The clan leader’s CWL survival guide

[OnyxDS]

My clan has usually done well at adapting quickly to game changes. Since we’re not so interested in CWL, I’m putting my thoughts here for everyone. This guide focuses especially on clan leadership and how to organise for CWL.
Note: this is written for clans with mixed TH, especially those that can’t field 15 TH12s. Parts of it will apply to the few clans of all TH12, but many parts won’t.
If you don't like lots of text, Judo Sloth has a good intro of the basics of what CWL is. But without the detailed strategy discussion.
(This guide was written before CWL was released to get up to speed quickly. It was updated during season 1 as the rules became apparent, but not much since, and isn't intended as a full long-term strateguy guide)

Rules Recap
First a quick recap of the rules:

• Each month there is a 48-hour opt-in window during which you can start CWL, but can’t start a regular war. (Events tab shows when this window starts). Starting CWL works like starting a normal war in terms of opt-ins and eligibility, except you can pick any number 15-50 – it doesn’t need to be a multiple of 5. At this point you are setting your weekly roster which cannot change during the week (even if they leave the clan). You can start any time during the 48-hour window, it doesn’t make any difference. (So it doesn’t matter if your regular clan war is still running when the advertised CWL time comes around)
• SC have changed their info: your clan cannot do regular war at the same time as league war. But individual players CAN leave the league clan, join another clan and start war or FW there during league week and do both by hopping back and forth. WARNING - regular matchups might be slow and bad if most clans are doing CWL
• The first time you do CWL you are put in 1 of 18 tiers based on the strength of the top 15 of your weekly roster. For all future weeks you stay in the tier, only moving up a tier if you finish in the top 2 (3 in bronze leagues) or down if you finish in the bottom 2
  (Note this happens the first month your clan plays. If you don't play in month 1 you are placed by weight when you do first enter. And actually the first 3 tiers aren't filled in the first month. Clans can only reach them via promotion)
• Once you start you are put in a group of 8 clans, and do 7 wars against them. This starts almost immediately (search times seem much like normal wars). Prep day 2 runs at the same time as battle day 1, so it takes 8 days in total.
• For each war you pick 15 people from the weekly roster to be in that war. That’s your war roster. Note that you can only select people who were put in the weekly roster at the start of the week – you can’t bring someone in from outside the clan part way through. During prep you can see your opponent's total weekly roster, but not who they have selected for the day.
• War works much like normal, except it is 1 attack per player. You get regular war loot for the attack and as usual it depends on whether you win or lose.
• At the end of the week the 8 clans are ranked by the total stars (the destruction) they got during the week to determine promotion and demotion.
• In addition to normal loot everyone gets “medals” (with medals you can buy shiny rewards, so you want these), which is the total of:
  
  • An amount to everyone on the weekly roster, depending on how many wars you won. This include people who weren’t in any wars.
  • An amount depending on the stars earned by the player. Note this will only go to people in the war roster, not to the weekly roster, because it is based on the stars they individually earn.
  • Bonus medals which the leadership can allocate. The patch notes list the bonus size as "Tier Rewards" - 135 in the top tier down to 35 in bottom. You get this amount per win PLUS the guaranteed bonus column. So in the top tier the guaranteed bonus is 4. If you win 3 times, you get (4+3)*135 medals to hand out.
  
  With 15 players in the clan, and if the bonus medals were split equally, the war win bonus is around 33% of the total reward; the stars about 54%; and the bonus medals about 13%. With more players in the week roster the wins become more important, since everyone gets those.
  
  
  

All the rewards increase for higher tiers. So good rewards don’t just come from wins – they come from managing to stay in a high tier.

Concepts

Understanding MM
The “MM” is leading to a lot of questions, since it’s so different to normal wars. The basic rule is simple: there isn’t any matchmaking. It’s just like BhB multiplayer – stronger clans will end up in higher tiers. In fact your tier will mostly depend on the strength of the bases you bring. Skill will likely only add a couple of tiers at most.
The exception is the first week you play; then you are placed according to strength: specifically the top 15 of your weekly roster. It doesn’t matter who you put in war in day 1; it matters who you included for the week overall. Adding extra low bases also has no effect.

Rewards
There is a subtle balance on rewards. The system is designed so that you get more rewards for being in higher tiers, to discourage clans trying to camp out low. However... quite a lot of the rewards (~40%) are dependant on day wins. So if you go too high and don't win many days you are losing out that way. There's a lot more analysis near the end of this post.


Planning

Picking the roster for the week
(See also the clan management section near the end for large clans)
The simple answer: in later weeks include everyone who wants to be in. You can decide later who actually gets to be in each war. From week 2 onwards you get the same opponents, no matter who you pick, so you may as well include them all. All players on the roster will get rewards, so it’s worth including people even if they won’t war in week 2+.
Week 1: there is a slight difference in that the top 15 bases decide what league you start in. Include high bases, and you’ll start in a higher and harder league. Higher leagues get more rewards, so you get the most rewards by picking your strongest possible team. But you shouldn’t include high players in week 1 unless they can actually play, because they will count towards your matching. If they push you up to a much higher tier, you will potentially lose each war, and so get less rewards. So in week 1 your top 15 should be the top 15 who can play most days during the week. And then you can include everyone below that whether they can actually war or not. This is only an issue in the first week.
However, if you do manage to launch yourself into a very high league, and a couple of people opt out for week 2, you might find yourself getting thumped. You’re maybe still better off technically on rewards. But emotionally this might not be much fun. So if you’re more interested in clan harmony than max rewards there is an argument for entering a slightly lower roster in week 1 to leave some wiggle room and make it easier to win in week 2.

Picking the roster for each war
(This describes the optimum strategy for getting to a high tier. See also clan management section)
Again there’s a simple answer: pick your strongest bases, as long as you are sure they will attack, offence is more help than defence since total stars matters. You get the same opponent regardless, so stronger bases are always better. There are some details though: anyone who is flaky and might not attack is a serious disadvantage. A missed attack is likely to cost you 2*. Skill is less important. For example:

• Pick a clueless near max TH11 over a skilled near max TH10.
• Pick a TH10 over a TH11 if the TH11 has a 10% chance of missing their attack.
• A base with good offence and bad defence is preferable to bad offence and good defence, since total stars matter. However, given the 10-star daily win bonus it's best to concentrate on just winning.
• Probably pick a TH11 with one sleepy hero over a TH10 with heroes awake. A higher TH with a hero missing will usually still do more damage. BUT - this might not be popular with the lower players, so I'd consider clan harmony before suggesting this. But technically it should be the best strategy.

(I've removed the previous section here about preferring offence and defence as it's not very relevant in light of the daily win bonus)

tl;dr : pick your 15 bases with the highest offence. Mostly ignore defence and skill levels. But only pick people who are certain to attack – missed attacks are very bad now.

Update: there are various 3rd party sites which can show you the weekly roster for your opponents, such as www.clashofstats.com
If you use these to check the roster of your opponents during prep day you can adjust your own roster to suit; for example running max strength against strong opponents, but letting your lower players in when the opponent is a bit weaker. These sites are quite legitimate, and get their data from the official SC data API.

Warning on opt-ins for day 1: CWL uses the normal war opt-in setting. This is fine, except for day 1: if you use the opt-in for people to show they are happy to be in CWL, then everyone on the weekly roster will be opted in. But day 1 prep starts immediately, and you need to make any changes to the line-up soon. So if someone wants to be in the week, but can’t attack in Day 1, you need to switch them out during day 1 prep and be sure they will tell you. My suggested solution for week 2+ is to put the entire clan into the weekly roster, and then their opt-in shows you if they can attack in day 1. You just need to be careful in week 1 with high bases – you will probably need to talk to them individually to check their status.
The system also doesn't show the opt-ins when you are doing the daily selection. The only way to check is to go back out to the clan list. So overall, if your clan uses discord, you might want to set up a system on there for people to list which days they can do.

Addition (from skrags) - CWL is one war every day. Unless you're a very active leader you might want to consider organising at the start a rota of co-leaders who take turns to organise the individual wars, sort out the daily roster for any opt-outs, make sure war CC get filled etc, and maybe do the battle plan for their war. You'll be in prep and doing roster/CC for one war, while also fighting the previous war - it could get tiring if you do it all.

War Strategy
Being 1 attack per player changes the strategy quite a lot, at least for higher TH bases. It makes war more of a 2* war than existing wars. Going all out for a 3* and ending up with 1* hurts because no-one can clean.
Generally speaking you should only hit each target once. Even if an attack fails and gets 1*, it’s usually best to leave it. If an attack gets 0* then it’s worth rehitting that in preference to a stronger target. If an attack is 1*ed it might be better to hit that than a target several TH higher. For example if you have a TH9 1* an enemy TH9, then a TH11 or 12 on your team might be better cleaning for a guaranteed 2* gain than hitting a very strong TH11 or 12 that they are very unlikely to 3*. As a rule of thumb I would say only hit a 1* base if it’s a choice between that and a 0* base 2 TH higher – but of course it depends on the details.
Strategy note: most of the text below assumes you are fighting an opponent similar to yourself. If opponents are hugely different then there are too many possibilities to describe. In the first week of CWL your opponents may be similar. However from week 2 onwards you can expect to meet clans with wildly different line-ups to you (eg clans much stronger who got relegated because they are clueless). Very strong opponents are likely to be incompetent. Very weak opponents might be highly skilled. So you will need to improvise.
Update: it looks like even in week 1 you might see enemy rosters VERY different to yours; more on that below.

Battle plan
In regular wars the optimum strategy is more or less to start at the bottom. Your weakest attackers hit the weakest targets until they are 3*ed and work up. Any attacker who simply cannot 3* scouts very high or 2*s the top. Higher attackers clean up lower if needed, or if not, they continue working up the map.
With no cleaning it’s different. There’s no advantage your bottom guy trying their bottom base early, because no-one can clean. (Unless he gets 0*!). Instead the optimum strategy is probably to plan from the top:

• Look at the top enemy base, and find your weakest attacker who can reliably 2* it. If it’s a very anti-2 base you might need to use an attacker equal to the defender. But if the TH isn’t too well hidden you can usually 2* the TH above you, and 2* 2 TH above if they’ve got an anti-3 base.
• That attacker is allocated to attack that base. But there’s no need to actually wait for them to do so – even if they fail with a 0* you can’t attack the base again. So as soon as you’ve allocated the target you can move onwards…
• For the next few bases consider if you have a higher attacker who can reliably (like 90%+) 3* the base. It’s probably only dip attacks to be considered at the moment. If not, again pick the weakest player who can reliably 2* the base. And so on… This should be leaving you some high attackers left over who can dip downwards.
• Once you have strong enough attacks left to 3* most of the remaining bases then switch to 3* mode; your strongest attacker hits the strongest remaining target, aiming for 3*, and so on downwards. If you’ve got a very wide range of TH you might have some 2* targets mixed in lower; but for a small number of TH in war, you are trying to free up enough attacks to dip and 3* the entire bottom of the roster.

Throughout you should take skill and strategy preference into account. So you’ll need to adjust if a base is weak against an air attacks – you’d want an attacker who likes air attacks preferably. So you need to balance up several factors.
And for all attacks it doesn’t matter much which order people actually attack as you can’t clean. In theory, it’s best if the bottom attackers go first, even though you allocated attacks from the top down. That way if someone disconnects and gets 0* you can skip hitting the enemy #1 and just beat up the low 0* target for an easy 3. But this only really matters in case of a 0* and there won’t be many of them… So you want to save 1 or 2 big attacks to get easy hits low in case of disconnects or no-shows; but other than that the attack order doesn’t really matter.

Attack strategy - “2 stars wins wars”
Regular wars are based around 3*ing most enemy targets, with other players – including ones from a higher TH - cleaning up any failures. Wild swings for 3* on hard targets are rewarded in regular wars. To succeed in CWL you need to get your players to change their mind set. It’s reliability that is rewarded in CWL. You must get at least 2* with every attack.
Low TH: for TH7 and below they can probably attack pretty much as normal as 3* can be near certain. This depends more on the players than the game – they are new to the game; it’s an auto-3 for a skilled player, but these players are learning. In theory go for 3* every time.
TH8 v TH8: In theory shoot for 3*, but be careful of hog attacks, for example which could be a 1*. So pick a 3* strategy that is sure of getting the TH.
TH9 v TH9: As above 3* is easy enough it’s realistic to shoot for it. Witch spam is probably safest – starting near the TH if it’s not central. Hog and loon based attacks do have the risk of going horribly wrong and getting 1*. They are fine, of course if the kill squad can take out the TH
TH10 v 10: This will be complicated. Due to rams in many regular wars the TH is outside, and the kill squad starts the opposite side (or even the entire army when spamming witches). This isn’t a good idea in CWL! TH10s will need to be very cautious going for the 3* unless they can be sure of picking off the TH. In many clan breakdowns it will make more sense for a TH10 to 2* a TH11 and a TH11 wipe out a TH10. But you may see more anti-2 bases; in which case it’s more feasible to get a slightly heavy KS to ram through to the TH and then you can hog the back, for example.
TH11 v TH11: The balance has changed here quite a bit in the update especially with the tornado trap, but also the eagle buff, so it’s hard to know yet what the balance is. If hitting an equal TH11, in many cases it’s going to be a 2* attempt. Which is why you should be switching, and TH11s trying to 2* up if possible, and TH12s clear TH11s.
TH12 v TH12: it sounds like defence had a big boost in the update, so this effectively looks like a 2* game only.
Note for TH10+ that getting 3* on bases equal to your own is now quite risky, and in many cases an attack might need to deliberately 2*. Which is why you shouldn’t be hitting your equal – use the strategy above to try to 2* high and then just bully low bases for 3*.

Base design
Bases that are best in regular wars are not necessarily ideal for CWL. In general the bases of your top TH or 2 need to be more anti-2 than in normal wars. And troll bases work much better.
TH9: These can afford to be pretty much unchanged. If an enemy TH9 gets a 2* on your TH9 that’s not a great result. The only exception is if TH9 is your top TH – then you want to stop a TH8 grabbing the 2*
TH10: If TH10 is your top TH, I would put the TH in the centre, assuming your base is near max. TH10s in enemy clans which are only TH10 and down are unlikely to have the experience to exploit this. If you have several TH11/12, then you can still make bases largely anti-3, since it’s not a great result for the enemy to 2* you. However there is one change: currently many TH10 anti-3 bases have the TH totally exposed and a wizard can be used to snipe it. This is now a serious disadvantage – an enemy can do any 3* attack they like and use that wizard to ensure the 2*. Rather you need the TH to be somewhat protected by guns to give the opponent an awkward choice: do they use the ram on the opposite of the base to start the attack, and risk a 1*, or do they start on the TH side, which badly restricts how the ram can be used, making the 3* attack much weaker.
TH11: This is hard to say. If this is your top TH, you can probably go outright for anti-2 bases. If you have plenty of TH12s, it will depend how much the enemy can free up stronger attacks to hit them. As for TH10 you certainly don’t want the enemy to snipe the TH for free. Initially we will run anti-3 bases, but with the TH moved somewhat inside. Anti-2 ring bases are probably too risky – giving spammed bowitch too much chance of a triple; but against weaker opponents it might actually be worth it. Troll bases may work well: have the TH part way between centre and edge, and load up the area in front of it with every trap. (Have you seen how OP the tornado looks!)
TH12: This sounds like a 2* game at the moment, especially with no attacks to cover. The balance has changed a lot here, so this is hard to predict. But it looks like troll bases or fully anti-2 bases, even ring bases, are likely to be the way to go. This is especially true if you have plenty of TH11s: preventing enemy TH11s from hitting up may be essential.

[OnyxDS]

Bringing a knife to a gun-fight: if the enemy is very different
The ideas are above are assuming a war match a bit like a regular war, but with 1 attack each. However due to the limited matching in CWL, you are likely to see a lot more variety. For example my second clan has matched 7 TH10 + 8 TH9 against 2 TH12, 3 TH 11, 3 TH9, 1 TH8, 4 TH7, 2 TH6; several of those enemies very weak or rushed. And this may be common in week 1: enemies that are a similar total strength, but a much wider or narrower spread.

The battle plan above is probably still valid: work from the top down who is the lowest who can achieve your objective. But... if the enemy has some very strong bases the objective might be 1* rather than 2*. Also if the enemy has some very low bases that are an automatic 3* for even your bottom player you can assign that target right away; there's no point your lowest player trying to hit up for 2* in that case!

The attack strategy section above describes same TH attacks. If your players are dipping hopefully they know how to do that. Obviously it's always a 3* attempt, and works just like normal wars. What you might have is more extreme hit-ups than usual: TH10s hitting the 1 big TH12 at the top of the enemy list, for example.

Base design
Base design might be where you see the biggest changes.

If the enemy has several bases lower than yours: in this case you seriously need to consider making either all your bases anti-2; or just your low bases (if your top is still only TH9/10). My clan's opponent has 8 players with TH8 troops or much worse, hitting our TH9s. If we can limit all of them to 1*, that's 16 stars they've left behind in a 15v war - even if we 0* their TH11s we can leave just 15 stars on the table, winning by 1.
It will depend how many weak attacks the enemy has. If they have just 1 or 2, then extreme anti-2 is not so good: you might make those 2 weak attacks drop a star, but give away a couple of stars or more to extra triples from other players.

If the enemy has several much stronger bases: probably just ignore these. If they are doing dips of at least a TH (eg max TH11 vs TH10) or more, then they should flatten you. Sure some people fail, but an enemy that is bad enough to fail a load of big dips is probably one you can beat anyway. If they have high bases they probably also have low - concentrate on making sure they can't get much with the bases smaller than yours or the ones matching yours.

Clan management

As clan leaders the new league weeks are going to lead to need some clan management at least at first…
Firstly the fixed war size (15v) is very different to normal wars. Obviously it’s fine if that suits your clan, but other clans may need to

Clan size – too small
This is simple – if you don’t have 15 players you need to find some more. Either recruit, or make some TH3 minis. If you need to it’s worth including inactive players who won’t attack just to get 15 and start CWL. But you won’t go very well, so it would be better to get more real players on board. Or, realistically, find another clan – clan games also needs 15+ players usually.

Clan size – too big
Obviously it’s easy enough to play CWL with extra players. The problem is the best strategy is to put your best players in every day, so lower players might not get to play much. You can rotate them a bit, but if you swap out a player for a much lower player they’ll just get hammered. For example if you start with 5TH12s and 10TH11s you’ll probably see similar opponents. If, later in the week, you have a TH9 who is begging to play and you include him one day, he’ll have to attack a TH11 – probably get no stars and not be any happier than being left out.
Examples: if you have 10 TH12, 15 TH11, 15 TH10, your best line-up is 10 TH12 + 5 TH11. With some TH12 opt-outs you can probably get 5-8 TH11s in each war. So it’s easy enough to rotate them around so they get to play maybe 3 days a week. Your TH10s will never play.
If you have 6 TH12, 11 TH11, 13 TH10, 10 TH9, then you have 17 TH11/12 bases, and likely they will fill the roster. Rotating bases won’t help a lot since putting a TH9 or 10 in for a TH11 will probably mean they struggle anyway. You might need a TH10 to cover sometimes, but they won’t play much. So you have 23 TH9/10s who aren’t going to do a lot.
You have some choices, and may need to decide before starting what to do:
Option A: Just play your top 15. Lower TH get free rewards, but don’t get to play.
Option B: Rotate – deliberately run a weaker line-up from week 1, so the lineup matches your clan line-up, but smaller. So if you have 10 TH12, 10 TH11, 10 TH10, then run a 5/5/5 line-up. In weeks 2+ you can rotate everyone around so that everyone plays. The only problem is in week 1 if you put them all in the weekly roster you’ll be matched against clans running 10TH12 + 5 TH11 as their roster, and you’ll get hammered. So in week 1 you’ll need to leave some top bases out of the weekly roster completely.
Option C: Split off your lower players and either run a second clan, or loan them out to clans that have too few. If they are running a CWL with lower bases they will be in a lower league, so get less league bonus but pick up the bonus for stars each day.
Some more thoughts (from SammyDict): If rotating players, each person only gets to have one account in the 15v war roster. If you have plenty of minis in the clan that might get it down closer to 15 without too much angst. Or, decide war participation based on activity or donations or some such - as a reward for other contribution to the clan.

Rewards analysis

Tier	Per win	Per star	Bonus size	Guaranteed	Total	Without stars	Play %
				bonus	4W, 15S	4W
Champ I	30	12	105	4	356	120	66%
Champ II	29	12	100	4	349	116	67%
Champ III	27	12	95	4	332	108	68%
Master I	25	10	90	3	292	100	66%
Master II	24	10	85	3	286	96	66%
Master III	23	10	80	3	274	92	66%
Crystal I	20	8	75	2	230	80	65%
Crystal II	19	8	70	2	224	76	66%
Crystal III	18	8	65	2	218	72	67%
Gold I	15	6	60	2	174	60	66%
Gold II	14	6	55	2	168	56	67%
Gold III	13	6	50	2	159	52	67%
Silver I	12	4	45	1	123	48	61%
Silver II	11	4	40	1	117	44	63%
Silver III	10	4	35	1	112	40	64%
Bronze I	10	2	35	1	82	40	51%
Bronze II	10	2	35	1	82	40	51%
Bronze III	10	2	35	1	79	40	50%

This is a list of the rewards (first 4 columns) with the totals for an assumed result. Column 5 is what a player gets in each league if the clan wins 4, and they get 15 stars. This includes the bonus medals, assuming they are handed out equally amongst 15 players. It's not actually possible to hand them out equally - you need to hand out entire bonuses, as in column 3. But over several months you could spread them around, so that long term it works out fairly equal. Column 6 is what a player who didn’t get to actually war receives. And the last column shows how much of the total came from actually playing.

Overall playing in the wars contributes about 65% of the total - assuming leadership gives the bonuses only to the top 15 in war. So lower bases who can’t get in the daily roster are only receiving about 35% of the medals gained by the players actually playing. If lower bases split off they get all rewards, but in a lower tier which pays less. It looks like they would have to drop almost from the top tier to the very bottom to be worse off.
tl;dr – to max rewards in a large clan seriously consider running a second clan for CWL. The rewards for bases who don't make the top 15 will be much larger if they run a separate war, even if several leagues lower

Upgrading bases and engineering
There has been plenty of discussion of engineering and rushing for CWL. Some people optimise their bases for existing wars (although the MM has got a lot better).
For CWL regular engineered bases aren’t an advantage as such. There’s no point leaving out an EA at TH11. It doesn’t get you weaker opponents. In fact the optimum is to build the strongest base possible. The question, though, is assuming you don’t want to drop $15000 to instantly gem your TH9 into a max TH12, then what is the best way to upgrade?

It is a question of how much power you can build for a given cost. And the answer, like BhB, is always to rush. A mid-TH9 for example could spend 50M gold and 50M elix, and do about 40% of their level 10 walls. OR they could use that loot to rush to TH12, and upgrade miners or eddies to max, with level 1 infernos, level 1 EA etc. It’s pretty obvious which gives more firepower. The rushed base will easily outperform any TH10 (and that’s nearly a billion loot) and likely be fighting against TH11s. If a whole clan does this you’ll move up quite a few league tiers.
So, for the technical advantage in CWL, rush as hard as you can, and max one troop to spam enemies.
BUT – doing this has problems outside CWL. It makes it harder to farm normally. And it isn’t good for regular wars.
Also, my experience is that players that rush don’t seem to stick with the game; they usually quit sooner than average. So, although SC have configured CWL to encourage rushing, as a clan leader you might want to discourage it for the long term good of your clan and to keep the team together (assuming you have a decent clan with long term members).
However if some of your members have mini accounts, they might want to rush them to TH12. You’re less likely to lose the player that way, and they will better understand the downsides. It’s only really a big benefit if your clan currently has few, if any, TH12s.
Recommendation: if your clan has no TH12s, and some players have minis, then rush those minis hard for CWL, but don’t use them for regular wars after that.

League rewards and sandbagging analysis
There's been some discussion of whether there are benefits to entering a weak roster in week 1. Below is an analysis the average rewards per player for different leagues with different assumptions about stars gained and wars won.

Starting low

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G
Wins	3.5	7	6	5	Sandbagged	Sandbagged	Dropped to
Stars	14	19	17	16	Average	Average	Bronze 3
Champ I	326	515	454	405	414	379	290
Champ II	320	504	445	397	374	342	276
Champ III	310	487	429	384	350	320	262
Master I	267	425	374	333	342	312	250
Master II	261	415	365	325	301	274	237
Master III	255	404	356	318	276	252	223
Crystal I	210	337	296	263	268	244	212
Crystal II	204	327	287	256	231	210	200
Crystal III	199	317	279	248	207	189	187
Gold I	159	255	224	199	199	182	178
Gold II	153	245	215	192	167	152	169
Gold III	148	235	207	184	147	134	131
Silver I	112	184	161	142	140	127	121
Silver II	107	174	153	135	115	104	110
Silver III	102	165	144	128	104	93
Bronze I	74	127	110	96
Bronze II	74	127	110	96
Bronze III	74	127	110	96

The comparison is between column A, and one of E, F or G depending on the assumptions...

Columns A-D are the average medals per player for various wins and stars combinations - shown at the top of the column. All these assume the bonus medals are shared equally among the 15 players (as above)
Column A is an average result in the long term - if you are in the "right" tier.
Column B assumes you've dropped low and can flatten all opponents, winning all 7 wars.
Column C & D are similar with above average wins, but not winning every time.

Columns E and F work out average rewards if you've managed to drop a couple of tiers in week 1. In month 1 your bases will match the enemy, and it's assumed you get the average column A rewards. Then month 2 you wheel out your big guns. The difference between the E and F is how much extra you win by dropping just a tier or 2.
Column E assumes dropping 2 tiers lets you win every time (column B) in month 2, and get promoted. Then next month, 1 tier below 'normal' you win 6 (column C).
Column F makes a less optimistic assumption that dropping 2 tiers means you win 6 and get 17 stars (columns C and D)
The yellow highlights show an example of the cells in months 1-3 that were averaged into a cell in E. Likewise the pink highlight shows an example of the inputs to column F.

So columns E and F are the average rewards per month over 3 months. These need to be compared to column A. Under the assumptions in column E you are clearly ahead. But these are very optimistic assumptions. Under the assumptions in column F the gains are much smaller. Typically there's a slight gain, but it depends on the exact starting league. Even this is assuming that dropping 1 or 2 leagues gives a big advantage.

Column G works out the average rewards for the extreme case of starting in Bronze 3 and then working up. The number of months involved varies in this case - the champ I line takes 16 months to progress back to the top. Again it shows the average rewards. In this extreme case the rewards are generally worse if you would have started in a top tier.

These may also overstate the benefits of sandbagging. These calcs assumed the rewards in month 1 were useful to you. If you chucked in a bunch of TH3s that you don't care about you'd need to subtract the month 1 rewards again; which reduces columns E,F,G slightly.

Conclusion: starting with a light roster may bring moderate benefits, but only if dropping just 1 or 2 tiers brings a very large increase in win rate. And to do this the bases you care about have to sit out month 1 getting nothing, which may wipe out any benefit.

I ran over the character limit while editing, so please scroll down about 3 posts for the last part of this...

[DarthPat]

Wow! This is great Onyx! Thanks so much!

[Avery99]

I get the feeling this wasn't just made this morning when CWL came out

Will edit this later today

[AllyAdair]

Great stuff Onyx.

Looking forward to trying to explain that to our resident *will only hit my opposite for 2 stars* specialists.

[OnyxDS]

(continued from above)

Bouncing up and down
I've done another , different comparison. This analyses the situation after you've reached your natural position. If you find you reach a league and can't really get promoted from it then you are fine - hang on in that league for best rewards.
There is another possibility: that you oscillate up and down - being promoted in one month and then relegated the month after. This looks at the rewards if this happens:

	A	B	C	D
Wins	4	5	2	Average
Stars	16	17	12
Champ I	368	417	246
Champ II	361	409	242	328
Champ III	351	396	236	319
Master I	302	343	200	290
Master II	296	335	196	268
Master III	289	328	193	262
Crystal I	238	271	156	232
Crystal II	232	264	153	210
Crystal III	226	256	149	205
Gold I	180	205	118	177
Gold II	174	198	115	158
Gold III	168	190	111	153
Silver I	127	146	81	129
Silver II	121	139	78	110
Silver III	116	132	75	105
Bronze I	84	98	51	87
Bronze II	84	98	51	75
Bronze III	84	98	51	75

The comparison is between A and D...

Column A assumes you deliberately don't win, and get decent, but not extreme results in your current league.
Column B is the alternative where you get decent results and promotion. Column C is what happens if you then struggle and get demoted. D is the average of column B and C for the tier above.

It's clear column A is better - holding steady is better than continually going up and down. In fact it would be possible to game this and improve on column A. If doing well, but not wanting to be promoted, you could try and win 5 or 6 wars - and then throw the seventh badly, so you don't finish in the top 2 on stars. Those extra war wins would be a large increase to the total stars in column A.

Conclusion: staying in a tier and doing well is better than continually getting promoted to the one above and relegated again. BUT, if you don't try the tier above, are you sure you would actually be relegated again? Especially because of the league drift described below

Camping 1 tier low
This section is new
Another possibility to consider is deliberately camping out 1 tier too low. Obviously this earns lower rewards per win/star. However if you win more, that might more than compensate. Obviously if you win enough you get promoted. However you can game this because the promotion is based on stars, but many of the rewards are based on wins. So if you are doing well mostly during the week you could lose 1 war very badly to limit your total stars and prevent promotion.

Here is an example:

	A	B
Wins	3.5	5
Stars	15	15
Champs I	338	393
Champs II	332	385
Champs III	322	372
Master I	277	323
Master II	271	315
Master III	265	308
Crystal I	218	255
Crystal II	212	248
Crystal III	207	240
Gold I	165	193
Gold II	159	186
Gold III	154	178
Silver I	116	138
Silver II	111	131
Silver III	106	124
Bronze I	76	94
Bronze II	76	94
Bronze III	76	94

Column A is a possible reward total for if you are winning half your wars (3.5 per week on average). As previously this imagines the bonus medals spread equally.
Column B is the comparison if you drop a league, and now win more wars, but without getting any more stars. Ie you have won several wars narrowly and deliberately lost 1 or 2 heavily.
The comparison is with a cell in A and the one the line below in B - ie from the lower league.

In most cases the rewards are slightly better camping 1 league down, as in the yellow highlight. The exception is if the drop takes you across one of the main champ/master/crystal etc boundaries. There's a big jump in the rewards across these boundaries, and in these cases you would be worse off under these assumptions.

Gaining 1.5 wins per week, and no extra stars actually seems quite a cautious assumption; so it might be possible to gain some extra stars as well.

League drift
The rules are that when clans are first placed no-one is placed in the top 3[?] tiers. Therefore top clans will fight to be promoted and fill up these leagues.
But what's less obvious is this will - eventually - filter a long way down. Clans who start at the max possible (Master 1) will slowly be promoted to fill Champ 1 and 2. With them out the way clans who started in Master 2 will find they can sustain being in Champs 2 or 3, maybe.
If you start in the middle, say Gold, it's possible you can expect to gain 1 or 2 promotions over 6-12 months even if your clan doesn't upgrade faster than other clans.

You may also be able to upgrade more than the average player. As old high-level players quit and are replaced by newer players that pulls down the average level of enemy players. So this may also mean your clan can slowly move up.

tl;dr : whatever tier seems right for your clan in the first couple of months, don't assume it will still be right forever. You can likely drift up a little bit even if your clan doesn't upgrade especially fast.

Final thoughts - "its not the winning but the taking part that counts"
Regular clan wars is all about going for the wins. The rewards are very win-focused. Some war-focused clans might struggle with the change to the ladder system, and if you're a clan leader you might need to give people's attitudes a nudge.
With a ladder you can't keep winning (assuming your clan isn't all max TH12). If you win enough you keep going up tiers until you get thumped. In fact your overall win rate is fixed at near 50% in a ladder system (although in this case you might be able to manipulate it to get more day wins by taking 1 very big loss so that you win 5 or 6 but don't have enough total stars to be promoted)
If you try hard and win initially you will sit in a higher tier, and get somewhat more rewards. But in the long-term CWL isn't about winning; it's about maintaining that tier. And for that reliability and consistency are as important as the ability to pull off clutch triples in the last minute of war.

[Bkt26]

Your rewards calculation doesn't look quite right... did you see what Darian said about batches of bonus medals? Not everyone gets the 'fixed' bonus if I understand correctly.

[MrAsh]

Great guide.

Thanks!

[OnyxDS]

Your rewards calculation doesn't look quite right... did you see what Darian said about batches of bonus medals? Not everyone gets the 'fixed' bonus if I understand correctly.

Ugh, no I hadn't. It's so hard to track all these answers. I've found it now - thanks for pointing it out

[Skrags]

Thanks Onyx!
We are also in the 'too big' category. It ain't going to be easy trying to keep everybody happy!