Clash Royale: 10 Best Grand Challenge Decks (2024)

There’s a separate meta for every game mode in Clash Royale. For trophy road, some decks are better depending on your arena, and in Path of Legends you can experiment with all sorts of decks thanks to the soft level caps within each league.

But when it comes to tournament rules and the Grand Challenge, you get the opportunity to build any deck you want, with everything capped at level eleven. This makes Grand Challenges and Classic Challenges the place where your skill and deck construction are the only things that matter, and within this challenge, some decks perform especially well — if you know how to play them.

10 Giant Phoenix

Another Giant Deck Has Entered The Arena

The Giant Phoenix deck has multiple variations going around and, thanks to the Giant dominating the meta as the go-to-win condition of choice, the Giant Phoenix deck performs better than it should.

With cards like the Phoenix, the Night Witch, and the Evolved Bomber, you can build up a push that is reminiscent of Golem Beatdown decks and use the Void spell to take out anything in your path. Defensive cards like the Fisherman and Arrows round out the deck in a near perfect way and, in the end, you’re left with a great overall deck.

9 X-Bow 3.3 Cycle

A Remnant Of The Old Days

The X-Bow cycle decks have a variation that’s particularly popular in Grand Challenge and has gotten even better thanks to the Evo Tesla, which can stun troops and destroy any swarms thrown its way.

The Evolution Skeletons serve as a great support troop and, because it’s a cycle deck, you can quickly evolve your cards and reach your X-Bow before your opponent has their counter ready for you. It’s a low skill deck that surprisingly has a high win percentage in Grand Challenges, making it a popular choice for a lot of players.

8 Lava Hound Miner

An Unexpected Combo That Has Its Moments

The Lava Hound Miner is an unexpectedly good deck that combines cards you wouldn’t expect to have good synergy at all, into a decent deck for Grand Challenges. For your Evo slots, you get to use Barbarians and Zap and the second spell slot goes to Void.

With the Night Witch and Miner, you can get some decent damage and start pushing the Lava Hound once it hits double elixir. With great counters in this deck and decent offense, the Lava Hound once again dominates the challenge meta.

7 Goblin Drill 2.6

The Only Goblin Drill Deck To Have Survived

The Goblin Drill’s buff increased the use-rate exponentially and the subsequent nerf has made it much more balanced for Clash Royale. There is one cycle deck that still performs in Grand Challenge and that is the 2.6 Goblin Drill Cycle deck.

As expected, you cycle through your cheap cards as fast as possible to outcycle the opponent’s counter and evolve your cards in the process. The Evo Tesla provides great defense, and the Void spell brings it all together by being a decent counter to some cards.

6 Golem Beatdown

A Classic From The Old Days, With Some New Additions

Golem Beatdown has finally returned to the meta after months of cycle decks, and its comeback couldn’t have been better. It’s basically an Elixir Golem deck, with the Healer and the Electro Dragon, along with the Elixir Pump, but has the eight elixir Golem in place of the Elixir Golem.

With sufficient counters, like the Barbarians, Zap and the Little Prince, you can slow down the game till double elixir before finally dedicating a single push to decimate your opponent. The beauty of a Golem Beatdown deck lies in watching your opponent struggle to defend while you keep piling on till your victory.

5 Log Bait

A Slow Victory Is Better Than No Victory

The Log Bait has been around for a while and has been in and out of the meta since the release of the Log. In Grand Challenge, it has once again found its place among the top ten decks with the highest win percentage, because a lot of players prepare against decks more dominant in the meta.

Playing against Log Bait isn’t too difficult, but good Log Bait players can easily counter the counters by cycling fast and picking the right moment. With a lot of counters beyond the Log Bait troops, there’s a lot of room for defense and spell cycling if the game goes into overtime.

4 Mortar Graveyard

A Building And A Spell As The Main Win Conditions Sounds Unbelievable

Mortar Graveyard is an unlikely combo, but one that has found its way into Grand Challenges, providing a decent deck to counter the Giant and Lava Hound meta while not being too difficult to master.

The Mortar can be used in its evolved form for maximum effectiveness alongside the Knight and Phoenix. The Little Prince is used when it’s most effective, usually on the defensive against another Graveyard, and you can use your own Graveyard, similar to how a Giant Graveyard deck operates but with a Knight instead.

3 Electrogiant Nado

Another Unlikely Deck That Takes Advantage Of The Grand Challenge

With the Electrogiant finding its way back into the meta thanks to the shakeup of the Void spell and it being hardly effective on the Electrogiant, the deck has risen to the top ranks in Grand Challenges, usually paired alongside a Tornado spell and an Evo Mortar.

Just like most decks in Grand Challenges, the card combinations don’t make much sense, but somehow, they work, and the win percentages don’t lie. With most matchups, the Electrogiant can be an unexpected new win condition to suddenly have to deal with and so, the unpredictability makes it all the more effective.

2 Giant Graveyard

The Big Defense And The Small Offense

The Giant Graveyard has been a staple of the meta ever since new tower troops were introduced. People were sleeping on the Giant before, but unexpectedly, it has risen to become one of the best win conditions in the game.

Paired with the Graveyard, the Giant can tank damage for your Graveyard to spawn enough skeletons to eventually take down the tower. There are a lot of variations in the Giant Graveyard deck but, with the Void spell, there’s little standing in its way when it comes to an easy-to-learn deck with a proven higher-than-average win ratio.

1 LavaLoon

The Deck That Has Taken Clash Royale By Storm

The LavaLoon deck is the quintessential deck for Grand Challenges, with easy-to-master cards in the most powerful state they’ve ever been. With the Evolved Barbarians and the Evolved Bomber, you’ve got amazing defense with offensive capabilities.

With the main win conditions being the Lava Hound and the Balloon, you can quickly build up a push on your opponent and easily overwhelm them with other air troops as well. Arguably, the only great counter to this deck is the Minion Horde, which no one uses because the Arrows can delete them while also getting a positive elixir trade.