(Writeup and stats by Delpez)
Supreme Cream! Vs Spergs of War
That was close (and fun!) – with about an hour left on the clock we were still trailing by six stars, and with eight minutes left we were four stars behind! However Lui, Justin and Syn pulled it through for a one star victory, but there were good clutch attacks by a number of people. First let’s have a look at the relative clan strengths.
Nr. of TH’s
| SC! | Enemy | |
| Nr of TH10 | 3 | 1 |
| Nr of TH9 | 11 | 12 |
| Nr of TH8 | 24 | 25 |
| Nr of TH6&7 | 2 | 2 |
| Ave TH level | 8.38 | 8.28 |
Average experience per TH
| SC! | Enemy | |
| TH9&10 | 98.2 | 101.0 |
| TH8 | 79.3 | 79.2 |
| TH6&7 | 62.5 | 49.5 |
| Overall | 84.5 | 84.5 |
The matchmaker seems to be doing a decent job these days– this is probably as close as you’re going to get. We had one more top level base, but they had an extra base at TH8. Their TH9&10 and TH8 bases were slightly more advanced than ours, but we had three TH10’s compared to one. War stats are shown next:
Attack stats
| SC! | Enemy | |
| Score | 100 | 99 |
| Total Attacks Used | 73 | 75 |
| Total 3 Star Attacks | 24 | 22 |
| Total 3 Star % | 32.9 | 29.3 |
| 3 Stars Against Same Level | 17 | 16 |
| 3 Star % Against Same Level | 27.0 | 28.1 |
| 3 Stars Against Lower Level | 7 | 5 |
| 3 Star % Against Lower Level | 70.0 | 50.0 |
| TH8 3 Stars | 12 | 17 |
| TH8 3 Star % | 27.9 | 34.7 |
| TH8 3 Stars (same level) | 12 | 14 |
| TH8 3 Star % (same level) | 27.9 | 33.3 |
| TH8 Ave Stars / Attack (same level) | 1.9 | 2.1 |
| TH9&10 3 Stars | 8 | 5 |
| TH9&10 3 Star % | 30.8 | 22.7 |
| TH9&10 3 Stars (same level) | 4 | 2 |
| TH9&10 3 Star % (same level) | 21.1 | 14.3 |
| TH9&10 Ave Stars / Attack (same level) | 1.58 | 2.00 |
As you would expect, things were extremely close. We scored the same number of new 3-stars (22-22). The record says we scored 24 3-stars, but two of those were repeat attacks by TH7’s, probably because they believed that they had no chance against the remaining TH8 bases. Just a comment on that: if you have level 2 dragons you can always try and get a 3-star from a TH8 base, no matter how advanced it is. Your chance of success might be low, but what’s the worst that can happen? You’re almost guaranteed a star and much better war loot.
Our participation was ok, but not great; missing seven attack in a close 40-man war can be game-breaking. Otherwise we were beaten at TH8; our opponents scored more 3-stars at a higher percentage. To compensate we outperformed them when looking at 3-stars numbers at the top. This is shown in the number of stars left behind by TH level:
Stars left
| SC! | Enemy | |
| TH10 | 6 | 1 |
| TH9 | 8 | 10 |
| TH8 | 7 | 9 |
At TH10 we established a big advantage, which could be expected since they only had one TH10 against three. Dotcalm and Sicarius made this advantage count, each scoring a 2-star and a 3-star. This is a huge return at the very top, and the reason we won. Both at TH9 and TH8 we left two stars more behind than our opponents, but the TH10 advantage was just enough to secure the win.
At TH9 we are definitely getting better, which is a big reason for our recent win record (11/12). As our TH9’s progress further we should start beating the other team at this level. TH8 performance is probably due to the fact that most of our advanced TH8’s have made the jump to TH9, which means that we’ve lost a number of GoWiPe and Hog attacks at TH8. For the remaining players getting access to those attacks will make a big difference to our performance at TH8.
Finally, there had been some discussion in chat regarding our attack strategy. Currently we use the first attack against our direct opposite number, and the second to clean up. Our opponents in this war hit two down with their first attacks, and we played a clan once that hit ten down. I believe two factors are critical for any attack strategy. Firstly a unique base for every player to attack, meaning that a specific base is mine to attack, and mine only. This allows for detailed planning of an attack – nothing worse than cooking up a Hog attack against a specific base and someone else jumping the queue! Secondly, the strategy should allow for redundancy, especially against TH9&10 bases. Executing attacks against tough bases are hard, and fails often happen. Real life also intervenes and people sometimes miss wars. This means that you should have back-up attacks – to clean up all the zero- and 1-stars. That’s why I believe our current strategy is successful; every player targets a unique base for his first attack, and can clean up with the second.
The lower down you hit with the first attack the less redundancy you have against top bases. For instance, the clan who attacked ten bases down scored fantastically well during the first round of attacks, but they still had zero stars against our top ten bases. Because their top bases hit so far down, they only had ten (fifteen max) effective attacks against our top ten and left way too many stars behind. To give another example, in the current war we scored four 0-stars and five 1-stars against their TH9&10 bases. If we didn’t have redundancy those attacks would have been final, and we would have been crushed at TH9&10.
Having said that, I also believe that we shouldn’t be shy to hit down with our second attacks. A tough TH9 base with 1-star and an average TH8 base with 2-stars against it represents about the same likely return – one star. However, it might be a lot easier to get the star from the TH8 base. This becomes more and more important as time is running out. With ten hours to go you don’t want to take attacks away from our TH8’s, but with an hour left I think you should go for the easy star every time.
Hardcore Casual 
You would have the stats Del I’m sure, but I recon our win % has gone up since we started attacking our opposite numbers, and we have won 11 of our last 12. I am a big fan of it.
We also had a very good run in the beginning, when most players were TH5,6&7. At those levels most clans are just completely disorganised, and most wins are very easy. This is by far the best run we’ve had since those times, and we had to work hard for a number of these wins. However, besides us adopting a formal attacking strategy, a couple of other things changed as well – SuperCell worked on the matchmaking system and most of our new TH9’s now have different attacking options.
Still, having a system is better than having none, so I’m sure that is also playing a big part. The question is whether it can be improved upon, and also if we should use the same system in all wars. I can think of a scenario where we’re on the wrong end of a mismatch, where it would be better to attack down; artificially leveling the playing field for the first round. You’d still have a problem against the top bases, but you will also be in the war for longer.
Delpez,
What is your opinion on rushing through TH8, after maxing 7. (only upgrading barch and loons + spells)
8 adds little to offence, while 9 adds 20 army camp, extra CC and AQ + bunch of maxed troops. With TH not really adding that much to matchmaking, it seems like a very valid tactic and an extension of the offence first one, just a step further.
A rushed TH9 will be easy for any TH8 to destroy in a war. At a minimum you will need air and archer towers upgraded to th8 max, but even then you’re base will likely be an easy 3 star for a TH8 GoWiPe.
Also rushing to TH9 will mean much harder farming for resources due to the penalty in moving up. I would not recommend it.
Rushing isn’t an extension of the offence first upgrade strategy, it’s the complete opposite. The offence first strategy is all about spending as long as possible during each TH with maxed out troops and it actually extends the time taken at each TH. Rushing minimizes your time with maxed out troops (down to zero) and shortens the time spent at each TH.
@ Syncaine: It’s true that the base will be 3 starred but same goes for any non rushed bases that spent the same amount of time in development. Any competent attacker will at least 2 stars their equal so best case scenario of non rushed base is save 1 star or waste a higher TH attack from opposing clan. Trade off is that to gain 6 stars from much stronger bases, especially since 9 vs 8 increases offence quite a lot.
Loot penalty might be an issue, but reading up on it, it does not seem to be a huge one.
@Trego, fair enough, more in what I meant to say is that going 9 and rushing through 8 extends the offense first part of that strategy. I just take 8+9 as one group, as 8 has little offensive increase compared to 9.
An important distinction to make here is to be clear on what your purpose is. Are you talking about making a base where you go to TH9 while leaving your defenses at TH7, and sitting like that permanently, or are you talking about going to TH9, upgrading offense to TH9 max while leaving defense at TH7 levels, and then bringing defenses up and continuing on to TH10 and the intended endgame of CoC? The point of the offense-first upgrade strategy, as laid out on this blog, is not to sit there forever exploiting the matchmaking system, but as a way to avoid being a liability in wars as a new TH9. If your purpose is the former, then your strategy seems possibly fine, I’m not really sure exactly where the matchmaking system would place a base with TH9 offense but TH7 defense, but personally I think that purpose is lame and poor sportsmanship. If your purpose is the latter, then you are introducing unnecessary difficulty for yourself and wasting time with not much to show for it.
the second distinction to make is the mechanics of rushing versus offense first. If I were using your strategy, even though I think both of the above cases are lame so I wouldn’t, I would leave defenses at TH7, but not upgrade my TH to 9 until I had basically all the troop research at TH8 done for both my preferred farming method and my preferred war composition. Now, if you want to have all war methods available, this would mean upgrading all troop types, which means you aren’t really ‘rushing’ at all, since upgrading all troop types takes longer than upgrading all buildings. If you want to limit yourself to only one war troop composition being viable, then it would qualify as rushing, but that seems quite boring. This game is supposed to be fun, right?
The purpose: get to 9, first max one viable offence strategy and farm troops, followed by bringing up defences and eventually maxing 9 before going 10. While builders are occupied I’ll keep the lab busy. I realize this will require more farming.
I never saw it in terms of lame or gaming the system, My focus was on what would be the most strength-efficient thing to do.
Regarding boring: At worst it can be as boring as all dragon th7 attacks, which is where I am at.
And I agree, it is supposed to be fun, just, TH8 is rather boring compared to TH9 where many things open up.
Are you maxing troops at TH8 first?
Yes, but not all. At the very least loons, barbs and archers. (dragloon for clan wars). Also SF and spell upgrades.
So not hogs, pekka, golem, minion? Also no lvl 3 drag? BK to 10?
yes on dragons, hogs is undecided, pekka golem no, bk depends on amount of DE farmed while farming for the rest
so basically, no gowipe (Drags are not technically needed, but leveling em is handy for CC donations, especially since lvl 3 will go lvl 4 with next clan feat)
So the issue then is that you are really limited to hitting bases with LavaLoon (and drags I guess, but those don’t work vs TH9s), which is a strong stat but the new air def weakens it, and its overall hard to pull off.
I’d maybe modify the plan and at least max hogs at TH8, so you can max them quickly at TH9. Then you can hit bases during wars with at least two different attacks, while working towards being able to use GoWiPe.
Can do that easily, nothing forces me to go th9 faster, the beginning is exactly the same
I think always attacking your opposite pushes you to try new things other than mass drags as well. Easy to get caught in it after relying on them for so long at th7&8.
My first gowipes were pretty pants, but I usually get at least 2 now. Those first attacks were definitely good rehab
I think the next thing we should work on is defence troops, currently it is just fill with whatever (mainly archers/drags) by whomever and I rarely see anybody struggle with them while I have come up against tough bases from the cc alone.
I’ve noticed an increase in the amount of bases that have a couple of minions in them. I think 2-3 would be excellent if you have a base where the cc can be lured easily as it will make it difficult to pull 1 troop at a time (usually archers are used for this and to then kill the cc, I think we have all been in the position where we have lost too many and had to sacrifice the king to kill the cc instead). They also don’t all usually stack up neatly for 1 wizard to instagib.
I’ve been mixing in witches as much as I can, especially for those with anti-lure bases. I think mixing it up at TH9+ is good, at TH8 and below I still mostly feel a drag is the way to go, as the cc is kinda too small to really get creative. Leveling up minions soon so I’ll start putting those in too.
Excellent writeup – thanks for putting this together.
Sorry guys, been really busy today so I missed most of the discussion. To summarize what Syn and Trego have said, rushing to TH9 is not a good idea for a variety of reasons. Firstly, farming is easier at TH8 than TH9. So you really want to max as much as possible on TH8, because at TH9 you’re gonna struggle even more to get the necessary loot to get to GoWipe, Hogs and LavaLoons. Without the first two attacking options, you’re really not gonna contribute much as a TH9 in wars. Even worse, if your defenses have been rushed as well, a TH8 would be able to 3-star you in a war. Any time such a scenario occurs, where you can be 3-starred by a lower level base, it’s really bad news in wars. You also want to get a significant portions of your walls to skulls at TH8, because you will not have excess gold at TH9 for a long, long time (especially if you rushed). Skull walls is important because it means you can sink excess elixir into further wall upgrades. Finally, higher level TH8 farming is fun and easy – don’t skip it! You can dump on TH7’s with lots of loot all day long with Giant based attacks. Once you get to TH9 it’s hard work; TH7 bases gives you very little loot and TH8 bases are much tougher to crack.
Delpez nailed it; I want to reinforce his point about farming. When you’re at th7 with maxed troops, dumping on th6’s is so easy; same when you’re at th8 with maxed troops and attacking th7’s. You can often 100% these kinds of attacks by merely mindlessly barching in a circle–and these bases are easier to find loaded with loot than higher ones in terms of # of nexts you have to go through.. skipping these easy farming periods is pretty rough.
The farming is a point I’ll admit, it might become harder (I’m gathering stats on my current attacks to see how often I go for TH7 bases, which are the ones that would be badly impacted by this). If farming suddenly becomes massive fun I can still abort th9, as my farmers will be done before I start the TH upgrade.
Regarding the rest. The main fallacy in your argument is valuing the TH over the rest. A TH9 is not inherently more valuable than a TH8 or TH7, war wise they all give the same amount of stars when being destroyed(2 or 3). Also, Placement value comes from completed other buildings. If I am th9 or th8 does not make a performance difference, both will be easily able to 3 star me till my other buildings are higher. The walls argument etc are not really relevant, as I can decide to break upgrades exactly the same way. All thing considered, defensive strength scales only with one thing: Time. I would be set back by 10 days in total (building town hall + upgrading 4 army camps, lab and SF). I could upgrade to TH9 and be 10 days behind a fresh TH8. If I took a 10 day vacation it would be exactly equal defensive strength. (not offensive strength, that would be stronger, excluding for bases that can not be handled by hogs or dragloon. But by the time my defensive buildings are upgraded enough to place me against high th8/low th9, my offence will long be caught up.)
There are 3 negatives to my plan:
-possibility of difficult farm
-10 day delay of defences
-people overvalued perception of how TH level should relate to defensive strength.
All things considered, if I can keep up the farm (which is the biggest question, and I have quite a bit of time to find this out still), I will be 10 days weaker defensively than non rushed, and massively stronger offensively for the majority of the time. (this is not counting the side benefits from having an AQ, the 4th AD,…)
If you think you can put the extra effort in that I imagine it will take I don’t see the harm for the clan itself, however I would like to highlight a couple of things I haven’t seen mentioned:
1) Money. It isn’t just loot penalty from raiding. Forget de zapping, you are going to be completely crushed outside of raiding by anything that would normally just snipe your th and go on it’s way (I find tons of these bases all the time) and at town hall 9 you can be looking at 400k of each resource and 2k de lost if you have been logged out a bit. Also higher troop and spell costs eat at your margins. You will be burning the candle from both ends. The start of th8 is truly frustrating when them giants 6 come knocking on your front door demanding tribute.
2) Time. I think you are grossly underestimating the amount needed to upgrade your troops. I was done fully upgrading all my buildings 5-6 weeks before I had completed research and leveled bk at th8 and I always had something cooking.
3) Matchmaking. We currently hit our equivalent number, whatever you decide to level may not always be the best choice so you won’t always be a guaranteed 3* (granted lavaloon looks powerful).
4) Experience. I don’t remember ever hearing anyone say “I’m glad I skipped leveling stuff”, while the opposite is commonplace. No going back yada-yada
Finally, th8 is not boring at all. Learning to GoWiPe and Hog correctly is hard and I am far from mastering it (then again I enjoyed my dragon raids and still always consider it). Just figuring out which type of attack is best and how to implement it is a rewarding experience, even when you learn how heart breaking double giant bombs can be first hand.
I would add maxing your collectors out to the list as you are definitely going to need them. If you go building that xbow instantly though I am going to find you and Liam Neeson punch you in the chops
1) is certainly true, making enough is my biggest worry and reason to doubt doing it
2) I plan to spend at least a month on th8 . Lab research is 5 days for everything. (20 days for barch +wb+loon) (optional extra 10 for drag, 22 for hogs, spells vary wildly)
3) this is true, but this will always be true, regardless of the path I take. The key point is that I will equivalent against TH8, not against other 9s)
4) I actually am hearing this more and more, on forums as well, which is why I got the idea.
Maxing out collectors is perfectly possible as well, building xbows has no high priority as they seem to weigh quite heavy in matchmaking which does not seem ideal :p
In the end, if I enjoy TH8 I can stay there longer. If maxing out offence takes longer than expected, there is no harm in delaying. Going to TH9 just doesn’t bring any inherent negatives outside of the raiding penalty.
A few additions:
Just having a TH9 vs a TH8 is an increase to war weight. I don’t know exactly how much, but just having the TH higher is an increase. Since the plan calls for rushing past TH8 defense, and then not building TH9 stuff (extra traps and defenses, especially xbows), you’re base will likely still be 3-starred by a TH7 (mass drags), while you won’t be able to 3-star a TH8 every time (never mind hitting TH9s). So until you have TH9-level offense (high AQ, max TH9-level troops), you are arguably weaker than a mid-tier TH8 in a war (50/50 to three-star a TH8).
The farming thing is a MAJOR factor. You won’t be able to hit TH9s (xbows destroy barch), or high TH8s, TH7s won’t give you much loot, and even some mid-tier TH8s will give you enough trouble to making farming hard (heroes taking damage, needing to use spells, etc). Plus you will be limited to barch (and not even TH9 barch for a while), because even if you had giants or other troops at TH9 levels, that makes farming very elixir ineffective, and you will need a lot of elixir to upgrade troops/spells. The increased cost to hit ‘next’ doesn’t help, especially if you have to hope for hitting outer edge collectors.
Honestly if anything, I’d go to TH8, and if you want to get to TH9 asap, focus on maxing troops/spells/key defense, and only once that is done move up. Even then it won’t be ideal, and I think it would be a pretty big struggle for a while at TH9, but at least you won’t totally cripple yourself. I think basically skipping TH8 is borderline suicide.
I’m just not sure what you will gain out of rushing to TH9. Contrary to what you said, TH8 adds a huge amount to war offence – Hogs to level 4, Pekka to level 3, Golem to level 2, Wizard to level 5, Wallbreaker to level 5, Balloon to level 5, King to level 10 and spell upgrades. Without a significant portion of these you’ll be pretty ineffective at TH9, and the whole point of TH8.5 is that you can 3 star low-end TH9’s before they can 3-star you. If you rush they’ll be able to 3-star you easily and you won’t be able to return the favor, which is contrary to what you want to achieve with the 8.5 plan.
A TH9 is not worth more than a TH8 as far as stars are concerned, but a TH9 attack is worth more than a TH8 attack Reason being that a powerful TH9 attack should 3-star a maxed TH8 say 70% of the time, while a TH8 base can 3-star a maxed TH8 base say 30% of the time. If one of our TH9’s get destroyed by a TH8, that frees up an enemy TH9 attack to get an easy 3-star against one of our TH8’s. 3-stars against TH9 bases are not that common, and the last thing you want is to be giving them away for free. Remember that the TH9 upgrade carries a significant weight in war rankings, even before you upgrade anything. The last guy who rushed his TH was Toastman, and he jumped something like 10 spots on our war rankings after he upgraded his TH, even before he started with TH9 stuff.
Finally, the impact on farming will be most pronounced when going for Dark Elixir. You can still barcher gold and elixir as a rushed TH9, although it will be more difficult. But have a look at the troop upgrades I mentioned above, including the King and Queen. You are going to need a ton of DE for that, and you won’t get that by using barcher. The best ways to get large amounts of DE is by zapping full storages (very slow) or by crushing the TH below you. I got the bulk of my DE at TH8 from TH7’s, and as a TH9 I’m now getting it from TH8’s. A rushed TH9 will be stuck with zapping storages, which is a much slower process. It will take much longer to get to GoWipe and Hogs than a normal TH8 base.
“Remember that the TH9 upgrade carries a significant weight in war rankings, even before you upgrade anything.The last guy who rushed his TH was Toastman, and he jumped something like 10 spots on our war rankings after he upgraded his TH, even before he started with TH9 stuff.”
I didn’t have this experience, I just upgraded from TH8 to TH9 and I was still placed under 5 or 6 TH8 bases even after building a new AD and a new tesla (each was around level 2 when the war started). I jumped maybe 1 or 2 spots only.
I’m wondering if this is because of the new wall balancing, or because I hadn’t built a number of the TH9 traps yet. I’ve now built all the TH9 traps, so we’ll see how that affects things in the next war. I only have about 20% of my walls to skull walls so far, the only other thing I was lacking from max TH8 was 3 or 4 troops upgrades (golems, minions, something…) and I think I left off the last level from my teslas because I heard those had a high war weighting. Think everything else was max TH8, BK was max level for TH8 even.. If I jump over all the other TH8s next war that will show it was the traps, I suppose.
It’s worth keeping in mind that the formula for individual placement among the clan is not necessarily the formula for interclan matchmaking, although I kinda think it is.
Individual placement in the clan is just amount of cups. The war formula noone knows for sure.
Rankings during clan wars is done automatically on strength, not trophies.
Trophies just decide who is going in, your position is based off of your bases relative strength. Matchmaking is done against strength as well