How relevant is the use of spells and the corresponding number in the deck?

Number of Spells per Deck and their Win Rate

In Clash Royale, spells play a crucial role in controlling the battlefield. There are a variety of spells, which are divided into two main categories based on elixir cost: big and small spells. Big spells have a higher damage effect but also cost more elixir. Furthermore, spells have different properties such as knockback or reset effects. The choice between big and small spells often depends on the player's game strategy and preferred tactics. The influence of the number of spells on the win rate is analyzed below.

For this purpose, the battles with identical deck setups are summarized and their win rate calculated. Identical deck setups means that the same eight cards and evo cards as well as the same support card are used. This is shown in a violin plot in which the number of battles and their win rate are plotted. The width of the violins indicates the number of battles. We have limited the decks for which there are at least 100 battles in the dataset, as in the opinion of the investigators a deck can only be rated well if it has at least 100 battles. The following results can be derived from this: Decks with four spells have the best win rate with a median of 62.54%. Decks with no spells have the worst win rate and decks with more than four spells are not played at all. Decks with one, two and three spells have similar win rates with medians of 56.1%, 59.24% and 58.01%. With regard to the research question, it can be stated that the relevance of the use of spell cards in decks is high.

For more details, a distinction can be made interactively between the total number of spells and small and big spells.

Spells and their Category, Play Rate and Win Rate

To have a closer look at the distribution of the play rate of spells and their win rate we have created an interactive sunburst plot. In this plot, all spells are divided into three categories. The third category describes a special card, the Mirror, which mirrors the previously played card and thus has its own category.

It is noticeable that the majority of the spells used are small spells. Particularly promising spells with win rates above 58% are The Log, Barbarian Barrel, Earthquake, Giant Snowball and the Graveyard.

For those who are particularly curious, there is the option to filter by the number of spells per deck. With four spells per deck, it appears to be the infamous “Splashyard” deck.

Spells and their Properties

To take a closer look at the spell properties, we created a treemap. In this, the spell property, spell category and the spell name can be examined in descending order. The size of the fields describes the number of battles for the respective spell.