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20 Win Challenge Stats of 2023
More than 5000 players won the challenge in 2023, this blog ranks the best countries and the most popular decks of this year.
stats 20win infovis
The 20 Win challenge of 2023 lasted 5 days, from 2023-11-15 to 2023-11-20, and had a total of 5,158 winners. On average, only 1 in every 16,000 entries completes the 20 Win challenge; which puts the total at around 80 million entries.
This annual challenge is usually promoted as a part of Clash Royale League, some years it has even been part of the qualifying stage. This year it wasn’t, as it was scheduled for the week previous to the World Finals. But it did help many players return to the competitive scene and to familiarize themselves with the meta, a meta that would be seen the following weekend in Helsinki’s big stage.
In this blog we are going to look at some detailed stats of the winners, which will help you better understand the challenge and the player base that competed in it.
Table of Contents
- The Best Countries
- Returning Winners
- Pros & Smurfs
- Smurfs Take Over The Weekend
- Best Win Conditions
- Best Evolutions
- Regional Meta
- Feedback
The Best Countries
The Clash Royale competitive scene changes every year, and this challenge is a great sample to see which regions are taking Clash Royale the most seriously.
At first sight, everything seems similar to last year. Japan is in the clear lead as usual, the top 10 countries are also the same 10. But looking at the trends is much more illuminating:
- Italy had the biggest share increase
- Germany, United States, Brazil and Iran are on the rise
- Mexico, France and Japan have reduced their share of winners
| Rank | Country | Win Count | Share | Share Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Japan | 593 | 16.71% | -4.03% |
| 2 | Mexico | 319 | 8.99% | -0.49% |
| 3 | United States | 294 | 8.29% | 0.45% |
| 4 | Germany | 194 | 5.47% | 0.49% |
| 5 | France | 154 | 4.34% | -0.73% |
| 6 | Brazil | 146 | 4.11% | 0.40% |
| 7 | South Korea | 132 | 3.72% | 0.20% |
| 8 | Italy | 129 | 3.64% | 1.02% |
| 9 | Iran | 120 | 3.38% | 0.38% |
| 10 | Peru | 107 | 3.02% | -0.14% |
Other countries outside the top 10 that are seeing a significant increase are China, Saudi Arabia, Nicaragua, Romania, Jordan and Honduras.
Returning Winners
There are only 84 accounts that have achieved 20 wins every year since 2018. Are any of their names familiar to you?
Abdulelah, Adrian Piedra, Adriel, Airsurfer, Alaa, AntagonisM, ARIMURA, B-rad, BigSpin, Carl the Legend, CHR15 Bell, DAAC, Darake, DarkAngel, Dexterz, DiegoB, Efemgg, Ender, Framsito, Franco Medina, FranGod, Gunhwi, Hanazono, HERO, Hugo, Ian77, Irving, Isochan, Janne Da Arc, Jeroo, Jigsaw, Jonah, José Jiménez, Jupiter King, Kanariooo, King, Kitassyan, Kodigo, Lemon Tea, Leo Vargas, Line, Luminary, Mattu, Miguelje00, Mikan Boy, Morten, Mostema, Mugi, Nuri, Omar, Ouahleouff, Oyassuu, Vitor75. Pandora, Paulo, RAD, Raiki Jones, Redbrightness, RemiEli, Retaliation, Rondilla, Rosen, Rubiks, Rubén, Ruusskov, Samuel Bassotto, Schwarzen, Sergey, SergioRamos, Stalker, Surg TS, Surgical Goblin, Taiyo, Takeki, Tareq, Tomoya, Trainer Rain, Trainer Wolf, Venom, Wallace, Xablau, Xopxsam, Yakitori, and YoSoyRick.
The countries with the most players in this list are:
| Country | Count |
|---|---|
| Japan | 20 |
| United States | 8 |
| Germany | 6 |
| France | 6 |
| Spain | 6 |
| Mexico | 6 |
Unfortunately we can’t currently check the results of the first 20 Win challenge, which happened in 2017 for CCGS... maybe soon.
Although being a great player makes it easier to complete the challenge on multiple years, these results show that very few players can remain consistent over such a long time. As we look at older challenges, the share of players who were already good back then shrinks to below 10%.
| Year | Winners | In Common | In Common (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 5158 | 5158 | 100% |
| 2022 | 5712 | 1425 | 25% |
| 2021 | 8360 | 1121 | 13% |
| 2020 | 3445 | 418 | 12% |
| 2019 | 2500 | 272 | 11% |
| 2018 | 6723 | 483 | 7% |
| 2017 | 9989 | ??? | ?% |
It’s also interesting to see how many players completed the challenge each year, as it gives us a way to see how big and active the player base is over time. In 2021 we saw a significant spike, and we are now trending slightly downwards.
Pros & Smurfs
Years ago, players had to used their own card collection to compete in challenges. Card levels were capped at tournament standard, but if your cards were underlevelled or simply not unlocked, you would be at a disadvantage.
When Champions were added to the game, this system was changed completely. Every player was given access to all the cards available and level disadvantages were removed. This made it accessible for all kinds of players to try whichever decks they wanted, but it also made it very easy for players to play on mini accounts.
The level restricted system forced every account to spend at least several days of play time to reach the basic levels; without that, the level disadvantage would be too big to let you compete and complete a challenge. Nowadays, with just a few minutes, you can have a new account rushing towards the 20 wins.
Mini accounts, also known as smurfs when anonymous, play a significant role in 20 Win challenges. Completing the challenge with as many accounts as possible becomes a challenge of itself, for great players, winning once isn’t enough.
But how significant is this really? Is it just a handful of players? Answering that question isn’t easy, as smurfs/minis don’t have clear labels that let you know they are so. But they do have some stat markers that can be used to identify them on average.
One of these key markers is play time, which is directly related to the battle count in that account. A player who has remarkably good stats and achievements with a just a few thousand battles played stands out. In this chart we plot all the challenge winners and highlight different ranges of players:
- Blue: more than 15,000 battles played, more than 5 weeks of play time.
- Green: between 5,000 and 15,000 battles played, 2-5 weeks of play time.
- Orange: less than 5,000 battles played, less than 2 weeks of play time.
Account Level is the metric chosen for the horizontal axis because it also has a positive correlation with account activity. With these two stats combined you obtain a very useful visualization of account activity:
- Up + right: the player has invested a lot of time and effort into the account.
- Left + down: the account is very new, likely one of the minis/smurfs that we mentioned earlier.
These 5,000 and 15,000 battles were very conservative boundaries picked to highlight newer accounts. As reference, the subset of winners who also had a Top1000 ladder finish have a median of 34,000 battles, ~11 weeks of play time.
What share of the winners are in each group?
- 43% of winners had less than 15,000 battles played (green + orange)
- 27% of winners had less than 5,000 battles played (orange)
Smurfs Take Over The Weekend
We just looked at the groups of players that completed the challenge overall, but are these distributions consistent along the 6 days of the challenge?
Competitive players that like to complete the challenge with multiple accounts will usually start with their main account. Once they win, they move on to smaller accounts. Is this behavior relevant enough to be a visible trend?
Clearly it is. Over the 6 days of the challenge, the ratio of small accounts doubles: from 16% to 32%. These stats lead us to think that the challenge doesn’t become significantly easier as days go by; this is something that only happened when creating new accounts to participate was much more difficult.
Best Win Conditions
Win Conditions are one of the best card categories to look at, as they are closely related with deck archetypes and different play styles. These are the ones with more challenges completed:
| Win Condition | Wins | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Goblin Giant | 1040 | 20.2% |
| Balloon | 562 | 10.9% |
| Electro Giant | 519 | 10.1% |
| Graveyard | 368 | 7.1% |
| Wall Breakers | 327 | 6.3% |
| Royal Hogs | 322 | 6.2% |
| Hog Rider | 302 | 5.9% |
| Giant | 297 | 5.8% |
| Golem | 216 | 4.2% |
| Lava Hound | 200 | 3.9% |
| Battle Ram | 182 | 3.5% |
| Ram Rider | 174 | 3.4% |
| Goblin Barrel | 135 | 2.6% |
| Evolved Mortar | 128 | 2.5% |
| Skeleton Barrel | 113 | 2.2% |
| Royal Giant | 91 | 1.8% |
| Mortar | 83 | 1.6% |
| X-Bow | 83 | 1.6% |
| Evolved Royal Giant | 65 | 1.3% |
| Goblin Drill | 61 | 1.2% |
| Three Musketeers | 56 | 1.1% |
| Elixir Golem | 10 | 0.2% |
Best Evolutions
Card evolutions are in another critical category that shapes the meta. Here, the best card isn’t significantly far ahead from the 2nd, but all other evolutions after that are left behind.
| Evolution | Wins | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Knight | 1894 | 36.7% |
| Archers | 1498 | 29.0% |
| Skeletons | 454 | 8.8% |
| Barbarians | 422 | 8.2% |
| Bats | 411 | 8.0% |
| Royal Recruits | 187 | 3.6% |
| Mortar | 128 | 2.5% |
| Royal Giant | 65 | 1.3% |
| Firecracker | 43 | 0.8% |
| No Evolution | 56 | 1.1% |
Regional Meta
If we look at the most used win conditions in each country the results wouldn’t be too interesting, everyone around the world seems to love Goblin Giant, Balloon and Electro Giant. Instead, we’ll look at which win conditions are significantly more popular when compared to the worldwide average.
| Country | Top 1 WC | Top 2 WC | Top 3 WC |
|---|---|---|---|
| Japan | Three Musketeers (+2.3%) |
Battle Ram (+2.2%) |
Goblin Barrel (+1.9%) |
| Mexico | Balloon (+11.0%) |
Royal Hogs (+4.4%) |
Electro Giant (+1.5%) |
| United States | X-Bow (+3.5%) |
Electro Giant (+3.2%) |
Golem (+1.3%) |
| Germany | Golem (+8.7%) |
Lava Hound (+5.4%) |
Electro Giant (+2.8%) |
| France | Hog Rider (+6.5%) |
Graveyard (+5.2%) |
Goblin Barrel (+2.6%) |
| Brazil | Giant (+15.5%) |
Graveyard (+11.4%) |
Golem (+2.0%) |
| South Korea | Royal Hogs (+8.9%) |
Graveyard (+8.8%) |
Hog Rider (+1.7%) |
| Italy | Hog Rider (+7.3%) |
Wall Breakers (+6.1%) |
Mortar (+3.0%) |
| Iran | Goblin Giant (+12.3%) |
Lava Hound (+7.0%) |
Goblin Barrel (+2.4%) |
| Peru | Hog Rider (+2.6%) |
Ram Rider (+2.2%) |
Electro Giant (+2.1%) |
Countries that stand out with more than 10 points over the average usage are:
- Mexico with Balloon
- Brazil with Giant Graveyard
- Iran with Goblin Giant
Feedback
Were you surprised by any of the stats we shared? Is there anything else that you’d like to know about the challenge results? Let us know below.
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