Riding Balloons to Masters League

Recently took my TH9 to Masters league. Figured it wouldn't hurt to share how I did it. I see almost no TH9's up here.

Army:
22 balloons (lvl 6)
25 minions (5)
20 archers (5)
2 dragons (3)
4 lightning (5)
Archer Queen and Barb King
Full clan castle

Balloons are half the cost of dragons and a lot more predictable and effective.

Base selection:
Base selection is key. I could "farm" up to 2250 or so, gaining resources as I climbed. Above that, I had to work to maintain my elixir (other resources continue to climb, especially dark elixir). I try to choose bases that I will not bleed elixir on.

Kryptonite for balloons comes in the form of a CC full of archers or an un-lurable archer queen. If you can't take out the cc troops and the queen, you will just send your balloons to slaughter. Sometimes you get lucky and find a cc full of giants or barbs and you can save your lightning.

Look for other obvious things like down-facing xbows, and air defenses close to the edges of a base. These things become very rare above 2400 or so.

Attack:
Lure the AQ out of range of defensive structures. Drop 15 archers or so to take her out.
Lure the CC. Lightning.
Depending on the base, you may need 3 more lightnings to take out a critical air defense. I try not to do this if I don't have to, as using 4 lightnings means waiting 2 hours to attack again.
Send balloons with the goal of taking out at least 2 air defenses. Swarm minions and dragons behind with the goal of taking out the town hall.
Barb King and Archer Queen can pick off a few buildings at the end, or take out an exposed air defense at the beginning of an attack.

Defense:
I won about half my defenses, which means I actually gained more trophies in the last part of my push than I lost. My base held up well , despite having one AD and 2 teslas upgrading for the whole push. Find me in clan Pollos Hermanos (45+ members, 18000+ trophies), username Grogg... I don't seem to be able to upload more images to attach.

Anyhow, I don't think there is a better way to push to Masters league while maintaining elixir.

Go on imgur and upload the picture and copy the link.

Also bam is much better and cheaper for trophy pushing, and so is ba.

How was the loot? Did you gain enough to cover your training costs?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Brido

How was the loot? Did you gain enough to cover your training costs?

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Took about a week (started at 1900 or so?). Started the week with 6 million elixir. Spent 1.5 mil on a healer upgrade, few other expenses. Now have 4 million elixir... so, basically maintained my resources minus a few hundred thousand. Accumulated tons of DE and a few million gold along the way.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Grogg

Took about a week (started at 1900 or so?). Started the week with 6 million elixir. Spent 1.5 mil on a healer upgrade, few other expenses. Now have 4 million elixir... so, basically maintained my resources minus a few hundred thousand. Accumulated tons of DE and a few million gold along the way.

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Sounds good. I keep putting off doing a trophy push because I worry my elixir will go quickly.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rager

Go on imgur and upload the picture and copy the link.

Also bam is much better and cheaper for trophy pushing, and so is ba.

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Looking at other army camps in my trophy range, I see zero people using BAM. Most are all drags or some form of GoWiPe.

Have you taken BAM to 2600 personally? BAM below 2000 is fine. I can't see how it can be used much above 2200.

Town
http://i.imgur.com/XmWYlxP.jpg
Attack Log (last 9) I lost 3 times in maybe 60 attacks this week.
http://i.imgur.com/AceR2iR.png
http://i.imgur.com/Edg2Hgc.png
http://i.imgur.com/Aixs0kX.png

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Grogg

Looking at other army camps in my trophy range, I see zero people using BAM. Most are all drags or some form of GoWiPe.

Have you taken BAM to 2600 personally? BAM below 2000 is fine. I can't see how it can be used much above 2200.

Town
http://i.imgur.com/XmWYlxP.jpg
Attack Log (last 9) I lost 3 times in maybe 60 attacks this week.
http://i.imgur.com/AceR2iR.png
http://i.imgur.com/Edg2Hgc.png
http://i.imgur.com/Aixs0kX.png

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People take barb archer to 3000+ trophies. But to be honest a cheap farming army can be used efficiently there too.

I like the efficiency and relatively low cost of the army, however I feel the troop composition would become much less reliable after 2600+.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Asdasda23

I like the efficiency and relatively low cost of the army, however I feel the troop composition would become much less reliable after 2600+.

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Agreed. The push to 2600 was trying... not a fun way to play for more than a week or so IMO. Pushing much higher seems to require either a maxed town (much better than mine), gems, or playing 8+ hours a day.

I can get a few 8-trophy 1-star wins a day to maintain 2600, but getting higher will be tough unless I get lucky and win some defenses.

Our push lasts another week. Can't wait to go back to farming (which is also great with balloons, btw).

@Rager:
Any examples of people using BAM above 2600? I am honestly curious... must take a lot of searching for the right base and a lot of 50-55% victories (and very few 45-49% losses).

Nice work chap

Personally I hate when people go about trophy pushing using standardized and "proven" strategies like BAM etc...

The game is strategy and strategy is what each individual player excels in, stop suggesting old and well known methods to a person who clearly is doing quite well using his own devised strategy.

Good going man, keep pushing and keep clashing :)

P.S. I've always loved balloons but can never find a good way of using them effectively in battle, I might put a spin on my strategy using what you did :) Thanks mate