The April 2019 update for Clash of Clans is now live and introduces a range of update including:

• Season Challenges
• Quality of Life improvements
• CWL changes
• Upgrade cost and time reductions
• New troop and structure levels.
• Some troop and structure rebalancing

This post will summarise what has been added/changes. Full patch notes can be viewed here:

Season Challenges

Season Challenges are similar to Clan Games, however each player has their own set of challenges to complete. Completing challenges will accumulate Challenge Points for that player. There are daily challenges that refresh every day and monthly challenges that unlock each week. Unlike Clan Games, you won’t need to select a particular challenge to complete, progress for each challenge is automatically tracked through your gameplay.

Each season starts on the 1st of each month and runs throughout the month. Challenge points and the rewards are reset at the end of the season. There are a variety of rewards available included resources, magic items, boosts and hero skins.

There are two levels of rewards that are unlocked simultaneously, silver and gold. Silver tier is free for all players and includes resource and magic potions. Gold tier costs $4.99 per season (or equivalent local currency) as a one off purchase and adds additional rewards including 1 gem troop donations, boosts to reduce time and costs of builder upgrades, research upgrades & training troops and a hero skin.

Quality of Life Improvements

These are numerous Quality of Life improvements included in this update to help with general game play and running of your clan. These improvements are as follows:

• Traps and defences (X-Bows, Inferno Towers and the Eagle Artillery) will be automatically rearmed/reloaded for free when you log back in to Clash of Clans.
• The Magic Item Inventory button is moving from the Clan Castle to the Town Hall/Builder Hall to help reduce clutter when tapping on the Clan Castle.
• Leaders and co-leaders will be able to remove troops from other clan members war clan castles to make correcting donation mistakes easier.
• Better builder suggestions on the Builder menu.
• If a Clan’s Leader has been inactive for 90 days, the Leader title will be assigned to the most senior Co-Leader in the Clan. This is determined by who has been Co-Leader the longest without interruption. If no Co-Leaders are present then Leader is passed to the most senior Elder.
• Dark clouds when searching for multiplayer opponents that can be enabled within the settings menu, great for when playing in dark rooms or when wishing to reduce brightness.
• Update to Archer Queen and Grand Warden AI to path better with Jump Spells and destroyed walls.

CWL Changes

Clan War Leagues is currently 15 v 15, however with this update a new 30 v 30 option will be available for larger clans. This can be selected during the sign up period and you will continue to participate in the same league regardless of size selection. The new size will be available for leagues below Champion III.

The CWL rewards are being restructured to be more performance based taking into account your clan’s final position in the league and number of stars each player won. This is to discourage clans from purposely getting demoted to lower leagues in order to score highly in future seasons for more rewards.

The reward structure for each league and finish position will be as follows:

The amount of league medals each player will receive will depend on the number of stars they earn during the tournament. The breakdown for this will be as follows:

Finally, an in-game leaderboard for Champion I will be posted at the conclusion of each League season to show how the top clans rank.

Upgrade Cost and Time Reductions

In order to help players progress faster, there are a number of cost and time reductions being introduced for various upgrades at Town Hall 10 and below of up to 81%.

A summary of the troops and structures being changed can be seen here:

The full details of changes can be seen here:

New Structure and Troop Levels

At Town Hall 12, a new level is being added for the Archer Tower and Cannon:

Archer Tower Level 17

• Upgrade cost: 12,000,000 Gold
• Upgrade time: 12d
• DPS: 122
• HP: 1430

Cannon Level 17

• Upgrade cost: 12,000,000 Gold
• Upgrade time: 12d
• DPS: 132
• HP: 1740

Town Hall 12 will see a new level for the Witch, Hog Rider and Ice Golem:

Witch Level 5

• Laboratory Level 10
• Upgrade cost: 200,000 Dark Elixir
• Upgrade time: 14d
• DPS: 180
• HP: 480
• Training cost: 275 Dark Elixir
• Max summoned units: 14
• Training time: 3m

Hog Rider Level 9

• Laboratory level 10
• Upgrade cost: 240,000 Dark Elixir
• Upgrade time: 14d
• DPS: 161
• HP: 920
• Training cost: 120 Dark Elixir
• Training time: 45s

Ice Golem Level 5

• Laboratory level 10
• Upgrade cost: 200,000 Dark Elixir
• Upgrade time: 14d
• DPS: 40
• HP: 3400
• Training cost: 300 Dark Elixir
• Freeze time when destroyed: 7 seconds
• Training time: 3m

In addition to this, the level 3 Witch will now be available at Town Hall 10 and the level 4 Witch will be available at Town Hall 11.

Troop and Structure Rebalancing

A number of troops and structures are being rebalanced in this update:

Ice Golem

The Ice Golem has been a popular troop in defending Clan Castles due to their area of effect freeze spell being very effective, although they haven’t seen as much offensive use. In order to help change this, “defensive” Ice Golems will have their freeze duration reduced:

• Level 1: 4s reduced to 2.5s
• Level 2: 4.75s reduced to 2.75s
• Level 3: 5.5s reduced to 3s
• Level 4: 6.25s reduced to 3.25s
• Level 5: 3.5s

“Offensive” Ice Golems are having their freeze spell being buffed:

• Freeze radius increased by 36% for all levels
• Freeze duration remain unchanged

These changes will make the recovery time quicker when attacking a village that has an Ice Golem in the Clan Castle and make Ice Golems used in attacking armies a lot more effective.

Tornado Trap

The vortex duration of each level of the Tornado Trap is being reduced:

• Level 1: 6s reduced to 5s
• Level 2: 8s reduced to 6s
• Level 3: 10s reduced to 7s

These changes will help your troops get back into the battle quicker when caught in the Tornado Trap.

Wall Breakers and Bomb Traps

Wall Breakers will be getting increased HP from level 5 - 8 and a damage increase from bomb traps will be increased at level 7 and 8.

Wall Breaker HP:

• Level 5: 42 → 53
• Level 6: 54 → 72
• Level 7: 62 → 82
• Level 8: 70 → 92

Bomb damage:

• Level 7: 63 → 72
• Level 8: 72 → 92

This will help Wall Breakers survive a little longer against defences but bomb traps will still be effective at countering them.

Giant Cannon

The Giant Cannon will no longer hit the Battle Machine multiple times per shot causing amplified amounts of damage, instead only hitting it once per shot to do the listed damage. This should help your Battle Machine survive longer in battle.

Battle Machine

The Battle Machine recovery time is being reduced to match the camp training times, so your Battle Machine should be ready at the same time as your troops rather than requiring you to wait longer if you have a high level Battle Machine.

What comes next?

We should be able to expect the following in some of the next updates:

Builder Hall 9

This has been mentioned since last year and is coming. It was initially said it would be out H1 2019 and there have been posts on the Clash of Clans forums suggesting it will be the next main update.

Operation Blue Skies

This is the ‘cloud fix’ for the higher leagues. Not much information on how it will work has been released yet, however this was also said to also be out H1 2019, so we may see both this and Builder Hall 9 in the same update to offer something for both villages.

Last 50 Level 13 Walls

There are still 50 level 12 walls that can’t be upgraded to level 13 at Town Hall 12. It has been confirmed that they will be increased in a future update. I expect we will likely see this introduced before the next main update as part of a smaller update.

Clash Ninja Upgrade Tracker

These updates have been added to the Upgrade Tracker so you can update your plans accordingly. Season Boosts for the Season Challenges have also been added, so when these are active you can see the adjusted upgrade times and costs on your plans and lists of upgrades.