The Ice Spirit is a one-elixir, common troop card in Clash Royale, unlocked in the Frozen Peak arena. It summons a single, fast-moving Ice Spirit that targets enemies by jumping onto them and delivering a small burst of damage, followed by a freeze effect lasting 1 second. This unique ability allows it to momentarily halt enemy movement and attacks, giving players a tactical advantage in both offense and defense.
Despite its minimal damage, the Ice Spirit’s value lies in its ability to disrupt enemy pushes, reset troops or buildings, and provide excellent elixir efficiency. For players looking to maximize the card’s potential, this Clash Royale Ice Spirit offers insight into how to use it effectively in a wide range of decks and strategies.
As a cheap cycle card, it can be used to quickly rotate through a deck or to distract and control enemy troops. Its low cost makes it a go-to card for many strategies, and it has long been recognized for its high utility and flexibility, fitting seamlessly into a wide range of deck archetypes. Over time, it has undergone multiple balance changes, yet it remains a core utility card valued for its Freeze effect, versatility, and control potential in various gameplay scenarios.
Card Attributes
Default Slowing Effect Rage Effect Cost Speed Deploy Time Range Splash Radius Target Freeze Duration Transport Type Rarity 1 Very Fast (120) 1 sec 2.5 1.5 Air & Ground 1.2 sec Ground Troop Common Level Hitpoints Area DamageCard Mastery
Type Level/Tier Objective RewardDamage Dealer 1 Deal a total of 18,000 Damage to enemy
Troops or buildings 100 Ice Spirit cards
25 2 Deal a total of 52,500 Damage to enemy
Troops or buildings 2,000
25 3 Deal a total of 87,500 Damage to enemy
Troops or buildings 150
25
Punching Bag 1 Slow enemy Troops a total of 420 times 3,000
100 2 Slow enemy Troops a total of 1,200 times 200
100 3 Slow enemy Troops a total of 2,100 times 5,000
100
Decks Featuring the Ice Spirit
The Ice Spirit is a highly versatile one-elixir troop that fits into a wide range of deck archetypes, primarily due to its freeze effect, fast movement, and minimal elixir cost. It is especially valuable in decks that aim to cycle quickly, stall enemy pushes, or lower their overall average elixir cost. Its inclusion often enables faster access to win conditions or defensive counters, and its ability to delay enemy troops can make the difference in tight situations.
Skeletons
Log
Hog Rider
Cannon
Ram Rider
Goblin Barrel
In cycle decks, the Ice Spirit plays a crucial role by keeping the deck flowing smoothly, often appearing alongside other low-cost cards like Skeletons, The Log, or Fire Spirit. Hog Rider decks frequently include it to freeze defenses like Cannon or Mini P.E.K.K.A, allowing the Hog to land extra hits. Similarly, Ram Rider decks benefit from the Ice Spirit’s ability to momentarily halt defenders, ensuring the Ram Rider reaches the tower. In Goblin Barrel decks, the Ice Spirit can act as a mini-tank, landing just before the Barrel to freeze defenders and maximize Goblin damage. It’s also used in Graveyard decks, often paired with a Miner, to freeze defending troops and help the Graveyard skeletons accumulate value.
The Ice Spirit appears in various mid-cost and heavy decks as well. PEKKA, Golem, and Giant-based beatdown decks use it to improve cycling speed and stall enemy troops long enough to allow their heavy hitters to connect. It finds a home in Ice-Bow decks, helping with defense and quick cycle rotations. In Log Bait archetypes, it adds pressure and contributes to baiting out spells. The Ice Spirit is also featured in control or hybrid decks like Miner control, where it helps the Miner deal extra chip damage by freezing the tower. It pairs well with splash or reset units like Electro Wizard, Firecracker, or Hunter, especially in support roles.
The Ice Spirit is also seen in numerous specific deck builds, such as Golem Hunter Night Witch, Goblin Giant Sparky Firecracker, Archer Queen Royal Hogs Cycle, Mortar Princess Rocket Cycle, Touchdown Hog Royal Hogs Rage, Valkyrie Miner Electro Wizard Cycle, X-Bow Rocket Dart Goblin, and PEKKA Giant Night Witch Beatdown. These decks leverage the Ice Spirit for elixir control, support value, and defensive utility. In Elixir Pump decks, it often pairs with Skeletons to defend the pump from minor threats or spell bait tactics. Additionally, the Ice Spirit synergizes well with fast win conditions like Hog Rider, Ram Rider, Goblin Barrel, and Graveyard, helping force quick responses and capitalize on the freeze effect.
Its flexibility allows it to adapt to nearly any game plan—whether defending, stalling, cycling, or supporting pushes—making the Ice Spirit a cornerstone in many top-performing and strategically diverse Clash Royale decks.
Strategies for Using the Ice Spirit
The Ice Spirit is an extremely versatile one-elixir card in Clash Royale, valued for its ability to freeze enemy units and provide high utility across both offensive and defensive situations. Its low cost makes it ideal for cycling through your deck, enabling you to reach key cards faster without committing too much elixir. On offense, it can support pushes by freezing enemy defenses, allowing troops like the Hog Rider or Goblin Barrel to get additional damage. When used with the Goblin Barrel, it’s often best to play the barrel first so the Ice Spirit’s freeze lands just as defenders arrive, ensuring maximum chip damage.
Despite its fragile health, the Ice Spirit can act as a temporary tank due to its freeze. It can absorb hits from units like the Musketeer, Baby Dragon, Bandit, Knight, and even the Giant Skeleton, especially when at equal levels. Its ability to reset high-damage units such as Sparky, Inferno Dragon, Inferno Tower, and charging troops like Prince and Battle Ram makes it a reliable counter to many threats. On defense, it can kite and distract units, pulling them into the range of towers or defensive buildings. When combined with cards like the Ice Golem, it becomes even more effective at controlling the battlefield by creating prolonged kiting paths.
The Ice Spirit also offers chip damage, dealing around 100 damage to a tower if left unchecked. While small, this can stack up over time or force a response in tight matches. Defensively, it can shut down support troops like the Magic Archer or Musketeer when paired with a tower. It’s particularly valuable in low-elixir situations, where a one-elixir freeze can stall a push long enough to regain control. Its usefulness is largely independent of card level, as the freeze duration remains consistent, although underleveled Ice Spirits will have reduced damage and survivability.
As a cheap spell bait card, it can draw out responses like The Log, Barbarian Barrel, Arrows, or Royal Delivery, opening opportunities for your other troops. It also has strong synergy with Tornado, enhancing crowd control and enabling precise King Tower activations. When paired with the Fisherman, the Ice Spirit helps guarantee that the hook lands effectively by freezing the target in place.
While it’s tempting to cycle the Ice Spirit from the back, it’s generally better to reserve it for support, defense, or utility, as its impact is greatest when reacting to or enhancing specific interactions during battle.
Ice Spirit Matchups: Counters and How to Counter
The Ice Spirit, while fragile, plays a significant role in countless matchups due to its freeze mechanic, fast speed, and low cost. Though it can be countered easily—virtually any spell except Zap or Snowball at equal levels will eliminate it—it shines when used reactively to neutralize or delay enemy troops. A simple Log can remove it, and nearly all troops or buildings can absorb its attack, preventing it from hitting multiple targets. Additionally, ranged troops like the Dart Goblin can pick it off before it reaches them due to the Ice Spirit’s short 2.5-tile range.
Offensively and defensively, the Ice Spirit excels when used to freeze and delay key enemy troops, providing extra time for your towers or other cards to deal damage. Against low-health troops like Archers, Bomber, and Skeletons, it can secure positive elixir trades by freezing them just long enough for tower assistance. With more durable enemies such as the Knight, Mini P.E.K.K.A, or Baby Dragon, the Ice Spirit alone can’t stop the threat but can delay or pull them to the center, making cleanup easier.
Against Prince, Dark Prince, or Battle Ram, it stops their charge and mitigates damage. For ranged units like the Musketeer, Magic Archer, or Electro Wizard, properly timed placement allows the Ice Spirit to tank a shot and freeze them, often setting up a full counter with your tower’s help.
Skeleton Army
Spear Goblins
Goblins
Minions
The Ice Spirit is also strong against swarm troops like Skeleton Army, Goblins, Spear Goblins, and Minions, provided it isn’t overwhelmed or splashed out before impact. It can assist in defending against Goblin Barrel, especially in combination with Skeletons or another cheap troop. Its splash freeze can slow or halt groups of troops like Barbarians, Guards, or Minion Horde, giving you breathing room to reinforce. Against reset-dependent cards such as Inferno Tower, Inferno Dragon, and Sparky, the Ice Spirit is highly effective at interrupting their charge or damage ramp-up, helping preserve your heavier troops.
In structure matchups, while the Ice Spirit can’t do much to an X-Bow or Mortar on its own, it can delay their lock-on or tank a couple hits to help you place a proper counter. It also offers useful synergies for King Tower activations, especially against troops like the Magic Archer or Miner, when placed precisely. When it comes to air units like Bats, Mega Minion, or Balloon, the Ice Spirit can freeze them briefly, allowing towers to get additional shots. For fast-paced threats like Wall Breakers or Bandit, it needs precise placement to either interrupt their ability or mitigate damage.
The Ice Spirit is also commonly used to kite troops, pulling them across the arena and into the range of defensive buildings or your towers, making it especially helpful against ground-based threats like Elite Barbarians, Lumberjack, or Goblin Gang. Its interaction with swarm or mid-health troops often requires timing and support, but when used effectively, the Ice Spirit contributes to efficient trades, control, and crowd management across a variety of matchups.
Synergies with the Ice Spirit
The Ice Spirit offers an impressive range of synergies in Clash Royale thanks to its low cost, freeze ability, and fast movement speed. It enhances both offensive and defensive strategies, fitting well into decks focused on fast cycling, elixir efficiency, stall tactics, and unit control. Offensively, the Ice Spirit synergizes strongly with fast win conditions such as Hog Rider, Ram Rider, Goblin Barrel, and Graveyard.
It not only helps these units by briefly freezing enemy defenses, allowing for extra damage, but it also serves as a one-elixir tank that can absorb a hit, giving these win conditions a better chance to connect with the tower. When paired with Miner, it can freeze the tower and increase chip damage or support Graveyard skeletons more effectively.
On defense, the Ice Spirit significantly amplifies the power of high-DPS single-target troops like Mini P.E.K.K.A, Lumberjack, and Hunter by freezing incoming attackers and giving those troops time to deal massive damage. Its synergy with Tornado is also notable, especially after Tornado reworks that have improved its control potential. Freezing units during the Tornado’s pull allows tighter clustering and cleaner eliminations.
In cycle and stall decks, the Ice Spirit helps control the tempo of the match. Its one-elixir cost allows players to quickly cycle through their deck and apply constant pressure, while its freeze effect offers crucial stalling against pushes. It fits naturally into low average elixir decks, supporting fast-paced gameplay and cheap defensive responses.
Sparky
Inferno Dragon
Inferno Tower
Its ability to reset cards like Sparky, Inferno Dragon, and Inferno Tower makes it a valuable utility troop, disrupting dangerous ramp-up damage or stopping charge mechanics from units like Prince or Battle Ram. It also performs well as a kiting tool, pulling aggressive units toward the center of the arena or away from key troops and towers. When paired with Ice Golem, it becomes even more effective at fully kiting enemy units into safer positions.
Though its damage is small, the Ice Spirit can contribute chip damage when played at the bridge and ignored, which may pressure the opponent in tight games. Despite its fragile health, it can tank a few hits—including from Fire Spirits, Baby Dragon, or even towers—and freeze them, allowing more valuable units to survive or connect. This tanking function is especially useful in Miner control, Barrel bait, and Graveyard decks.
The Ice Spirit also has strong defensive synergy with ranged units, helping them survive longer by freezing approaching troops. It works well alongside small spells like Zap, Snowball, and The Log, cleaning up swarm units like Goblins, Minions, or Guards. It can be combined with Skeletons to protect key buildings like the Elixir Pump from Miner attacks or other light threats.
Its synergy extends across many well-known deck archetypes, such as Golem Hunter Night Witch, Goblin Giant Sparky Firecracker, Archer Queen Royal Hogs cycle, Lava Inferno Dragon Graveyard beatdown, Mortar Princess Rocket cycle, Touchdown Hog Royal Hogs Rage, Valkyrie Miner Electro Wizard cycle, X-Bow Rocket Dart Goblin, Giant Bandit beatdown, and PEKKA Giant Night Witch beatdown. In all of these, the Ice Spirit serves as a key support piece that improves overall deck flow, control, and elixir efficiency.
In short, the Ice Spirit’s broad utility makes it a synergistic addition to numerous cards and deck strategies, helping support pushes, delay threats, enable positive trades, and maintain pressure—all for a single elixir.
Conclusion
The Ice Spirit is a remarkably versatile and efficient one-elixir troop that holds a valuable place in many Clash Royale decks. Its low cost, combined with its ability to freeze enemy units and buildings, makes it a powerful support card that enhances both offensive and defensive strategies.
On offense, the Ice Spirit is commonly paired with fast win conditions like Hog Rider, Ram Rider, and Goblin Barrel, where its freeze effect can enable these units to get additional hits on the tower. It can also tank a single shot from enemy defenses, providing just enough time for fragile attackers to connect. When sent alone at the bridge, the Ice Spirit can deliver small chip damage to the opponent’s tower, which may force a reaction or slowly accumulate over time.
Defensively, the Ice Spirit is used to stall enemy pushes by freezing troops for 1.5 seconds, giving your towers and other units more time to deal damage. It can reset the charge of high-threat cards such as Sparky, Inferno Tower, and Inferno Dragon, as well as halt charge-based units like Prince and Battle Ram. It is also a reliable tool for kiting ground troops toward the center of the arena, especially when combined with Ice Golem for more control.
Its fast movement speed makes it ideal for pulling enemies into range of both Princess Towers or defensive buildings. The Ice Spirit synergizes well with Tornado, as the freeze effect complements the spell’s pulling action, helping to clump enemies and set up for splash damage or spell combos.
Despite its low health, the Ice Spirit often secures positive elixir trades. It can counter small troops like Archers, Goblins, Spear Goblins, and even more durable targets like Mini P.E.K.K.A when supported by a tower. Its splash damage also allows it to eliminate grouped air units like Bats, giving it an edge over other one-elixir cards like Skeletons, which lack both area damage and air targeting. Against ranged attackers such as the Musketeer or Magic Archer, the Ice Spirit can tank a hit, freeze them, and allow the tower to finish them off. Its ability to freeze enemy towers when paired with a Miner or Graveyard push creates opportunities for more chip damage and overwhelms defenses during double elixir phases.
Overall, the Ice Spirit is a compact powerhouse, offering tremendous value for a single elixir. Its blend of utility, versatility, and synergy makes it a core component in numerous decks, serving as a flexible card for cycling, stalling, defending, and enhancing offensive pressure. Whether you’re running a fast cycle deck, a control strategy, or even a beatdown build, the Ice Spirit remains one of the most effective and efficient cards in the game.
Frequently Asked Questions (F.A.Q)
How do you unlock the Ice Spirit?
The Ice Spirit is unlocked in the Frozen Peak arena, which is Arena 8 in Clash Royale.
Can the Ice Spirit target air units?
Yes, the Ice Spirit can target both ground and air troops, making it useful against swarm units like Bats and Minions.
What does the Ice Spirit do in Clash Royale?
The Ice Spirit is a one-elixir troop that jumps onto enemies, dealing a small amount of area damage and applying a freeze effect that temporarily stops enemy troops and buildings for 1 second.
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Nel B
Nel has been passionate about playing games since childhood. His love for gaming started with the PlayStation. Over the years, he has enjoyed a variety of games, but some of Nel's all-time favorites include Dota, Monster Hunter, and MMORPGs. Gaming has not only shaped his skills but also helped him build lasting connections with friends. 0 0 votes Rating Login Please login to comment 0 Comments Inline Feedbacks View all comments
