Arena 3 Barbarian Bowl
- Clash Royale: Best Decks for Arena 2 Bone Pit
- Clash Royale: Best Decks for Arena 1 – Starter Decks
- Clash Royale: Best Decks for Arena 5 Builder’s Workshop
- Clash Royale: Best Decks for Arena 15 Miner’s Mine
- Clash Royale: Best Decks for Arena 9 – Jungle Arena
- Clash Royale: Best Decks for Arena 12 Spooky Town
- Clash Royale: Best Decks for Arena 6 P.E.K.K.A.’s Playhouse
- Clash Royale: Best Decks for Arena 10 Hog Mountain
- Clash Royale: Best Decks for Arena 14 Serenity Peak
- Clash Royale: Best Decks for Arena 4 Spell Valley
- Clash Royale: 7 Best Win Cons (2025)
- Clash Royale: Best Tower Troops
- Clash Royale: How to Win Mega Draft and Best Cards
- Clash Royale: All Champion Abilities Ranked
- Clash Royale: A Getting Started Guide
- Clash Royale: News & Events
- Supercell Games: Clash Royale vs Clash of Clans vs Brawl Stars
- Clash Royale: Beginner Guide, Tips, and Strategy
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