Golem

“Slow but durable, only attacks buildings. When destroyed, explosively splits into two Golemites and deals area damage!”

The Golem card is unlocked from the Builder's Workshop (Arena 6). It is a building-targeting, melee troop with extremely high hitpoints and moderately high damage that deals death damage when defeated. Like the Giant, the Golem has high hitpoints and deals significant damage, targeting only buildings. Upon death, the Golem ruptures into two weaker Golemites, causing moderate area damage. The Golemites continue to deal damage until they are destroyed. Like the Golem, when the Golemites are destroyed, they rupture, dealing low area damage. The Golem is a colossal, menacing rock brute with team-colored crystals growing on its back. Its Golemites have a similar look, but they seem to have one eye each and are much smaller in size. A Golem card costs 8 Elixir to deploy.

Strategy

As a high hitpoint card, the Golem can be effectively used in conjunction with a high damaging support card, like a Mini P.E.K.K.A. or a Prince, or splash damage troops like Dark Prince, Valkyrie, Baby Dragon or Wizard.
The Golem has so many hitpoints that at tounament standard, he can take 3 blasts from Sparky before dying.
Upon destruction, the Golem deals area damage and splits into two Golemites. The area damage caused by the troop's destruction deals damage to surrounding enemy units, including air troops. This is lethal because it's death damage is enough to wipe out anything weaker than Guards or the Bomber.
The Golemites also deal area damage upon death, but it is insignificant compared to the health of most cards.
The Golem and Golemites's death damage has a knockback effect, just like the Fireball. It will push back any medium to low sized units in the exploding radius.
An effective strategy with the Golem is to back it up with supporting troops as it makes its way to the opposing Crown Towers.
- By deploying the Golem on the rear of the Arena (behind the player's King's Tower), the player is able to place supportive troops, such as the Wizard, Musketeer or even a Mirrored Golem, to make the push extremely effective and difficult to counter. The Golem is slow, giving the player ample time to build a major push.
- However, this costs a heavy amount of Elixir, and it may leave you undefended for an enemy push in the other lane.
Although the Golem spawns Golemites upon death, buildings and troops will start targeting troops behind the Golem since it takes 1 second for the Golemites to spawn and the closest targets will be the troops the Golem is protecting. This can easily be fixed by placing a spell such as Zap, Lightning, Freeze, or an Ice Spirit which can all stun or freeze the Tower changing its target to the Golemites instead. You could also back up the Golem push with the Electro Wizard, as his attacks stun and will reset the aim of the Towers or defending troops onto the Golemites again. This also alleviates the Inferno Tower, one of the Golem's biggest weaknesses. This is even better if your opponent planted their Inferno Tower right at the river. This is the Anti-Lightning Position (the placement that prevents the opponent to use a Lightning spell to strike both the Princess Tower and the Inferno Tower), and the Electro Wizard can easily attack it from across the river.
Be very careful when playing the Golem. Some opponents will take advantage of the Golem's high Elixir cost and rush the other lane. Easy workarounds to this are waiting until the last minute, where double Elixir starts, or to use the Elixir Collector.
Always keep in mind that an Inferno Tower can easily destroy a Golem if allowed to reach its higher damage thresholds. Therefore, some good cards to use against their Inferno Tower are the Ice Spirit, Zap, Freeze or Lightning.
The P.E.K.K.A. is an extremely effective counter to the Golem. She will eliminate the Golem quickly with her enormous DPS, and even has the health to withstand the attacks of the Golem's support troops. She also costs one less than the Golem, making it a positive elixir trade.
A Mini P.E.K.K.A could do the same, but it can't take on the Golem if it is supported by back-end support troops. What you'll need to do is use the Mini P.E.K.K.A to tank and Guards to disable the splash troops, or if there's a hard hitter like a Prince, use the Guards themselves as the tanks to save your Mini P.E.K.K.A.. For a Dark Prince, let it hit your Mini P.E.K.K.A get hit by his charge strike, then send in your Guards to cripple him. For a Valkyrie, don't use Guards on her because her 360-degree splash will annihilate them. Use something like the Musketeer or Arrows to clean up the air troops followed by the Golem. If the support is a Sparky, use your Guards to surround her and then your Mini P.E.K.K.A. to sweep up. Ideally the Mini P.E.K.K.A is a great cheap counter to a Golem by itself.
Although the Skeleton Army is usually effective for countering high hitpoint, single target troops, it is not the best card to use to counter a Golem because its death damage will kill most, if not all of, the Skeletons. However, in desperate situations, the Skeleton Army can still be used to kill the whole Golem, as the Golemites are relatively easy to defeat and don't deal much damage. And since the Skeleton Army spawns Skeletons in sheer numbers, a few Skeletons will likely survive, mitigating even more damage from being dealt to your Crown Tower.
The Golem pairs well with Lightning and the Baby Dragon as the Lightning will cripple, if not destroy, any kind of high damage glass cannon or Inferno Tower while the Baby Dragon splashes every swarm trying to kill the Golem.

History

The Golem was added with Clash Royale's soft launch on 4/1/16.
On 2/2/16, the February 2016 Update increased the Golem's hitpoints, damage and destruction upon death damage by 43%, and decreased the same stats on the Golemite by 43%.
On 19/2/16, the Balance Update decreased the Golem's and Golemite's hitpoints by 5%.
On 3/5/16, the May 2016 Update changed the Golem's appearance to include crystals on its back and removed the blue/red spiked collar from its neck.
On 18/5/16, a Balance Update increased the Golem and Golemite's hitpoints by 5%.
On 24/8/16, a Balance Update increased the Golem's hit and death damage by 5% and hitpoints by 1%. The Golemites had their hit and death damage increased by 8% and their hitpoints by 3.2%.
On 20/10/16, a Balance Update allowed its death damage to affect flying troops, but Supercell called it a bug fix.

Trivia

Golem and Golemite's Death Damage is the same value as the respective units' damage.
The Golem's death explosion is capable of pushing a ground troop over the river.
The Golem has the longest deploy time of all troops, clocking in at 3 seconds.
It is the most expensive Epic card and most expensive single troop in the game, at 8 Elixir, as well as the second most expensive card.
At level 8, the Golem has the most hitpoints out of any card in the game, even higher than those of a level 13 King's Tower.
The Golem is the only 8 Elixir card in the game.
The Golem is one of the eleven cards who are cheered for by the audience upon spawning and booed when killed, the others include Sparky, Giant Skeleton, P.E.K.K.A., Giant, Night Witch, Bowler, Inferno Dragon, Electro Wizard, Lava Hound, and Royal Giant.
Tied with the Ice Golem, the Golemite has the lowest damage per second in the game, even less than Spear Goblins.

Statistics

Golem Attributes

Cost	Hit Speed	Speed	Deploy Time	Range	Target	Count	Transport	Type	Rarity
8	2.5 sec	Slow (45)	3 sec	Melee	Buildings	x1	Ground	Troop	Epic

Golemite Attributes

Hit Speed	Speed	Range	Target	Count	Transport
2.5 sec	Slow (45)	Melee	Buildings	x2	Ground

Card Statistics

Level	Golem Hitpoints	Golem Damage	Golem Damage per second	Golem Death Damage	Golemite Hitpoints	Golemite Damage	Golemite Damage per second	Golemite Death Damage
1	3,200	195	78	195	650	40	16	40
2	3,520	214	85	214	715	44	17	44
3	3,872	235	94	235	786	48	19	48
4	4,256	259	103	259	864	53	21	53
5	4,672	284	113	284	949	58	23	58
6	5,120	312	124	312	1,040	64	25	64
7	5,632	343	137	343	1,144	70	28	70
8	6,176	376	150	376	1,254	77	30	77