Clash Royale is, much to my surprise, a game that heavily, heavily rewards skill over money bombs. I've played against clear whale players - several levels hig

Clash Royale is, much to my surprise, a game that heavily, heavily rewards skill over money bombs. I've played against clear whale players - several levels higher than me, troops massively over leveled for the match making strata we were in - and they were uniformly terrible players who I beat easily. Clash Royale is a really interesting game in many ways - it's Free-2-Play path is carefully calibrated to offer a perfect opportunity to pay them £10 on a "special offer" after you've been playing for 6 months to speed you over the grind hump at level 8 ish. That's the point where your in-game currency rewards can't quite match the amount of currency you have to spend upgrading your troops. Once you are over that hump though and get to the next arena level your in game currency rewards increase again relative to upgrade costs and you are back on another F2P coast. Their non-special offer real-money shop though is absolutely appalling value for money. Anyone who ever buys gems from them at regular prices is crazy in the coconut.