Clash Royale - Data Science Project

Card Level

There are five different card rarities in Clash Royale. Common, Rare, Epic, Legendary and Champion cards. The levels of the cards determine their strength in the game. The rarity of a card affects how many cards must be collected to reach the next level. When a card is upgraded to a higher level, its stats such as damage, hit points, or attack speed are improved. For hit points and damage this is always +10%. Players can upgrade cards by collecting cards of the same type and using gold that can be earned or purchased in-game. The higher the level of a card, the more effective it is in battle, but the more gold and cards are required for the next level. Since June 12, 2023, the maximum level for cards has been increased to 15. To bring cards to level 15, 50.000 Elite Joker are required per card. Elite Joker are obtained instead of cards for level 14 cards, as Path of Legends reward, from the Shop and from magic items. We calculated that if you get the maximum number of Elite Jokers in the game every month, eight cards per account could be upgraded to level 15 for free by March without having to spend any real money. 50.000 Elite Jokers cost €7.99 in the shop. Since the battles of the top players at the highest ranking level and world ranking level require cards at level 15, we asked ourselves whether it is necessary to buy level 15 cards and how many cards top players have at the maximum level and how much money was spent to achieve this to reach.

Tower Troops

Tower troops have been added to the game since December 12, 2023. In addition to the previous Tower Princess, a card called Cannoneer was unlocked from this point on. Since then, this card has only been able to be improved through randomly found chests or with real money in the shop. A clear indication for buying players is a level 14 or even level 15 Cannoneer card.

Data Anylsis

For analysis, all player card sets were searched and statistically determined how many and which cards were brought to level 15. Including the tower troop cards. Furthermore, the data set of all battles was used to determine whether and what victory rate the Cannoneer tower troop card had across all battles. Finally, the players were classified based on the number of level 15 cards they had and the real money amount for the in-app purchases was determined. The sorted data shows the following:

Cannoneer

The Cannoneer was only purchased by 5% of players at level 15. On the one hand, this may be due to the high real money price (€6.99 for 50 cards, as of March 15th). On the other hand, its win rate is not significantly higher than with the Princess card. The Cannoneer is special and not easy to play. Even his share of fights is only 10% of all fights. In a direct comparison to the (only) other tower troop, the advantage of the (purchased) Cannoneer is not apparent.

The 20 most outleveled Cards

As already mentioned in the section on evolutions, the importance of level 15 evolutions as dominant level 15 cards is evident. Important and frequently played win conditions (e.g. Hog Rider, The Log) were purchased at level 15. The buy-based evolutions (orange columns) from the previous chapter hardly differ from the other cards. The pattern of the data confirms that its relevance is no greater than that of other cards

Amount of Level 15 Cards and Money spend

The results of the data analysis can be divided into four categories. First category players, who have not bought any cards and only have 0 to 8 level 15 cards. Second category players who have bought a level 15 card “every now and then”, i.e. have 9 to 12 level 15 cards. The third category includes clearly buying players with 13 to 16 level 15 cards. These players have twice as many cards as have been available for free since June 2023. And the final player category includes all paying players with more than 16 level 15 cards. The data shows that the proportion of players who have not necessarily spent money (0 to 8 cards) and players who have definitely spent money (16 or more) are almost equal at 30% of players. The buy-based victory through level 15 cards can be completely refuted by this analysis. The 30% proportion of players with 8 or fewer level 15 cards shows that playing in the top 200 clans does not require level 15 cards.

Summary

The following graphic provides an overview of the various purchase-related categories and the corresponding number of players who belong to the categories. Even if many players in the individual categories (level 15 cannoneer, purchased level 15 cards) did not necessarily buy, it turns out that the binary breakdown of buying and non-buying players gives a different impression. Almost 80% of all players have invested in one of the purchase-linked improvements. Only around 20% of top players have never purchased anything in the game.