The Hog Rider card is unlocked from the Spell Valley (Arena 5). He is a quick 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.
A good placement and timing with Guards and The Log will fully counter the Hog Rider, canceling all Hog hits.
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
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