The room started to fall quiet as the final match entered overtime, both players razor-focused on their phones, vying for a chance at being crowned Enloe’s best Clash Royale player. As the final tower began to fall, the room filled with applause, marking the end of ECB’s first-ever Clash Royale Tournament.
For those unfamiliar, Clash Royale is a one-on-one tower defense card game where players create decks of eight cards, each spawning a different troop when placed. Each player uses their troops strategically to both attack the opponent’s towers and defend their own. Troops cost elixir, the currency of Clash Royale, that slowly refills and limits your ability to place cards, which can cost anywhere from one to nine elixir. After three minutes, whichever player has destroyed more towers wins the game; however, if they are still on even footing at the end of the game, a two-minute overtime follows, where the first person to destroy a tower wins. If players are still unable to determine a victor, whoever has the most tower damage wins.
Taking place in room 2715, the tournament followed a single-elimination bracket after seeding and qualification were determined by an hour-long league stage. During this stage, players queued for as many games as possible against other random tournament contenders to reach seven wins, the threshold required to qualify for the bracket. Matches were played in Clash Royale’s triple draft mode, in which players select their cards from three random cards for each deck slot. Adding a layer of unpredictability, it became one of the most discussed aspects of the event.
“Triple draft is the worst…” senior Zach Hoffman joked before the tournament began. “I either get really good luck or really bad luck.” Others also discussed difficulties dealing with certain troops because they didn’t have full control over what cards they were using. One player remarked, “[The] entire day I’ve been playing [badly] against recruits.” Many others also shared the sentiment that recruits (a specific troop within the game) were difficult to deal with in this format.
With games underway, contenders exclaimed and complained alike. Some players shouted in frustration about card choices. Others, waiting for their next game, helped their friends in close matches, each player fighting for a chance to compete in the bracket portion of the tournament. Using in-game usernames instead of real names added confusion and mystery, as players struggled to identify who they were actually playing against.
Several top seeds lived up to their expectations as the bracket stage began, with no underdog wins all the way through the quarterfinals, although many found themselves in tight games. Even into the semifinals, the original top four seeds remained in contention. Notably, in a one versus four seed game, tournament organizers gathered around underdog Matias Espinoza, singing “Pay Phone” by Maroon 5 as he hung on for dear life, narrowly winning by only 50 health in the second overtime. After both the first and second seeds lost their games to the third and fourth seeds, the stage was set for a gritty final between Matias Espinoza and Jacob LyJordan.
As the underdogs squared up against each other for the final game of the tournament, both players took the conservative route with their decks, making for a cautious yet suspenseful match. With the lead organizer, junior Kanav Patel, commenting to fill the intense silence that had fallen over the room, the game stayed close. Both players fought for small amounts of damage to stay in the lead in case the match went to the sudden-death tiebreaker, where whoever has the most health remaining wins. Matias was winning as overtime began, but only by 60 damage. This lead quickly diminished as he struggled to defend against Jacob’s attacks, putting him on the back foot. In the dying moments of the game, those gathered around the finalists began to applaud once Jacob LyJordan’s win became inevitable, and the best Clash Royale player in all of Enloe was crowned.
For being the first of its kind, this tournament was largely successful, but that doesn’t mean it was without its challenges. Organizers said the hardest part was getting people to show up, even if they didn’t feel like they were good enough to have a chance at winning, like they would for kickball or basketball. Ultimately, the tournament accomplished its main goal to “make money for the beneficiary” in a way that hasn’t been done before, with a “tournament that goes with the trend,” rather than tradition, Lead Organizer Kanav Patel stated. As a trend-based tournament, this does mean that it’s not guaranteed to return next year, as Clash Royale may not be nearly as popular as it is now, but keep your eyes peeled for another tournament revolving around whatever the newest (or returning) craze is next year.
