How to beat Royal Hogs + Three Musketeers in Clash Royale

Royal Hogs plus Three Musketeers is one of the most punishing decks on ladder when it's played well. The pressure comes from two directions at once — evolution Royal Hogs jumping over your defensive swarm in one lane while Three Musketeers split across both. Defenders who try to react to everything end up losing both towers. The deck has a clean counter-strategy, but it depends on understanding which threat you actually have to defend and which you let through.

1. What the deck is doing

Royal Hogs 3M leans on two ideas. First, Royal Hogs (Evolution) is a five-elixir card that lands a split push the moment it reaches the bridge — four hogs jumping past small troops and hitting the tower in pairs. Defending it requires either a building they're not bothered by or a heavy spell.

Second, Three Musketeers is a nine-elixir card (sometimes split-played as a three + six, with one Musketeer on one lane and the pair on the other). A clean 3M split is unanswerable for any deck without a heavy spell — they tower-shred in fifteen seconds on each side.

The deck's weakness is the elixir math. Three Musketeers costs nine. While the 3M player is committing to a 3M push, they have at most one elixir left for defense. That window is everything in this matchup.

2. Counter cards to slot into your deck

• A heavy spell that two-shots Three Musketeers — Rocket is the cleanest. Lightning works if your win condition handles the survivors. Fireball alone doesn't, but Fireball + Log on the pair side can clear them if timed right.
• A Pekka or Mini Pekka that tanks the Royal Hogs and walks across the bridge for free. Royal Hogs evo can't hit air, so air defenders (Inferno Dragon, Baby Dragon) also do work and survive the deck's spells.
• An Inferno Tower or Inferno Dragon for handling any tank push they pivot to (some 3M variants run Battle Ram as a secondary win condition). Inferno melts anything they can throw, including their Pekka counter-pushes.

3. Defensive placements

Royal Hogs evo is the trickiest part of the matchup because the jump mechanic punishes any defender placed at the bridge.

• Building one tile back from the standard pull position. A Cannon placed at the normal kite-position gets jumped by the evo Royal Hogs — they land behind it and walk to the tower untouched. Pulling the building back one tile keeps the hogs in front of it instead of past it.
• Single-target tower defenders against the hogs. Inferno Tower or Tesla outvalue Cannon here because they keep locking and shooting after the jump. Swarms (Skeletons, Bats) work too but die to their Fireball afterwards.
• Tornado pulls the four hogs into the king tower. The most elegant defense if you have it. King activation is a huge bonus on top.
• Defend the 3M with one spell, not two cards. Rocket the pair, ignore the single, eat the chip on the single side. Trying to defend both sides of a 3M with troops is how you lose the elixir war.

4. When to push

The matchup has two clean offensive windows:

The 3M commit. The second they spend nine elixir on Three Musketeers, you have a 6-elixir advantage at minimum. Send your win condition to the opposite lane. Whatever it is — Pekka, Hog, Balloon, Royal Recruits — they cannot defend it because they have nothing in hand. Even a poorly-played push during this window takes a tower.

After a Rocket / Lightning lands on their 3M. You've spent six on the spell, they've spent nine on the 3M that just died. Now you have your win condition and supports; they have to defend with whatever cycled.

Do not push into a 3M player who still has 3M in hand. They will counter-push your dead push with their 3M and you'll be defending a four-card frontline with nothing.

5. Recommended counter decks

• Pekka Bridge Spam. Pekka eats Royal Hogs cleanly with a Skeletons reset, then walks across with Bandit or Battle Ram while their 3M is in hand. Rocket handles the 3M.
• Lavahound Balloon. Air pressure ignores Royal Hogs targeting (hogs can't hit air). Their answer is Musketeer + Tesla, and a Lightning on the Musketeer line opens the path.
• Golem Lightning. The slow Golem push is actually a great fit because the 3M player can't afford to commit 9 elixir while a Golem is at the back. They get forced into reactive play.

6. Common mistakes

Trying to defend both lanes of the 3M. If they split, eat the chip on the cheap side and defend the expensive side with one card. Defending both is how you go into negative elixir on a card they spent more on than you did.

Building placement at the bridge. Evo Royal Hogs jumps over forward-placed buildings. Pull the building back one tile from your usual position.

Wasting the spell on Royal Hogs. The hogs themselves are four targets at low HP — your single-target defenders kill them. Save the Rocket / Lightning for 3M.

Not punishing the 3M commit. The window after a 3M lands is the most punishable thirty seconds in the game. If you don't have a planned counter-push for that moment, you are letting the matchup's clearest swing go to waste.

7. The match within the match

Royal Hogs 3M is decided by which side blinks first. If you panic on defense and over-commit to either threat, you lose. If you accept some chip in exchange for a clean counter-push every time they commit to 3M, you win.

The matchup also tests your patience — long stretches of the game look like you're losing on the chip count while you're actually waiting for the 9-elixir window. Trust the math.