Lava Hound

Lava Hound is a 7-Elixir Legendary flyer that only attacks buildings — it sails straight past enemy troops on its way to a tower, so it can't be used to fight off a push directly. Its huge health pool and slow flight speed make it the classic tank for air Beatdown decks: it soaks up tower damage and any building-targeting defenses while cheaper support troops, or a Balloon riding right behind it, do the real work. When the Hound finally goes down, the fight isn't over — it bursts into six Lava Pups that can chase down both ground and air targets. Ignore them and they'll chew through a tower fast, but a well-placed Zap, Arrows, or splash troop wipes the whole swarm out in one hit each.

• Lava Hound is a 7-Elixir Legendary troop that flies and can only target buildings — it ignores every enemy troop and flies straight for a tower or defensive building. At tournament standard (level 11) it has 3,581 hitpoints and hits for 53 damage every 1.3 seconds, working out to roughly 40 damage per second.

• Lava Hound's death isn't the end of the threat: it bursts into six Lava Pups that scatter and, unlike the Hound itself, can attack both air and ground targets. At tournament standard, each Pup has 217 hitpoints and deals 81 damage every 1.7 seconds — about 47 damage per second per Pup — and all six exist as separate, independently-targetable creatures rather than one shared health pool.

• Lava Hound has one of the slowest movement speeds in the game. That sluggish pace telegraphs a beatdown push from a long way off, giving the defender extra time to bank Elixir and set up an answer before the Hound, or whatever is escorting it, reaches the bridge.

• Lava Hound defines the air Beatdown archetype, most famously as half of 'LavaLoon' — pairing it with the Balloon so the Hound absorbs every building-targeting and anti-air defense while the Balloon slips in behind it for direct tower damage. The archetype is still a recognized deck staple in 2026, usually rounded out with support like Mega Minion, Tombstone, and a splash card to clean up swarms.

• Because Lava Hound only ever attacks buildings, ground troops sent to fight it simply walk past untouched — it will never swing at them. The real answers are anti-air defenses, and Inferno Tower or Inferno Dragon are especially effective since their damage ramps up the longer they lock on, burning through the Hound's large HP pool before it reaches a tower.

• As of the April 2026 balance patch, Skeleton Dragons are one of the best answers to a Lava Hound push — their splash radius was buffed by 88%, letting them reliably clear the Balloon or the six-Lava-Pup swarm that spills out once the Hound finally dies.

• Lava Hound's Lava Pups went through several rounds of toning down between late 2024 and mid-2025 — including an official 7% Lava Pups damage cut in the February 2025 balance update — after the combination of Lava Hound, the Goblin Giant Evolution, and the Royal Chef tower troop proved too strong together. Lava Hound hasn't been directly hit by a balance change since, including the 40-card August 2026 update.

• Lava Hound has a notable place in card history: when it launched on 3 May 2016, it was the first Legendary card made unlockable through normal arena progression, available far earlier than Legendaries typically were at the time. Trophy Road has been reorganized many times since, and today it unlocks much later, in the Rascal's Hideout arena (King Tower level 20).