Clash Royale Season 85 'Honor & Exile': Ronin Breaks the Hero Meta

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Ronin Arrives: Clash Royale’s First New Card in Nearly a Year

Ten months after Vines were added in September 2025, Clash Royale’s Season 85 Honor & Exile — live since July 6, 2026 — introduces Ronin, a 5-Elixir Legendary swordsman whose parry mechanic is built around one goal: stopping melee win-conditions dead in their tracks.

Ronin: a 5-Elixir Legendary whose parry reflects 2× absorbed melee damage every 3.5 seconds.
C.H.A.O.S. Season 2: a 50-card pool, doubled Tower HP, and Triple Draft.
Four hero nerfs: Evo Executioner, Hero Magic Archer, Hero Balloon, and Hero Knight.
Choice Chest: daily rewards now let players pick instead of pulling randomly.

Ronin’s Parry: How It Works

At Level 11, Ronin has 1,779 HP, 337 damage per hit, and 240 DPS. His defining ability is the Parry: every 3.5 seconds, Ronin automatically blocks one incoming ground melee attack and reflects double the blocked damage back at the attacker.

Against a Level 11 P.E.K.K.A dealing roughly 1,100 damage per swing, the parry fires back 2,200 instantly — a single exchange that removes a massive chunk of P.E.K.K.A’s health. The Mega Knight’s jump damage makes it even more vulnerable to a well-timed parry. Boss Bandit, another high-damage melee troop, gets punished the same way.

The counters are structural. Ronin cannot parry air units (Electro Dragon, Balloon, Minion Horde), ranged cards (Princess, Witch), or multi-unit melee floods that overwhelm the 3.5-second cooldown window. A well-timed Goblin Barrel or Skeleton Army bypasses the parry entirely.

C.H.A.O.S. Season 2 and Choice Chests

C.H.A.O.S. Season 2 expands the rotating card pool to 50 cards — 15 new additions including Ronin, Electro Giant, and Three Musketeers — and doubles Tower HP. The biggest change from Season 1 is the Triple Draft format: players now choose from three card proposals before each match instead of drawing randomly. This shifts C.H.A.O.S. toward partial synergy-building rather than pure improvisation.

The Choice Chest is Season 85’s other structural change. Daily reward chests now offer a selection of options — cards, resources, cosmetics — letting you prioritize what you actually need rather than accepting a random draw.

What matters is the combined shift in decision-making. Ronin changes a narrow set of melee exchanges, while Triple Draft and Choice Chests give players more agency before and after a match. That is a more useful reason to revisit the season than treating one Legendary card as a universal answer.

Hero Nerfs and Meta Impact

Season 85 pairs Ronin’s arrival with a targeted nerf wave against hero cards:

Card	Change
Evo Executioner	Damage reduced
Hero Magic Archer	Damage reduced
Hero Balloon	Damage reduced
Hero Knight	Stats reduced
Hero Tombstone	Ability reworked
Ram Rider	+4% HP (only buff)

The combined effect opens space for evolution-based and non-hero win-conditions — Royal Hogs, Hog Cycle, Golem Beatdown — that have been squeezed out by hero-centric decks. If Ronin’s win rate climbs too sharply in the first two weeks on Ladder, a hotfix targeting the parry damage multiplier is plausible — Supercell used this approach with early hero cards in 2025.

Getting Ronin Without Paying

Ronin is not available in regular chests during Season 85. Three paths:

Road to Ronin (progression event): unlock Ronin cards through event milestones
Wandering Warrior Album Event: complete all 9 scenes for 15 Ronin cards — the most predictable free-to-play route
Upgraded Pass Royale: immediate access on the paid progression track

The deadline is the end of Season 85 on August 3, 2026. If you’re going for the Album Event, start the scenes early and don’t let the last ones pile up.

What to Watch This Season

Ronin’s design makes sense on paper: a targeted counter to the melee-heavy meta, paired with hero nerfs to accelerate the shift. The question is whether the 3.5-second parry window is calibrated correctly. A fast P.E.K.K.A theoretically gets two swings in before Ronin’s second parry; if that timing proves too punishing in practice, adjustments will follow.

Track Ronin’s actual win rates on RoyaleAPI once the meta settles around day 3-5 of the season — that’s when deck composition stabilizes. For more on Clash Royale’s evolving meta, visit our Clash Royale hub or check the Season 84 Stone Cold recap.

Sources

Brawl Stars Season 50 Starr Patrol: Recap of Starr Nova, the Finx Boss and the Brawl Pass

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Brawl Stars’ Season 50, Starr Patrol, ran from May 7 to June 4, 2026 under a space-anime theme. It brought Starr Nova, a Mythic Assassin available for free, two boss fights and a Brawl Pass built around Spike and Colette. Here is a recap of what it contained, now that the season is over.

Update, October 26, 2026: Starr Nova has since been adjusted: her health went from 4,000 to 3,700 in the August 4 maintenance. Sources: June release notes and SportsDunia.

Starr Nova, the season’s Mythic Assassin

Starr Nova is a Mythic Assassin, the game’s 103rd Brawler according to Notebookcheck. Supercell presents her as a cosplayer convinced she is an anime heroine, who solves problems with a huge sword. Her attack, Nova Hair Go, fires two projectiles. Her Super, Nova Crystal Transform, makes her dash and transform: she gains speed, converts dealt damage into health and changes the shape of her attack.

On the gadget side, one creates an anti-gravity zone where teammates float, the other throws an energy ball that hurts enemies and heals allies. Supercell adds that you can teleport to the ball before it hits a target.

How to get her for free

Notebookcheck and SportsDunia describe a purchase-free unlock through the Starr Nova Event, aimed at active players. According to SportsDunia, everyone started with 12 tickets, earned two more per day and had to collect 14 boxes. Supercell adds that Starr Nova’s crystal only appeared from the event’s second week.

Sources differ on her exact release date: May 24 for Notebookcheck, May 22 for SportsDunia. We will settle for late May without picking one.

Starr Nova Event: transformations, Nova Drops and Finx’s skin

During the event, crystals appear in some modes and turn the player into one of five Starr Patrol members: Spike, Bea, Juju, Amber, then Starr Nova herself. These versions are far stronger than the base Brawler. They start at power level 11 and climb to 30 with Nova Drops.

Each level-up triggers an attack charge against Void Master Finx, the event boss. Every player has their own Finx and their own progress bar. Defeating him earns his skin for free, whereas the shop sold it for 199 gems.

A Nova Drop can give a 40% chance of leveling Starr Nova, along with coins, power points, gadgets, skins at 79, 149, 199 or 299 gems, or Brawlers from Epic to Legendary.

Two boss fights for five players

The update brings two new boss fights, both for five players. Against Void Colette, you have to destroy dark book nests before being overrun by mini Colettes. Void Master Finx is a two-phase fight: once beaten, he comes back stronger. A central tower alternates between helping and hurting the team, and Finx summons Kit clones.

Brawl Pass: Spike and Colette

The Brawl Pass offered two collections of Epic skins, along with a Starr Patrol player title:

Spike: Starr Patrol Spike, Starr Scout Spike and Starr Guardian Spike (chroma variants).
Colette: Void Colette, White Dwarf Colette and Black Hole Colette (chroma variants).

The shop added other skins: Starr Patrol Juju (Mythic, 149 gems), Starr Patrol Bea (Epic, 149), Starr Patrol Amber and Void Amber (Legendary, 299).

After the season: the adidas Starr Cup

The Super Brawl Ball mode, a supercharged Brawl Ball with charged shots and goalkeepers, was the basis of the adidas Starr Cup, from June 17 to July 1. That community event offered a title, a free Brawler, a free skin and Chaos Drops.

What to take away

For free players, the season came down to two rewards: Starr Nova and Finx’s skin. The Brawl Pass only carried skins, with no new Brawler. The difference is that Starr Nova has been adjusted since, which shows a free Brawler does not stay frozen.

July 2026 — After Strategy