What I Learned When I Lost All My Trophies

About two weeks ago, I broke through to the Platinum Arena for the first time. I was ecstatic and enjoyed two quick Treasure Chests with much-improved loot (as compared to Gold Arena).

Then I got attacked and knocked back to Gold. No problem, right? Except that it was. I started losing raids. A lot of raids. And I got frustrated. REALLY frustrated. In the meantime, I was leveling up my heroes and my team was getting stronger. But I was still losing. Not every raid, and yes I could still fill the Treasure Chest. But my trophies were falling, from the 1700’s, to the 1600’s, to the 1500’s. And raiding wasn’t fun for me anymore. And my anger made the situation worse. I was overly emotional and making a lot of mistakes, including:

  1. Forgetting to edit my team after Titan fights
  2. Hitting the Reroll button so quickly I was bypassing good matches without realizing it
  3. Noticing only the enemy tank color and not their complete hero lineup

After a couple of days (and rants in my Alliance Chat), I realized that the problem was me. I needed a reset. I needed to find a way to be less emotionally attached to raid outcomes. And most of all, I needed to find the fun again. Because I LOVE this game.

I had heard about people “dropping cups” and I got curious. Then I found @Gryphonknight’s thread on Waffle & Drop.

What better way to get a fresh perspective on raiding than to deliberately lose all my trophies? Maybe I would get over my irrational fear of losing cups. Maybe I would learn how to raid better. In any event, I’d get a mini-vacation from the grind!

I began my experiment with approximately 1630 trophies. In between Treasure Chests, I started raids and fled immediately. When I had an active Treasure chest, I killed four Heroes and then fled. Losing became fun in a bizarre sort of way.

It look me about 32 hours to drop to zero trophies. Then began the return. Rather than use Team 1, I decided to use my weakest available bench team that still had a Team Power above that of my opponents. As a result, I got some valuable practice time with some of my weaker teams and learned better how those heroes fight together.

It took less than a day to get back into Silver Arena, and by the next day I was back in Gold. During this process, I focused on leveling up my heroes. The Attack Team with which I had previously reached Platinum was Scarlett 3-60, Rigard 4-20, Cyprian 3-60, Tibertus 3-60, and Gunnar 3-50. In the interim, I was able to ascend Kelile and Chao to the 3rd tier and move them into my lineup.

Earlier tonight (about 3-1/2 days since I hit zero trophies), I got back to Platinum and completed a treasure chest there.

And here’s what I learned:

  1. My previous success was artificial and premature. I had received two Raiding Flasks just prior to getting to Platinum the first time, and as a result of that I had a long session of online time when I was raiding without being attacked. Whereas a trophy count normally goes up and down, mine went up, and up and up (all the way to 1970) before my extra raids ran out. This fact was lost on me until a couple of days later.

  2. Color balance makes raids SO MUCH EASIER. My three Purple heroes got me all the way through Season 1, but I had only one strategy for raiding: look for a yellow tank and hope for a good purple board. By the time I got back to Gold Arena, I was able to swap Tibertus for Kelile and use her and Scarlett together. Now I had options on the board! Purple meant healing and prolonging the battle, and Red meant sniping. In addition, my practice time with the bench teams helped me remember what it’s like to fight with a rainbow. (I had almost forgotten that.)

By the time Chao joined the fight, I had even more ways to attack (and a way to drain mana). Now I was looking for opponents with either a Yellow or Green tank and with two or more of either Yellow or Green.

  1. Losing trophies really (REALLY) isn’t a big deal. I needed the experience of hitting rock bottom to show me that the game is still fun even if you aren’t winning raids, and even if you’re not getting amazing loot from Treasure Chests.

  2. This community is amazing. The forums are so full of great insights and tactics. The Waffle & Drop concept crossed my screen at exactly the time I needed it the most.

I’m currently in the low 1800’s and fully expecting to get knocked back to Gold again. When that happens, I’ll be fine. And I’ll be back in Platinum again before too long.

Thanks for reading. :slight_smile:

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I lose my cup everyday around 200 cup or more LOL. The first time join in platinum and they attack me when I"m offline make me back to gold arena, wich is bad because I want to fill and open my chest in higher arena (platinum) and not in the edge of gold, revenge is my rush dumb option and make me lose more cup , win 1 raid and when I just need a little bit score to back at platinum arena , I run off the flag and you know what I lose my cups again. Waiting flag is took time so with bitter feeling I open the chest in that arena. (upset why they attack me in the wrong time, but they dont know my situations that time) . Losing cup is not a big matter for me now, revenge is not my option anymore, find a good one to raid is more challenging and when I must fill the chest, I choose carefully since the flag took a long time to refill. Happy raiding and enjoy

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There are invisible walls - platinum is behind full 4* line up, diamond behind full 5* lineup (maybe Rigard in the corner)

And these walls have moats - filled with 3* troops:)

You really need 4* troops - attacking with 3* troops early teen 4* troop setup is yeah…hard

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Happy to hear your story Adrian , I just want to add something that might be useful , I also faced the same situation you did ( loosing cups ) when I reached platinum , but then I realized that this is part of the game and leaned to cope with it , and the fun thing is since I’m concentrating on building SH20 I needed iron so badly , so I started raiding for iron and food and didn’t leave platinum since (with TP 3100 ) , and that’s the thing that made me love raiding , because when you raid you get iron and food and use them but trophies come and go , and to make my strategy is more efficient ( raiding for iron and food ) , I make sure to empty my watchtower ASAP .

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I have been playing in diamond for a few months now. I raid up 200 cups and then overnight I lose 200 cups. There is no great reward for working in diamond. I am beginning to wonder what cup level my 5* team would even out at if I ignored raids for awhile.

Great story Adrian. I learned a while back that striving for cups can be very frustrating. Once I decided to just have fun and take chances with raids and revenges it became a lot more fun. Funny thing is that when I started not caring as much and just having fun with it my cup total actually increased. I usually hang in the 2150 range and that’s fine with me for now. When I get on in the morning and I’m down 200 that gives me that much more opportunity to revenge my way through the raiders. Win or lose there is always tomorrow.

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Glad you found your method for raiding and have fun in your own and unique way.

It was really interesting to read.

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I hope your readers do not focus solely on cup dropping. You make a great point about learning how to use your roster and build a team.

Really great post.

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I cracked the top 50 and 15 minutes later I lost 250 cups. Lol. I raid to fill chests, not cups. Some people get bent out of shape when they lose cups. Good post. Very important to learn which heros work best with others.

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@JoyDivision I’m focusing on getting to Training Camp 20 and then I’ll upgrade my Barracks for more troop leveling. I have 4-star troops in Green and Blue, but ironically I’m not even using Green and Blue in my attack team! (No 4-star heroes in those colors.) Thanks for the reply!

@NasserDJN Yup, I was making sure to harvest my watchtower frequently so I wouldn’t be an attractive target to attackers. :slight_smile:

Oh, Young Padawan, let me teach you. Your Watchtower is the bait. Invite them in and fatten them up. Let the revenges mature and strike while they sleep and their watchtower is full. You’ll gain much more than you lose by keeping the bait up.

About the only time I empty my watchtower is right when I sign on or if I see that someone just failed an attack on me (I’m top 100, so they attack while I’m online) that way when they retry, the tower is actually empty, but they’ve already re-initiated the attack. The watchtower has already lured them in and they don’t know that I’ve emptied it.

Max out your Watchtower and use it to lure in your marks. Allow the revenges to ripen and strike when they are worth it or, in the RARE event when you want to re-roll, head to your watchtower and to a revenge. It resets your raids and effectively re-rolls you for free. Realistically you should get in the habit of never re-rolling. The only possible exception would be if you have one flag left and 35/40 or more on your raid chest.

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@Otto0000 thank you for your reply and insight! I love the idea of emptying the watchtower immediately after someone attacks and loses.

Would the rest of your advice change knowing that I currently have only 1 yellow and no blue or green heroes in my attack team, and as a result I avoid attacking most players with red/blue/purple tanks? That eliminates the majority of the people in my revenge queue.

I again agree with you @AdrianW2008 , and as to what @Otto0000 said he/she is speaking from the perspective of a pro ( I’m top 100 so … ,Said he ) , and that doesn’t apply to all ( I also don’t have the heroes to do color stacking against every tank I face ) , but thanks @Otto0000 appreciate your help.

Like someone said, there’s ALWAYS someone stronger than you. But even if you’re the strongest, AI can’t compete vs real person who stacks their lineup to their advantage vs your defense.

CUPS come and go, accept it.

I never rerolled, just took the losses as learning experiences which is now paying dividends as I got used to facing stronger heroes and their skills.

I raid for resources, I use maybe 18-22 raid flags daily, been tracking my raids and I’m winning 80% against same TP or much higher TP. This isn’t counting the attacks, I lose 90% of those as my defense just isn’t very good.

For me, I gain anywhere from 250-300k ham and maybe 200-150k iron daily which is vital for my team growth.

Now I do reroll a few times but when you’re around 3400TP and facing 4000+ opponents with lineups like alasie, gm, Guin, magni and lianna fully maxed with high lvl 4* troops, even a great board can’t help me.

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Great advice and clearly stated approach. Makes us all remember that cups/trophies are not everything. There are lots of facets to this game and that is what makes it fun.

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Ikr… I went Thru The same xact thing LoL… Very insightful. “LOVE” the game as well… GREAT support/ community… Thanx …:sunglasses:

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I also stepped back and hey! GAme is fun again not hunting for trophies and gems!

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Update: today I completed the Raiding Mastery III mission (125 raid victories in Platinum) and received the Domitia avatar. I’m still getting knocked back into Gold occasionally, but usually only into the 1700’s. My heroes are stronger and I’m defeating stronger enemies too.

Bottom line is, everything in this game takes time. So be patient!

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I actually feel the Watchtower system is a bit flawed. I am at 3100 TP, was lucky to get some good tiles and fought hard for months to get around 1964 trophies, then the dark days came. I was placed in Platinum and noticed EVERYONE I was facing, with rerolling and using at least 100k meat each time, which got very costly, was at least 500 - 1000+ more TP than me. This is very frustrating as I cannot beat them. Like in the alliance wars we are advised not to hit these teams more powerful than us. In professional boxing there are weight limits, a 7 yo child would not beat an adult in a fight. So why must I have to keep competing against people way more OPed than me? Seems unfair. I feel Watchtower matches should be aligned with people 500 more or less TP than yourself so as not to have to rely on lucky tiles, even then most times does not work ( out of last 20 matches, I am 2 -18), not just because you got lucky and built up some trophies. Please help with this, explain what can be change and maye rethink the system?