Why Fire Spirits Had to Be REMOVED From Clash Royale...

the Fire Spirit may seem like a card that lacks a unique attribute and has a boring history because of its Simplicity but this couldn't be further from the truth although it may seem like nothing special today it's had a crazy history and I'd say other than the heel spirit this card is more different from its vanilla release than any other card in the game you wouldn't think a card like this could have been so problematic to the point where the developers felt the need to give it major overhauls over the years but it's been in the game for 8 years and sometimes with a new environment certain cards just don't fit in the same way they used to so let's talk about the fire Spirits past in Clash Royale cover all the balance changes it's received over the years and explain why this card got the overhauls that it did the fire Spirits were originally released on May 3rd 2016 a time where new cards were actually added it was released among five other cards one of which was a new spawner building the furnace which spawns fire Spirits although we will certainly be bringing up the furnace in this video we're going to prioritize talking about only the fire Spirits card and yes I am saying fire Spirits plural because back in 2016 this used to be a swarm card of three Spirits instead of one and it costed two Elixir upon release this troop was very unique back in the day because it was the only Troop that died as a result of its attack this troop had a very unique attack where it would jump onto its Target dealing one one burst of damage before disappearing they were also very fragile dying to any damage dealing spell even something as light as the zap and they were the only swarm card in the game to deal Splash damage so what was the card's purpose at the time well it was sort of a competitor to the zap because it was used in a lot of situations a zap could be used for example it was great against skeleton army and Goblin barrel for a plus two positive Elixir trade since they were for Elixir back then but unlike the zap they could fully take out minions or a princess the fact that they could take out minions was especially beneficial because at the time nearly every deck had either minions or minion horde and arrows were really slow on top of these perks they could also be used to get a nice amount of Chip damage on the tower however because they died in two Tower shots only two of the three would reach the tower if unsupported but even that was 338 damage at level 9 which is about what a lightning would do fun fact about this the Fire Spirit was the only Troop that dealt more damage than health it had well except for Sparky but she was changed later to where that wouldn't be the case anymore because the fire Spirits did so much damage for their cost they were really good at dealing with barbarians mini Pekka and even Three Musketeers if you combined it with a zap the value you could get from these guys was insane but of course since they were so fragile the damage was never guaranteed it added a nice risk reward Factor unlike anything we had really seen before this fragility was their biggest weakness though if they didn't jump on anything it was usually a complete waste of Elixir since this card had such a unique function they were widely regarded as being a great Edition they weren't useless but not game-breaking either it certainly wasn't considered to be toxic or problematic but since this card shared a troop with the furnace there were obviously going to be some challenges long term when it came to balancing but right now that wasn't a huge issue because both cards were sort of underwhelming upon release a few days after the card's release in top ladder the fire Spirits were used in about 10% of decks which was slightly below average for the time but I never like to use rates just after a card's release to determine a card's strength because the meta takes time to develop and likely not everyone had them leveled up yet as the time passed however the spirits appeared to be not as as great as they once seemed their main problem seemed to be that they just weren't consistent they often had difficulties hitting all the troops in a clump which is what they were supposed to do the furnace was pretty underwhelming as well so supercell wasted no time in the first set of balance changes since their release on May 18th 2016 supercell would give the spirits their very first change their Splash radius would be increased from 1.2 to 1.5 tiles this change really helped it to hit more troops in a clump and just be more consistent against minion hordes and barbarians its first balance change would actually be the last balance change it would received for a very long time which makes sense because it was a card that shared a troop the furnace was more of a balancing issue so super so would be working on that card for a while in a way that didn't affect the Fire Spirit card a few days after this buff the fire Spirits were only being used by a single top ladder player they just were not appealing in the current environment Z was still really popular around this time and did pretty much everything you would need fire Spirits for but it was much safer the main problem seemed to be now was that the spirits did not offer enough reward for the risk they required and on top of that the zap had only been gaining popularity throughout 2016 making it even more difficult for these fragile Fireballs to survive long enough to jump on anything especially in the coming months when we had cards like the Ice Spirit come out which had very similar mechanics next to the fire spirit and could kill all three of them with its attack for a positive Elixir trade as well as the ice Golem which could absorb all of the spirits for an equal trade as the months went by it really seemed like supercell had abandoned the fire Spirits so quickly they got one small tweak a couple of weeks after they were released and that was it they never had good rates and were hardly ever seen in competitive environments which is why it would be very surprising when in October 2016 the the card would suddenly rise to being used in 177% of top ladder decks with no balance changes it was now appearing in the second most popular deck in top ladder Expo had a sudden rise in this period and it turns out the spirits worked very well with it they had finally found a place the game was transitioning from a very heavy Beatdown more specifically giant poison meta giving more room for cycle decks like Expo to breathe unfortunately for the Spirit Squad Expo was developing fast and the spirits were replaced as fast as they were included because not even a month since that stat was taken the spirits use rate in top ladder was back down to 1% around the start of December though they would surprisingly have another small Resurgence not in Expo but in Royal giant Siege this deck briefly Rose to being the number one most used deck in top ladder unfortunately though like with the Expo the popularity wouldn't last before the month was even over their popularity had fallen again although it was still being seen in Royal giant Royal giant as a whole just wasn't as prominent by the end of the month partly thanks to the newly buffed Elite barbarians and the elite barbarians may have been a big reason as to why the fire Spirits weren't getting buffed anytime soon you see Elite barbarians plus fire Spirits would soon become a very popular combo but it wasn't really something you would see together if you looked at the top meta decks from around this time meaning it was a mid-lad players nightmare to see them together this became a dead deadly combo that players instantly hated they were both very fast and the fire Spirits complimented the ebarb so well this was not a good place to be in because when a card is really prominent in lower ladder but unused in the most competitive environments that card will typically not receive any love from the developers even if fire Spirits were having a tough time finding a consistent Niche though the important thing is they were showing potential they may not have had the best rates but they w weren't ignored when it came to designing the best decks in the right environment they certainly could Thrive and that wasn't necessarily a bad place for a card to be in the spirits rates would continue to fluctuate going into 2017 and throughout the entire year super so would take a relaxed approach observing how they would adapt to the changing environment without any direct interference January was an awful month for it almost nobody was using it but in February that number jumped to 20 23% this was mostly thanks to the meta becoming more bait centered the zap had just received a substantial nerve which ultimately caused this meta shift although zap could no longer fully counter the goblin Barrel at equal level the fire spirits still could for the same cost also because of the zap's decline in popularity the fire Spirits were getting wiped away instantly less often the zap Nerf really allowed fragile cards like the fire spirits to thrive this is why the fire Spirits gained more popularity than than any other card following the zap Nerf it really just goes to show how one card can completely hold back another card spell bait decks were trending around this time so it's no surprise that the most popular decks fire Spirits were appearing in were decks of that archetype but now you were even seeing them back in Expo and Royal giant as well as seeing it included in the most popular hog rider deck and the following month you started to see it being used frequently with the Three Musketeers but like its previous uprises this wouldn't last over the next few months spell bait Hog Rider and Royal giant Siege decks would go on to evolve removing the fire Spirits all together part of this could have just been people experimenting with other options since it was widely believed for a brief period that the zap was a dead card the only Decks that really kept them for a while were the Expo ones but by may even Expo pretty much abandoned them they were right back at the bottom once again and that's pretty much where they would stay for the rest of 2017 they would still be used in competitive play but very rarely and they almost never made it in any of the top decks I don't think it'd be fair to say they were useless but they just couldn't thrive in most environments like they were really good against certain decks but then against others they were borderline useless there were just always better options deciding what to do with this card was very tricky if you buffed them that could potentially make them overpowered since they already had had the potential to perform well in the right climate plus even a small buff to the Fire Spirit troop would have a drastic impact on the furnace a buff that would make the fire Spirits card balanced could make the furnace a nightmare and supercell definitely did not want to encourage a heavy spawner Meta Even going into 2018 though the rates of fire Spirits remained as low as ever supercell was smartly patient with them given their unpredictable nature but observing their performance throughout 2018 it's clear that they weren't having another Resurgence and soon enough a full year had gone by with them consistently having subpar raids so finally in July 2018 supercell would give the fire Spirits the first buff they would get in over 2 years the furnace and fire Spirits were both underwhelming by this point so a direct buff to the Fire Spirit troop made more sense now it was dangerous to give them even a small buff though since their history shows us that their place in The Meta isn't as stable as most cards so they would simply get a damage buff of 5% it still wouldn't do quite as much as a fireball if you combined all three of them but it was at least enough to fully take out a flying machine now even with this help though the fire Spirits were still stagnating they were really only ever used in very Niche cycle decks and it didn't even really thrive in those few decks it certainly didn't help that more small spells were added this same year the Barbarian barrel and snowball were both new two Elixir spells which only provided more competition in the niche that the fire Spirits were supposedly trying to fill they were simply more reliable and just better in most situations and despite them having really high use rates they wouldn't be getting nerves at least nothing major Seth who was the community manager even confirmed later that they were actually trying to get all four spells to have a 25% use rate which is about three times what the average card had and of course not only was that some tough competition but all four spells destroyed the trio of spirits for an equal trade now I want to cover a bit more in depth as to why the spirits were in such a tricky position you see with swarm cards you're able to split them so that the opponent can't wipe them all out with a single spell although you could certainly split the spirits a single one on its own was practically harmless so you really only had to worry about taking out two of them no other card was quite like this a single Minion or a couple of bats also wouldn't do any damage if unsupported but at least they were immune to logs and Barbarian barrels so it wasn't as necessary to split them to avoid giving spell value this is very similar to the guards as well a single guard is pointless but since they had Shields they couldn't be wiped out by a single spell so you didn't need to split them to avoid giving massive spell value either the point is every other two or more Elixir swarm card could either split pressure or resist at least some of the two Elixir spells this is partly why the spirits were at at such a disadvantage and that's not even all a lot of the cards fire Spirits used to be able to counter for a plus two positive Elixir trade were changed drastically Goblin barrel and skeleton army used to be four Elixir but now they were only three so there just wasn't as much gain to be had there anymore but hey fire Spirits could still counter minion horde for a pretty big trade that's always been true and no two Elixir spell could completely take minions out however the arrows could as I already stated the arrows weren't that great of a counter to minions in 2016 due to their slowness but that was changed over the years with the arrows receiving multiple speed Buffs so if minions were your problem you would just pick arrows all of this is why I think fire Spirits had a really tough time fitting in and sure there were some Niche situations where fire Spirits could really shine but these kinds of situations realistically never happened in game the climate had just evolved so much to the point where they were completely boxed out having this problem combined with the problem of trying to keep the furnace balanced seems to be a balancing nightmare one suggestion I heard was adding a fourth unit that way you could split them two and two and both sides would be able to chip the tower if unanswered but if that's what you wanted to go for you would have to leave the health and jump range the same which leaves the damage and splash radius stats to mess with because adding a fourth Spirit alone would likely make the card too strong so something would have had to have been toned down but then how would you ensure that the furnace is balanced would it spawn three Spirits per wave would you give it so much extra Health that it was more of a wall than a source of offensive pressure it was just such a complicated situation that easily could have spiraled into chaos if the team wasn't careful 2019 was a terrible year for the fire Spirits the card was not being acknowledged whatsoever anymore and it did not receive a balance change the entire year and the rates practically stayed the same throughout it the year wasn't a total flounder though in April and May this log bait deck performed pretty well the fire Spirits acted as a useful bait card in this specific deck it wasn't a super popular deck but it did reach the top ladder leaderboards even pushing to the number one spot globally proving they still had some potential so I thought it was worth acknowledging but just because a few players were having brief success with them didn't detract from the notion that they needed a buff later in the year Seth did actually mention a potential fire Spirits rework in an interview held in October 2019 you want game mechanics to feel unique to each element so for example every lightning card should stun so what is Fire's mechanic and one thing we were thinking about that maybe fire has the largest Splash radius like fire like all fire cards sort of have this large radius and so that would be something we could do to Wizard and fire Spirits he mentioned he wanted to increase the radius but didn't claim it would be a buff but rather used the word rework since he didn't say what stat would be nerfed to compensate it was apparent that there wasn't any plan to change the troop anytime soon the spirit Trio's poor performance unsurprisingly continued throughout 2020 consistently remaining in the bottom 10 winning cards if not bottom five months continued to go by without any further changes until June 2020 where they actually received a nerve that's right a Nerf it was just a standardization change being applied to all swarm cards they would now have a staggered deploy time of 1/10th of a second so instead of all three spirits being ready to attack in exactly 1 second after deployment one of them would take 1.1 seconds and the last one would take 1.2 seconds ultimately this didn't hurt the fire spirits that much but it's not like they were able to go down much more than they already were anyway however 1 month before this change the furnace was nerfed and while responding to some criticism of that balance change Seth commented that the team was looking at ideas for fire Spirits so it was confirmed that they were at least on the balancing radar which means a change in the foreseeable future seemed likely and that assumption would be correct because in September 2020 the fire Spirits would finally receive another buff this was a small radius buff of 2/10 of a tile exactly what Seth had suggested about a year earlier on the day before this buff went live the win rate was at 23% the fourth lowest in the game so this small of a buff didn't seem like it would bring the card up that much and it turns out supercell even knew this to an extent because they left a very interesting message in the balance changes in regards to fire Spirits proving they weren't done changing it they stated fire Spirits have been in Need For Love for a while in an Ideal World we eventually want to rework the current fire spirits to be a solo Spirit similar to other spirits but because fire Spirits are tied to furnace it gets tricky while we are prototyping this single fire Spirit we thought it would be nice to make the current fire spirits and furnace viable again with an area damage radius buff the Ice Spirit and heel Spirit were both very similar in terms of health and damage they just had slight differences in their abilities and they were both fairly healthy cards the fire Spirits were the original Spirits in Clash Royale present before any other type but they were different and it was clear that it wouldn't be until super so released future Spirits like the ice and heel Spirit to really understand to the best way for the spirit mechanic to work fire Spirits were outclassed and outdated and it would only be matter of time before the car as we knew it would be no more so at this point we knew a rework was coming but it wasn't known when since they had just given it a radius buff it was safe to assume that it would be a while before the single fire Spirit was implemented in the meantime though did this small radius buff make any difference in the spirit's performance well if we check the rates exactly one week after the buff it seems to be doing better but they still weren't appearing in any top decks and if we fast forward a bit bit more the rates were right back down towards what they were before the buff so ultimately it was a meaningless buff that didn't bring the card back in any significant way over the next few months fire spirit's already low win rate would fall even further eventually having the lowest win rate in all of clash Royale worse than even the wizard months would go by and multiple sets of balance changes would happen with no further sign on the Fire Spirit rework until June 2021 9 months after it was teased and this is easily one of the biggest reworks a card has ever received in all of clash Royale history the fire Spirits were in total receiving six changes the most notable and important change being that they were no longer the fire spirits but rather the Fire Spirit which of course we already knew to compensate for two less units The Elixir CA was dropped to one Elixir its damage was increased by 6% meaning it took out lava pups now its hit points were more than double to match the ice Spirits meaning just one Fire Spirit could connect to the princess tower on its own now its jump range was increased by half a tile so more slow attacking ranged cards like bowler would get hit in a one-on-one interaction and its area radius was increased by 8/10 of a tile meaning now it was more than double what it originally was upon release which was the main point of this rework so the radius and bonus damage was the spirit's shining Factor other than that it was consider consistent with the others this rework was clearly very well thought out but it was so different from what it was before that I don't think anyone could have predicted how strong it would be until the rework went live so then how did these changes ultimately affect the card well it certainly was much better than before but it would take time for its full power to get recognized a few weeks after the rework went live the raids were about average but they would continue to trickle up it was considered to be a pretty strong card but nothing gamebreaking however there was one significant problem with it that made some players perceive it as being way too strong and this was thanks to its 2 and 1/2 tile radius I didn't mention it earlier because I wanted to emphasize how big it was now this radius meant that it could fully counter a center placed Goblin Barrel if the spirit jumped on any of the three goblins it would always hit the other two instantly taking them all out this meant you could fully counter a three elixir card for just one Elixir which was a huge plus this made it nearly impossible to win as a goblin Barrel player if you were going against the Fire Spirit there really just wasn't any counterplay because spells that could be placed anywhere like zap and snowball wouldn't take it out anymore tricky barrels wouldn't work because the Fire Spirit was a troop that would just follow wherever the barrel was placed you didn't need to have good timing or placement it was so easy for anyone to do as you could imagine this made Goblin be players pretty upset the Fire Spirit alone pretty much killed the entire log bait archetype even though the spirit itself wasn't insanely popular it prevented log bait players from being able to consistently win battles and push High since it essentially acted as a wall to those players other than that though the Fire Spirit seemed pretty balanced I don't think supercell really intended for this interaction to happen so it would likely be changed in the next set of balance changes as for the decks you would see fire spirit in for the means time however you saw it paired a lot with the Brand's new Goblin drill which sometimes included wall breakers this is primarily what you saw it in throughout this period but you also occasionally saw it replacing the ice beard in the popular hog earthquake deck that was going around it was really just a good highpressure card that was useful in cycle decks for chipping it was really solid because it did more damage to Towers than a fireball for just one Elixir meaning you'd either get a lot of cheap damage or get some easy positive Elixir trades it really seems to be in a fantastic position the rework had overall been very successful the next set of balance changes wouldn't arrive until September 6th 2021 and here the Fire Spirit would get a very small nerve a simple radius decrease of 2/10 of a tile specifically meant only to affect the interaction against Goblin Barrel now it was still technically possible to hit all three goblins against a center placed Goblin barrel with a single fire Spirit but to do that now you would need to nudge one of the Goblins closer to the Middle with something like skeletons to make the radius of the spirit reach the other two however since it took at least two Elixir to pull this off it was no longer special since something as simple as a log could always fully counter a goblin barrel for two Elixir the goblin drill also got nerfed in this set of balance changes which sucked for the spirit because it had been working so well with it the rates would decrease to be just about average once the balance changes went live but it was hardly seen in any top decks it was kind of just sometimes replacing other Spirits in already established decks its power would begin to get more recognized in November however thanks to the release of Champions champions introduced a new three card cycle strategy so cycle cards were in higher demand this Royal hog Archer Queen deck was probably the most iconic one this one exploded in popularity and would remain in the meta for a while but you also saw the fire spirit being implemented in pretty much every kind of cycle deck hog rider minor control you name it Fire Spirit just fit a highly demanded role of being a very cheap strong pressure card at this point it didn't really seem to be used as a defensive card against swarms it mainly seems to be used just to get to a better card or to get chip damage so at this point the radius stat seemed to barely matter at all it's not like a card has to fit any specific role but that's what Seth emphasized when talking about a potential buff SL rework a while back so it seems like the card straight away from its intended purpose and because of the goblin Barrel they really can never buff the radius again in case they wanted to rework it to have a much bigger radius but do less damage or something like that at this point however that didn't even seem necessary the card was so popular at this point the Ice Spirit was getting boxed out to an extent because of it so for the third set of balance changes in a row the Fire Spirit would be changed on December 7th 2021 its jump range would be reverted back to 2 tiles meaning more cards would actually be able to take it out in a one-on-one interaction it definitely made the card a lot less annoying now hopefully this would give some room to the other spirits to breathe a bit more the rates obviously took another hit after the balance changes went live but it was certainly still competitively viable that brings us to 2022 you still saw the Fire Spirit played in the same decks it had already been working well in especially this one specific Archer Queen Royal Hogs deck we already talked about it had seemed to settle in a great spot perhaps never needing a balance change again but as the months went by the rate slowly increased again the Decks that had been thriving in were continuously thriving and you even saw it squeezing its way back into Expo but perhaps the biggest cause to this continuous rise was the mighty Miner you saw the Fire Spirit present in multiple popular Mighty Miner decks and even during that rise it was still present in multiple meta Archer Queen decks this one in particular was Rising towards the end of May into June but despite his growing popularity the Fire Spirit really only got complaints from competitive players if you were more of a casual mid-lad player you probably didn't mind this card too much but supercell does try to appeal to both groups to an extent when it comes to balance changes and with the surge of popularity it saw in the first half of 2022 a nerve was justified so on August 2nd 2022 the Fire Spirit would receive the final nerve and thus the final change it would ever receive a simple damage reduction of 9% meaning it actually now did less damage than an old Fire Spirit from the trio pre- rework this was a very specific number which I think was very smartly chosen with this damage reduction it would still One-Shot goblins at an equal level as well as take out zappies flying machine magic Archer mother witch or skeleton dragons with the assistance of the royal delivery but now it would no longer take out lava pups also before a fire Spirit could fully take out wall breakers with the assistance of the tower but now with the reduced damage it would take two Tower shots to take each of them out instead of one this Nerf was definitely going to cause some damage but it was the last bit of toing down the card needed to be balanced once and for all after the changes went live fire Spirits rat settled back down to be statistically very balanced these rates weren't stable but I'm not going to cover every single brief uptick and downfall from this last balance change all the way until 2024 for a while after the Nerf you still saw it appear appearing in this trending giant skeleton hog rider deck which had been steadily popular for a few months by this point Fire Spirit was in a great position now its rates were never exceeding standard boundaries but consistently seeing at least some play in the competitive scene sometimes he was in The Meta sometimes he wasn't it was just a matter of the overall environment and if and when he could play his part well and I think that's an okay spot for a card to be in as we take a look at his performance in 2023 it's safe to say that he remained viable but his rates were typically on the lower end of usage around April and May Archer Queen Royal Hogs made a small comeback which helped the Fire Spirit but other than that there weren't really any top meta Decks that included it throughout the entire year its purpose was just a bit more Niche than most cycle cards it could be argued that maybe it deserved a small buff but since it was never really dead at any point Super Cell decided to leave it alone for the entire year which I think was the right approach going into 2024 the rates were trickling down to a point where it suggested the card was borderline unviable but this would all change in March 2024 the goblin drill was a card that we talked about working very well with the fire spirit in the past but for a while up to this point it had been very unpopular it got a massive rework in March bringing it back into the meta Goblin drill wasn't just viable now it was quite strong and Fire Spirit found a huge new wave of success in this new Goblin drill meta hitting the highest rates it's had since before its nerfed nearly 2 years ago by this point but the Fire Spirit was really only seen in Goblin drill decks so it was clearly just riding the popularity of this card it couldn't ensure long-term stability but it proves that the fire Spirit still has a lot of potential to thrive even as of recently there's been some top players succeeding with new variants of Royal hog Archer Queen decks but it seems like it will typically remain as a slightly underused Niche card but again that's totally fine not every card is or should necessarily have equal rates to each other so now I hope you can understand why I said this card had one of the most interesting journeys of any card and despite it receiving a massive overhaul along with so many changes I honestly think supercell handled this card pretty well there were so many challenging factors and obstacles to cross when it came to balancing throughout the years but despite that they ended up turning it into a pretty healthy card which is not something I'm used to saying in these videos the Fire Spirit I got to say is in an overall pretty healthy position today its rates may not suggest that all the time but it's a card that time and time again has proven its strength even if it seems weak at times also you may have noticed that I stopped talking about the furnace partway through this video and that's because it actually had a rework in December 2021 that was pretty detrimental it just never really recovered after that for a while it's had some of the worst rates of any card in Clash Royale so it doesn't really seem like it's holding the Fire Spirit back from any potential changes at this point because they clearly don't care if that card is viable anymore and I think the Fire Spirit rework in a way kind of ruined it that card was supposed to have two weak Spirits per wave but now it's totally different I said originally that I felt like the furnace was holding back the fire Spirits back in the day but now I think it's the complete opposite furnace never really needed that June 2021 rework the fire Spirits did but I think most people wouldn't prefer seeing the solo Spirit than a building that spawns waves of them any day because people do not like spawners but I do want to point out one reason as to why it seems like supercell may have a biased against the fire spirit and here's why if you don't know in Clash Royale every single troop card has a little model that appears above it if you pull up its stats with the exception of only one the Fire Spirit every troop old and new including every other Spirit has one but in the fire Spirits case there's simply nothing there I don't know why there's an arbitrary exception here it's so strange they've even created the perfect model for it in a banner already so I don't know why they wouldn't just apply it here but anyway let me know what you think about the fire spirit and what cards history you would like to see next thank you all for listening and I'll catch you later [Music]

Channel: Gratz

Views: 313,048

Keywords: Clash, Royale, Clash Royale, Clash Royale History, Fire Spirit, Fire Spirits, Fire Spirit Decks, Fire Spirit History, History, History of, History of Clash Royale

Id: uem7ZDZ7Z9g

Length: 33min 2sec (1982 seconds)

Published: Thu May 16 2024