Executioner

“He throws his axe like a boomerang, striking all enemies on the way out AND back. It's a miracle he doesn't lose an arm.”

The Executioner is an Epic card that is unlocked from the Serenity Peak (Arena 14). It spawns an area damage, air-targeting, medium-ranged, ground troop with high hitpoints and high damage. The Executioner launches an attack that travels up to its maximum range, and returns back after some time, while piercing through enemies on both ways. An Executioner card costs 5 Elixir to deploy.

Strategy[]

For Battle Decks with this card, click here

The Executioner's long range, ability to hit air troops, and area damage can allow him to fulfill similar defensive roles to a Wizard or a Witch.
Although Executioner's range is 4.5 tiles, his axe throw has a range of 7.5 tiles, and the axe itself has a 1 tile radius, so his effective reach is 8.5 tiles. The defending player should always separate their troops and never deploy them directly in front of their Crown Tower, as otherwise they may end up letting the Executioner deal substantial chip damage.
His hit speed comes in two parts; 0.9 seconds to throw his axe and 1.5 seconds for his axe to return. This adds up to an overall 2.4-second hit speed. Rage and slowing effects will only affect how long it takes him to throw his axe and will not apply to the axe once in motion, even if frozen. Therefore, hit speed changes barely make a difference. Even when he's pulled backwards by the Tornado, the axe will still take 1.5 seconds to return.
Due to being spell resistant and having decent damage per swing, the Executioner is great against low to medium health troops. However, his damage per second is somewhat low for 5 Elixir, so mini tanks such as the Mini P.E.K.K.A., Valkyrie, Knight, Dark Prince and Prince can easily counter him.
High-damage ranged troops like the Musketeer are decent counters to a lone Executioner. They typically have higher damage per second and range than the Executioner, allowing them to get decent damage on him before he deals too much back to them. With the help of any tower troop, they can stop him for positive Elixir trades, and some may even survive for a counterattack.
The P.E.K.K.A. works quite well with the Executioner because he can deal area damage that can help defend against swarms, while the P.E.K.K.A. strikes down tanks with its massively-high DPS.
The Rocket is able to instantly defeat the Executioner for a -1 Elixir trade. This can be quite advantegeous if he is placed at the back, allowing the player to hit both the Crown Tower and the Executioner. However, the player can take advantage of the lack of a Rocket and deploy something that would thrive from its absence, such as a Sparky.
The range of the Executioner's axe lets him not only damage a tank like the Giant, but also being able to hit support troops behind the tank if the Executioner is placed aligned with the enemy tank.
The Tornado spell works well with the Executioner. The Tornado can group enemy troops together, allowing him to easily hit them all.
- Conversely, the Tornado can also be used to defend against the Executioner. Placing the Tornado staggered a tile towards the approaching Executioner and a tile towards the closest Arena wall on the defender’s Crown Tower will cause the Executioner to be pulled diagonally beside the Tower, causing his axe to hit the King Tower when thrown. However, as this strategy causes unnecessary Tower damage, the Tornado player should contemplate whether a King Tower activation is necessary for them to win, such as if the opponent uses a Graveyard deck. Alternatively, they can allow the Executioner to hit an Ice Spirit first, and then pull him with the Tornado to minimize Tower damage
The Executioner is also an excellent counter to swarms of all kinds, capable of defeating most low-cost units with one throw of his axe. However, his low hit speed and directional area damage attack leave him vulnerable to being surrounded by Barbarians, Skeleton Army, or Goblin Gang once he crosses the river.
Like the Bowler, the Executioner's axe continually denies the area that it occupies; troops played on top of it will instantly be damaged. Against cards with a death spawn, like a Goblin Hut or a Tombstone, a single attack will be able to completely wipe it out.
- This makes him a great counter to the Goblin Drill. He has high hitpoints to tank a few hits from the Goblins, and his attack will hit the spawned Goblins after the Goblin Drill is destroyed, with the returning hit of the axe finishing off the death Goblins. It is a negative Elixir trade, but this sets him up for a counterattack.
The Executioner paired with the Prince is a high-risk, high reward strategy. The Prince can take out mini tanks such as the Mini P.E.K.K.A, while the Executioner can take out swarms such as Minion Horde or Skeleton Army. However, the combo is countered by separating the duo, since they have different movement speeds and ranges.
When the Goblins of a Goblin Barrel surround a Crown Tower, an Executioner placed directly behind the Tower will target the Goblin at the back of the Tower aligned to the center, allowing him to damage all three Goblins at once.
With the help of the Tower Princess, the Executioner can stop a Balloon for a neutral Elixir trade. His damage is enough to stop all damage from the Balloon, except from the death bomb.
He is a decent counter to the Lava Hound; his high damage lets him defeat the Lava Hound and his splash makes him a great choice against the Lava Pups. If timed right, the fatal hit on the Lava Hound will allow the Executioner to hit all Lava Pups at once, preventing even more damage on the Crown Tower.
If he is defeated while his axe is not in his hand, the axe will still fly back to where he was defeated and inflict damage normally. This is important to know when to drop additional troops to defend against other troops that are supported by the Executioner and avoid unnecessary damage.
A full throw of the Executioner's axe is enough to eliminate Goblins, Minions, all Spirit cards, Princess, and Dart Goblin up to 2 Levels higher, Archers and Firecarcker up to 1 Level higher, and Wall Breakers and Bomber of the same Level. One hit from the axe is enough to OHKO Skeletons, Bats, and Spear Goblins.
The Fisherman can be used to activate the King’s Tower against the Executioner. The defender should place the Fisherman in the middle of their side of the Arena, staggered 2 tiles diagonally towards the Crown Tower in the lane that the Executioner is walking in, as soon as the opponent’s Executioner crosses the bridge. The Executioner would then be hooked towards the Fisherman and start firing, with his axe piercing through the Fisherman and activating the King Tower.
The Magic Archer is very similar to an Executioner, except that he attacks faster, has less hitpoints, deals less damage, attacks from further, and hits less units. However, he costs less Elixir, making him more individually flexible compared to the Executioner (i.e. they are not forced to use 5 Elixir on a single push as opposed to dropping 4 Elixir and having an additional 1 Elixir for a second push or a different card altogether).
When the Executioner's axe hits the Monk under Pensive Protection, it is immediately returned to him and will cause him to throw it faster and therefore, take lots of damage or otherwise die because of it.

Statistics

Cost	Hit Speed	Axe Time	Speed	Deploy Time	Range	Projectile Range	Projectile Width	Target	Count	Transport	Type	Rarity
5	0.9 sec	1.5 sec	Medium (60)	1 sec	4.5	7.5	2	Air & Ground	x1	Ground	Troop	Epic

Level	Hitpoints	Area Damage	Damage per second
6	800	106 x2 (212)	88
7	880	116 x2 (232)	96
8	968	128 x2 (256)	106
9	1,064	140 x2 (280)	116
10	1,168	154 x2 (308)	128
11	1,280	169 x2 (338)	140
12	1,408	186 x2 (372)	155
13	1,544	204 x2 (408)	170
14	1,696	224 x2 (448)	186
15	1,864	246 x2 (492)	205

Card Mastery

Type	Level/Tier	Objective	Reward
Damage Dealer	1	Deal a total of 220,000 Damage to enemy Troops or buildings	20 Executioner cards 75
	2	Deal a total of 660,000 Damage to enemy Troops or buildings	6,000 75
	3	Deal a total of 1,100,000 Damage to enemy Troops or buildings	150 75
Troop Destroyer	1	Destroy 700 enemy Troops	9,000 125
	2	Destroy 2,000 enemy Troops	20 125
	3	Destroy 3,500 enemy Troops	15,000 125

History[]

2017

The Executioner card was added to the game on 27/1/2017.
On 13/2/2017, a Balance Update, decreased the Executioner's damage by 6%, the range to 4.5 tiles (from 5 tiles), and the axe's area radius to 0.9 tiles (from 1 tile). This update also fixed some glitches where the Executioner's axe would hit enemies behind him when it came back, would do damage in front of him when the axe was at its furthest, cause enemy attack animations to reset to 0 when it hit small to medium-sized enemies and caused him to sometimes throw his axe out of the Arena and getting stuck.
On 13/3/2017, the March 2017 Update, increased the axe's radius to 1 tile (from 0.9 tiles). This update also changed the Executioner's card image and fixed all of the bugs of the Executioner mentioned above.
On 19/4/2017, a Balance Update, increased the Executioner's damage by 6%.
On 12/6/2017, the June 2017 Update, changed the sound effect of his axe throw.

2018

On 5/9/2018, the September 2018 Update, changed it so that Epic cards start at Level 6 and end at Level 13 (from 1 to 8).

2019

On 28/1/2019, the January 2019 Update, moved the Arena to unlock the Executioner from Jungle Arena to Spooky Town.
On 2/9/2019, a Balance Update, increased the Executioner's damage by 82% and decreased his axe return time to 1 second (from 1.5 seconds). However, his range was decreased to 3 tiles (from 4.5 tiles), his projectile range was decreased to 4.5 tiles (from 6.5 tiles), his attack time interval was increased to 2.5 seconds (from 2.4 seconds), his first attack time interval was increased to 0.7 seconds (from 0.5 seconds), and his hitpoints were decreased by 5%.
On 5/9/2019, a maintenance break, increased the Executioner's damage by 2% and increased his range to 4 tiles (from 3 tiles).
On 30/9/2019, the End of September 2019 Update, decreased his first attack time interval to 0.5 seconds (from 0.7 seconds). This change was not mentioned in any change notes and was later said to be unintentional by Supercell, and as such it got reverted in 1/10/2019, in a maintenance break.
On 4/11/2019, a Balance Update, increased the Executioner's projectile range to 5 tiles (from 4.5 tiles), increased the axe's hover time to 1.2 seconds (from 1 second), and decreased his area radius to 0.8 tiles (from 1 tile).
On 26/11/2019, the End of November 2019 Update, increased the Executioner's hitpoints by 5%, decreased his attack time interval to 2.4 seconds (from 2.5 seconds), decreased his first attack time interval to 0.5 seconds (from 0.7 seconds), increased the axe's hover time to 1.5 seconds (from 1.2 second), increased his range to 4.5 tiles (from 4 tiles), increased his projectile range to 6.5 tiles (from 5 tiles), increased his area radius to 1 tile (from 0.8 tiles), and decreased his damage by 45%.

2021

On 7/6/2021, the Summer 2021 Update, moved the Arena to unlock the Executioner from Spooky Town to Serenity Peak.
On 2/9/2021, a maintenance break, added a card render to the Executioner's card info screen.
On 27/10/2021, the Champions Update, increased the Level cap of all cards to 14 (from 13).
On 7/12/2021, the 2021 Quarter 4 Update, increased the Executioner's hitpoints by 5%.

2022

On 2/8/2022, a Balance Update, increased the Executioner's projectile range to 7.5 tiles (from 6.5 tiles).

2023

On 19/6/2023, the Card Evolution Update, increased the Level cap of all cards to 15 (from 14).

Gallery[]

Trivia[]

In the Korean and Arabic language settings of the game, the Executioner's name translates to "Axeman". In the Chinese and Thai language settings of the game, the Executioner's name translates to "Throwing Axe Butcher" and "Hangman" respectively
When the Executioner is defeated, his axe falls to the ground after it returns back to his death spot. The other units that drop an item upon death are the Knight, Rascal Boy, Mega Minion, Dark Prince, Mega Knight, Sparky, Fisherman, Golden Knight, and the Little Prince.
In the Japanese language setting of the game, the Executioner's personal name is revealed to be "Falche".
The Executioner is the subject of 2 Emotes.
The initial balance change for Executioner on the September 2019 Update was a 98% damage increase, a range decrease to 3.5-5 tiles (from 4.5-6.5 tiles), and a decreased axe return time decrease to 1.1 seconds (from 1.5 seconds), but the damage increased was lowered to 82%, the range decrease was lowered to 3-4.5 tiles, and his axe return time was lowered to 1 second last minute.