Supercell was the king of mobile games, with Clash Royale surging in popularity in 2024 and 2025. For the first time since 2017, it felt like the game was relevant again, and judging by the number of people playing Clash Royale in classrooms, it was mainstream. But since November, the once beloved monarch has seen loyal tides of players openly revolt against their rule. Searches for Clash Royale have declined 74% percent, streamers and beloved players have rage quit the game and Enloe students are in despair.

“It’s terrible. I think it’s actually terrible,” said sophomore Kai Roswell. “It’s the worst update, like, ever in Clash.”

“Clash Royale is not going in the right direction,” said junior Anthony Boem.

What caused this November revolution? It has to be the new update.

The new update added Level 16, undoing the months of work people did for Elite cards. Level 16 introduced a monumental grind for even a singular card, which, in combination with reduced rewards from the new Lucky Chests, means that free-to-play players are cooked.

“Half my cards were Elite, and now they’re only Level 15,” Roswell said, “and now I’ve got to get them all the way back to Level 16 just for Elite.”

The new heroes are no improvement, either. Thought the grind for evolution cards was bad? Now all your evolutions have suddenly become obsolete when facing hero cards, which can take even longer to get. 

“They’ve stopped releasing evolutions entirely,” Boem said. “I’m not too happy about that, and not only did they stop releasing evolutions, but they completely replaced them with something more stupid, more overpowered and unbalanced.”

Unbalanced is the word of the day. I had already been on the verge of quitting Clash before the update, since a soul can only play against Evo 2.6 Hog so many times without wanting to three-crown themselves, but heroes were the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“2.6 Hog, one of the most popular decks in all of the game, throughout the game’s entire history, is currently one of the highest win rate and the highest use rate decks in the entire game because it has both the Hero Musketeer and the Hero Ice Golem,” Boem said.

The rich only get richer, as they say.

Now, some of you might wonder, why can’t I just play the new cards myself? If other people are playing them, then surely I can? Here is the most nefarious part of the update. Like a king eager to fill their pockets with the money of poor abused subjects, Supercell allows players to skip the grind for a small tribute of $15 per card, or else be exiled to the depths of midladder. Of course, the playerbase of mostly children can’t afford this, unless they bust out daddy’s credit card to pay their dues to their overlord.

With no way out, it seems that the lightning-in-a-bottle growth of Clash Royale is coming to an end.

“I’ve mostly quit the game,” Boem said. “They can’t just give up on evolutions like that. It’s kind of disappointing on Supercell’s part.” 

Their peak $67.8 million revenue in September last year has collapsed 63% to a paltry $25 million in January. Player counts are down. Worse, the Twitch streamer who revived the game, Jynxi, went straight back to playing Siege.

But maybe there is a way for Supercell to appease the waves of revolting players. They could make heroes way easier to obtain or balance them. Give players better rewards to make the grind for Level 16 easier. Return to making card evolutions. Relax on the aggressive monetization. They might be able to salvage the mess they’ve made of the new update and garner the love they once got from their playerbase.

Until then, Supercell has to live in the world they made.

“Everybody at Clash Royale is money hungry, and they don’t care about the players,” Roswell said. “Just give us a free emote.”