The Hog Rider card is unlocked from the Spell Valley (Arena 5). He is a very fast building-targeting, melee troop with moderately high hitpoints and damage. He appears just like his Clash of Clans counterpart; a man with brown eyebrows, a beard, a mohawk, and a golden body piercing in his left ear who is riding a hog. A Hog Rider card costs 4 Elixir to deploy.

His fast move speed can boost forward mini tanks like an Ice Golem in a push. At the same time, he can also function as a tank for lower hitpoint troops such as Goblins as he still has a fair amount of health. Most cheap swarms complement the Hog Rider well, as they are nearly as fast as him and usually force more than one card out of the opponent's hand.

The Hog Rider struggles with swarms, as they can damage him down and defeat him quickly while obstructing his path. Barbarians in particular can fully counter him without very strict timing on the defender's part, though be wary of spells.

A Hunter can kill the Hog Rider in 2 hits if placed right on top of it. However, if you place something in front of the Hog Rider, the Hunter's splash will damage the Hog Rider and hit the card in front of it more.

The Hog Rider in conjunction with the Freeze can surprise the opponent and allow the Hog Rider to deal much more damage than anticipated, especially if the opponent's go-to counter is a swarm, or swarms are their only effective counter to him. Skeletons and Bats will immediately be defeated by the spell, while Spear Goblins, Goblins, and Minions will be at low enough health to be defeated by a follow up Zap or Giant Snowball.

However, this strategy isn't very effective against buildings as the Hog Rider will take a while to destroy the building, giving the opponent ample time to articulate another counter.

Against non-swarm troops, it can deal a lot of damage during the freeze time, but this can allow the opponent to set up a massive counterpush. For this reason, players should either only go for a Hog Rider + Freeze when they have other units backing it up from a counterattack, or if the match is about to end and they need to deal as much damage as possible.

It is not a good idea to send in a Hog Rider simply to destroy a building, especially if it is the only building targeting unit available, as defeating Crown Towers becomes substantially more difficult. Spells or simply waiting out the lifetime of the building are more effective. The exception to this is an Elixir Collector placed in front of the King's Tower. If a Hog Rider placed at the bridge, he can destroy the Collector for a positive Elixir trade, though the damage from both Princess Towers will usually mean he does not survive to deal any damage to them. However, if the opponent sends in defending troops, it can be an opportunity to gain spell damage value.

In a deck with several low-cost cards, it might be worth it to simply send the Hog Rider against one building. These decks shuffle their card rotation quick enough, that they will arrive to their next Hog Rider before the next building arrives in the opponent's card rotation.

Long-ranged troops like Musketeer and Flying Machine can snipe those buildings, preserving some of the Hog Rider's health, possibly allowing it to get some Tower damage.

When there are buildings placed in the middle to counter the Hog Rider, understanding the placement of the Hog Rider and the type of building placed can help the Hog Rider to bypass certain buildings.

Passive buildings such as spawners and Elixir Collector have a larger hitbox than defensive buildings; which means that if a passive building was placed 3 tiles away from the river in the middle of the opponent's side, then it is impossible for the Hog Rider to bypass that placement as the Hog Rider will get pulled to that building.

Defensive buildings have a smaller hitbox than a passive building, which means if that if a defensive building was placed three tiles away from the river in the middle of the opponent's side, a Hog Rider placed at the very left or right side of the Arena may be able to bypass it due to its smaller hitbox.

If the player has a building already placed down in the center of the arena, and the opponent tries to bypass it with a Hog Rider at the edge of the arena, they can use certain air troops to push the Hog Rider towards the building as it jumps over the river, effectively denying the bypass attempt. They must be already hovering over the correct placement, as very quick reflexes are required to correctly perform this technique.

For Bats, Skeleton Dragons, and Minion Horde, they should be placed right in front of the Hog Rider as soon as it is deployed.

For Minions, Skeleton Barrel, Mega Minion, Flying Machine, Electro Dragon, Baby Dragon, Inferno Dragon, Balloon, and Lava Hound, stagger the above placement one tile to the right if the Hog Rider is placed on the left side of the arena, and vice versa.

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