Hey, Clashers!

We want to start regularly updating you on our thinking around balance and the state of gameplay. This is the first of a regular blog. Let’s talk about the current state of gameplay, and where Clash is heading next from the design team’s perspective.

Clash has evolved for over 14 years. With every new Town Hall, our goal has remained simple: expand strategic depth, give players more meaningful choices, and keep the game fresh without losing what makes it Clash. Sometimes we land exactly where we want to. Other times, we learn and adjust.

Town Hall 16 and 17 brought powerful strategies and strong engagement. But we also recognize that overall strategic diversity has not been as healthy as either you or we would have liked. When certain troops or equipment become too dominant, viable options narrow. Over time, that reduces what makes the game interesting.

That is why you have seen us act more quickly and more frequently with balance changes. In a game as deep as Clash, balance is never finished. We will not always get every decision perfect immediately, but we are committed to improving the overall health of the meta over time.

Hitrates and Meta Direction

With the release of Town Hall 18, Meteor Golem quickly became a dominant force and pushed many other strategies out of the spotlight. Its rapid rise concentrated usage around a single composition and reduced overall diversity.

When we see that level of concentration early in a Town Hall cycle, we step in. That led to one of our fastest post-release balance updates to date, followed by additional adjustments shortly after.

One interesting outcome of those changes was the reemergence of the Life Gem. It had received incremental buffs over time but remained underused. Once the most dominant strategies were brought down, adoption of the Life Gem increased significantly. In hindsight, it appears to have been strong, but overshadowed.

Since the recent balance changes:

We are closer to where we want to be. However, there are still outliers and room to improve variety. Our approach moving forward is steady tuning.
The goal is not to erase strategies. It is to create space for more of them.

The chart below shows overall 3★ and 1★ rates from TH18 release through today across Ranked play, Legend League, and High Legend League (5400+ trophies), with major updates and key Legend League periods highlighted.

Pictured above: Total Hit Rates in the Time between the Town Hall 18 Release and Today, highlighting Key Dates

Shortly after launch, 3★ and 1★ rates were unusually close. That compression is a clear sign of a polarized meta, where attacks tend to be either near perfect or near total failures with little middle ground.

Following Balance Update #1, where we made initial adjustments across both dominant and underused options, the gap remained extremely narrow and in some cases became even more compressed. While some of those changes helped set up alternative strategies later on, they did not immediately shift the overall meta.
It was only after Balance Update #2 which introduced broader tuning across both offense and defense, that the separation between outcomes widened and overall 3★ hit rates came down from their peak. Comparing equivalent seasonal windows, outcomes are now less compressed and performance is more evenly distributed.

The current picture shows a more diverse meta. Usage is spread across a wider range of troops rather than concentrated in a single dominant strategy. That is meaningful progress.

At the same time, overall 3★ hit rates in some areas remain higher than we are comfortable with, and several troops continue to post elevated performance. Variety has improved, but overall attack strength remains high. The next step is addressing that carefully without undoing the diversity gains we have made.

We are also monitoring the performance of the Dragon Duke. It has had a noticeable impact on the current meta, and we will continue to evaluate how it develops as players explore different strategies. Any adjustments, if needed, will be communicated in advance.

We have also heard the feedback around wanting more troop upgrades earlier in the Town Hall cycle. Expanding upgrade paths is an important part of keeping armies evolving and strategies fresh, so the next update will bring additional troop upgrades, with updates to troops like the Dragon and the Yeti, among others.
How these changes land will inform how we approach troop upgrades in future Town Hall releases. As always, shifts in balance and progression can open up opportunities for different strategies to return or evolve over time.

Balancing Across Skill Levels

Clash is played at many levels, from casual daily attacks to the highest competitive play.

Sometimes, a strategy performs normally for the majority of players but becomes oppressive at the top. Other times, an issue appears broadly across all skill levels.

Our responsibility is to look at both.

In general, we aim to balance for the overall health of the game across all segments. However, when extreme outliers emerge in either general play or top-level competition, we may act specifically to address that environment.
This does not mean we balance only for professionals. It also does not mean we ignore them. When something significantly reduces strategic diversity or pushes performance beyond healthy limits, it requires intervention.

Balance is not about making every strategy equal. It is about ensuring multiple viable paths to success exist and that skill expression continues to matter.

Ranked Mode, Legend League, Clan War Leagues (CWL) and the Ore Economy

Several progression and competitive systems have been key discussion points recently, including Ranked Mode, Legend League, Clan War Leagues, and the Ore economy.

Ranked Mode

For Ranked, we introduced a few smaller changes in the February Update aimed at making the experience feel less grindy and easier to engage with. We know there is still more to do, and we will continue to iterate based on player feedback.

Our next steps focus on making Ranked easier to understand and more satisfying to compete in. We are improving how performance is displayed during tournaments, making results clearer to follow, and refining leaderboard navigation so it is more intuitive across the ladder.

Alongside these system improvements, we are also refining several parts of the Ranked experience, including clearer battle logs, better leaderboard visibility, clearer visibility of active defensive layouts, and smoother promotion and demotion flows. We are also exploring ways to give players a bit more breathing room within the ladder so players have more time to step away from pushing without immediately risking demotion. Many of these improvements benefit players across the entire ladder, including Legend League.

Legend League Specific Updates

We are also working on deeper structural updates to Legend League. The highest level of competition should feel distinct, prestigious, and clearly defined.
Part of that work involves introducing clearer competitive progression within Legend League itself. Players will be able to continue climbing through multiple layers within Legend League, ultimately culminating in competition among the top 10,000 players at the very top of the ladder.

We will go more in-depth on how the transition into the new Legend League structure will work as we get closer to release. These changes go beyond surface-level adjustments and are intended to elevate what it means to compete at the top.

Clan War Leagues

There is also more in the works for Clan War Leagues. When CWL was first introduced, the game had far fewer Town Hall levels and a smaller competitive player base than it does today. Over time, the ladder has become increasingly compressed, particularly in the middle leagues where many clans with very different Town Hall compositions are competing for a limited number of promotion spots.

To address this, we are planning to expand the CWL ladder with 4 additional leagues. The goal is to spread clans more evenly across the system so that leagues better reflect the strength of each clan and progression feels more achievable for the majority of players.

Expanding the ladder allows us to improve player progression for a large portion of the player base by spreading clans more evenly across the system and redistributing rewards across the expanded league structure.
As part of this change, medal rewards will increase for most clans in the system, though rewards in some leagues may be reduced as the ladder expands and clans move into newly introduced tiers.

For the higher leagues, the main benefit will come from the expanded ladder itself, where promotion opportunities should become more attainable as clans are spread more evenly across leagues.

At the same time, the expanded structure will also create additional room for high-level competition at the top of the ladder. The highest league will mirror the difficulty of Legend League, while selected leagues below it will introduce league-specific modifiers that create distinct competitive environments across tiers.

15v15 will remain the primary competitive format for CWL. However, if demand continues to grow, we may also explore raising the league ceiling for other formats over time.

Ore Economy

The Ore economy is another area we know needs improvement.

We know the current system is not optimal. Access to Ore directly affects how freely players can upgrade and experiment with Equipment, which has a real impact on the overall experience.

We are actively working on finding new and more consistent ways for players to obtain Ore later this year. Any adjustments need to be handled carefully since they affect long-term progression across the entire game. Improving reliability and overall access is something we are committed to addressing.

Looking Ahead

For 14 years and counting, Clash has continued to evolve. New strategies rise, old ones return, and every update shifts how the game is played. That constant change is part of what keeps Clash exciting.

The passion from this community fuels that evolution. We deeply appreciate the constructive feedback from players across all levels, including many of our Content Creators who help surface discussions around strategy, balance, and progression. We develop this game for you and always want to hear what you think!

We will not always get everything perfect immediately, but we care deeply about improving over time and making decisions that support the long term health of Clash. Our goal is simple: keep the game strategic, competitive, and most importantly, fun.

There is a lot more ahead, and we are looking forward to building it together with all of you.

Clash On,

The Clash of Clans Design Team