Level 16 and Economy Changes

Season 77 begins on Monday, November 2025.

The last update of 2025 is a major one, with big changes to the game economy and account progression. Today we get to cover some of these changes, and we’ll share the rest soon. Let’s dive in!

The highlights are:

• Clash Royale is adding Level 16!
• Temporary level caps
• Elite Wild Cards removed
• Magic Books and Magic Coins removed
• New Currency for Cosmetics

The current plan is for all these changes to be added to the game on November 24th, which is about 3 weeks away. This blog will help you understand the changes and decide what to do with resources you may have saved.

If you are simply looking for a summary and quick recommendations, you can jump to our TLDR section. But if you want to understand all the changes, we encourage you to read the rest of the blog.

But first, let’s look at the context for these changes.

Table of Contents

• Level 16 is coming. Why?
• Do we need more progression?
• Level 15 issues
• Level 16 details
• Removing Elite Wild Cards
• Conversion of spent EWCs
• Conversion of saved EWCs
• Removing Magic Books and Coins
• New Overflow Resource: Crystals
• Level Caps in Ranked
• New Trophy Road Arenas
• Access to Ranked
• Gem Economy Rework
• Our TLDR Recommendation
• What we don’t know
• Detailed Cost Comparison: Old VS New
• Common changes
• Rare changes
• Epic changes
• Legendary changes
• Champion changes
• Winners and losers
• Playerbase Analysis: Card Levels
• Our first impressions and expectations
• Feedback

Level 16 is coming. Why?

Clash Royale as a game has 2 main components:

• Strategic gameplay

• Collection-based progression

The game has thrived all these years due to how well these complement each other.

This doesn’t mean that all players value both equally, but keeping these two components healthy is essential for the long term success of the game. If you enjoy Clash Royale and want it to exist for many more years, that’s a framing you share with us and the Supercell developers.

This update is designed to improve the collection-based progression. Adding an additional level is a part of that, but there’s a lot more.

Do we need more progression?

At its core, collection progression creates a long-term goal for players. The 2 main consequences of this are:

• Better retention: players see clear value for spending time in the game, which enhances the fun and makes playing for rewards more meaningful.

• Better monetisation: if progression matters more, players are more likely to pay to skip ahead.

These are fairly simple concepts, and both are linked to the success of the game.

The obvious drawback is that some players feel they are set back, and their past efforts are devalued. Is this a cost we are willing to accept to keep the game going indefinitely? Each player will have their own perspective, but if you really enjoy playing Clash Royale, there are reasons to be positive.

Level 15 issues

Level 15 was added in June of 2023, more than 2 years ago.

That update introduced the Elite Level as a new mechanic that promised upgrades without Gold costs. As a result, advanced players commonly have constant overflow for this resource, which is capped at 5M.

Although there is no need for Gold, upgrades consume a special currency known as Elite Wild Cards (EWCs). This introduced even more problems:

• Not rarity dependent, so getting Legendaries and Champions becomes less appealing.

• Players have full control of their available upgrades, which encourages them to double down on a specific deck and not consider alternatives.

Removing EWCs will enhance the original collection principles, where card rarities and Gold have a lot of relevance.

Level 16 details

As with all update news, the values presented in this blog are subject to change. We present values shared by Supercell, but values are never final until they are live.

In short, now all levels will cost cards and Gold to upgrade.

Old levels are getting a bit cheaper to help new players catch up, and the new level is about as expensive as level 15, maybe less. This essentially means that the challenge will be in upgrading yet another level, but it isn’t substantially more difficult as the old Level 15 was.

This is a summary comparing old and new card material costs:

And this table compares the old and new Gold costs:

For the most advanced players, what matters is mainly level 15 and level 16. There’s nothing to compare Level 16 to, because it’s new, but we can compare the new Level 15 costs with the old Elite Level costs. This table compares new costs with the equivalent amount of cards to 50K EWC, which varies depending on the rarity:

Reminder: 1 Common = 1 EWC ; 1 Rare = 5 EWCs ; 1 Epic = 20 EWCs ; 1 Legendary = 1,500 EWCs ; 1 Champion = 4,000 EWCs

There isn’t a direct equivalence, because EWC values are different for each rarity, and gold is an added cost.

The cost progression has generally been toned down. Before costs would grow exponentially; the new increase will look closer to a linear increase.

• Old material costs: +60 to +80% per level (above Level 11)
• New material costs: +40 to +60% per level (above Level 11)
• Old Gold costs: +90% per level (above Level 11)
• New Gold costs: +50% per level (above Level 11)

Removing Elite Wild Cards

Many players noticed that EWCs had mysteriously disappeared this season from rewards of Seasonal Arenas and Ranked.

The reason for this is that Elite Wild Cards (EWCs) will be completely gone with this update. Given that seasonal rewards will be available before and after the update, EWCs couldn’t be part of these rewards.

But most players will be mainly concerned for the resources they have already earned. What will happen to your EWCs? It depends.

• EWCs invested into specific card will convert to card material for that same card.
• EWCs you haven’t spent will be converted into Gems.
• Cards upgraded to Level 15 will remain as Level 15 after the update.

Conversion of spent EWCs

Incomplete upgrades will carry over the relative progression you already have. To make this simpler, let’s look at an example:

Suppose you have spent 10K EWCs on Skeletons. This is 20% of the total upgrade requirement, which is 50K EWCs.

Skeletons is a Common card, so the new cost for Level 15 is 5,500 cards.

The 20% progress is transferred, and 20% of 5,500 is 1,100 Skeleton cards. This is the amount of cards you would have after the conversion.

The same applies to other rarities, although the amount of cards changes:

Conversion of saved EWCs

We don’t yet know the conversion ratio from EWCs to Gems.

It seems prudent to wait until this is announced to decide what to do. Should you take advantage of the conversion? Or should you spend the EWCs before?

The main potential advantage of upgrading cards before the update is that there is no Gold cost for these upgrades, which we expect to become more relevant after these changes. If you wait to upgrade until after the update, you’ll need to pay 90K Gold for each 14➜15 upgrade.

Removing Magic Books and Coins

Any player who has tried to optimise their progression knows that Magic Coins and Books were the most valuable to complete the upgrades from 13 to 14. If you spend them before that, you are wasting some of their potential value.

This created very weird incentives for these items, which rewarded hoarding for no good reason. This issue is unavoidable given how these items work, so removing them entirely makes sense from this perspective.

The main game design reasoning behind this is that players hoarding resources is undesirable behaviour, and shouldn’t be encouraged. Rewards work better when players are excited to use them as soon as they get them.

The main drawback is that players will have less agency to choose their own upgrades, but this can be resolved by adding more Wild Cards as rewards in the future.

So the big question is, what happens with these Magic Items?

They’ll be converted to other resources. The specific conversions are dependent on King Levels, but in short:

• Common, Rare, Epic and Legendary Books, converted to Wild Cards of their respective rarity
• Book of Books, converted to Gems
• Magic Coin converted to Gold

As an example, for Level 15 players:

And here are the conversions for every level:

Wild Cards received from Books that exceed your storage limit will overflow, and so will Gold from Magic Coins. This means you can temporarily store more resources than the limit says.

New Overflow Resource: Crystals

Until the update, overflow cards converted into Elite Wild Cards. Afterwards, overflow will convert into Crystals instead.

Crystals is a new currency for cosmetics. It can be used in the shop, to buy some items such as exclusive emotes.

This is all we can share for now, but you can expect more details soon.

Level Caps in Ranked

In order to keep Ranked mode balanced after these changes, the levels will remain capped to Level 15 for several months. This should give competitive players some time to adapt and level up their favourite decks.

Level 16 is expected to be enabled in Ranked mode in May of 2026, so it’s several months away.

New Trophy Road Arenas

Players who had already reached 10,000 Trophies will have to return to this mode! The main Trophy Road is being extended by 2,000 Trophies spread across 4 different arenas:

• Arena 25: 10,000 - 10,499 Trophies
• Arena 26: 10,500 - 10,999 Trophies
• Arena 27: 11,000 - 11,499 Trophies
• Arena 28: 11,500 - 12,000 Trophies
• Seasonal Arenas: paused temporarily

Access to Ranked

One of the ways to unlock access to Ranked mode is by reaching 15K Trophies in Seasonal Arenas. Given that these will be disabled temporarily, Ranked will be unlocked at lower Trophies instead:

• November 2025: 10,000 Trophies
• December 2025: 10,500 Trophies
• January 2026: 11,000 Trophies
• February 2026: 11,500 Trophies

On top of this, players can also keep access to Ranked by reaching Champion League, just as before.

Gem Economy Rework

We don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle yet, but it seems the value of Gems is going to change significantly.

In this blog we mentioned:

• Book of Books converted to Gems
• Elite Wild Cards converted to Gems

This would presumably make this resource less exclusive and less valuable. But what can you do with Gems? It’s unclear for now.

It seems Gems can now be used to buy specific card of your choice, similar to Wild Cards. We don’t know how appealing the prices will be.

There aren’t many other Gem sinks in the economy, as recent updates have removed the most relevant ones:

• No speed up for chest timers, as chests were removed
• No bonus rewards in Global Tournaments, as this mode was removed

Let’s hope the Gem deals aren’t as bad as the ones available in the Daily Shop.

Our TLDR Recommendation

Wait! Don’t complete upgrades or spend resources yet. These are our general recommendations for how to manage your resources ahead of the update:

• Don’t upgrade. Most upgrades will become cheaper with the update, so if you wait, your upgrades will be more efficient.

• Don’t spend books. Magic Books give generous conversion values. Using them now won’t give you an advantage.

• Book of Books converts to Gems, and we don’t know how useful they will be. Wait until we know more.

• Don’t spend Elite Wild Cards. Same with EWCs. Once we know the conversion rate, it will be easier to say.

Bonus strategy: save unclaimed rewards until after the update. It has been mentioned that card rewards will be a bit better, so you may get more out of unclaimed rewards after the update. This may change depending on how drop chances are adjusted, but we don’t have those details yet. E.g.: don’t collect Pass Royale or Ranked rewards yet.

As we get closer to the update, we’ll have more details about everything, and it will be easier to decide what to do.

What we don’t know

The biggest part of the update: something heroic is coming! One that will take gameplay to a new level! …But more on that later!

This first sneak peek into the new update was prompted by all the confusion around the removal of Elite Wild Cards from seasonal rewards.

The rest of the update information will be shared soon, we are only 2 weeks away from the release. We already have some clues for what this could be:

• Heroes in Clash Royale?
• Increased amount of cards earned
• New King Level probably means more player XP levels
• Rework of the Gem economy
• Buying cards with Gems
• Cosmetic shop with Crystals
• 2v2 League is back?
• New Evolution Box
• Clashmas event

Detailed Cost Comparison: Old VS New

In this section we’ll be displaying aggregate upgrade costs for each rarity. Each rarity has 2 charts, one for cards and one for Gold.

Each of the charts has a format similar to this:

1. Old Costs: adds together upgrades from Level 1 to 14 with the old system (in blue) and the cost for Level 15 (in gree). Level 15 cost is paid in EWCs, so the 50K amount is converted to cost relative to each rarity. E.g.: 12.5 Champion cards.

2. New Costs: aggregate costs using the new prices (in orange) from Level 1 to 16

3. Combined Costs: a combination of old costs until Level 15, and Level 16 price from the new system

Combined costs will be common for players who already have several maxed cards. For players without maxed cards, the upgrade costs they have paid already aren’t changing significantly.

This is what the charts look like for each rarity:

Common changes

Rare changes

Epic changes

Legendary changes

Champion changes

It’s easy to see that the card material requirements for Commons, Rares and Epics are changing the most; becoming really cheap compared to the 50K EWC of Level 15 upgrades.

For Legendaries and Champions, changes aren’t as positive, but upgrades should still seem cheaper. Reaching maxed level will be similar in the old and new system, but players who paid the 50K EWC upgrade will have the worst price combination.

The story is much simpler if we look at the charts for Gold costs. Since Elite Level upgrades had no Gold cost, players through the mixed upgrade path pay about as much as everyone else. This means that if Gold becomes the limiting resource, the timing of your upgrades will be mostly irrelevant. The main reason for this is that the cheapening of upgrades is compensated with the new Gold cost at Level 15; the cost for Level 16 is added on top of that.

Given we don’t yet know all the changes to the economy, it’s hard to say if Gold will indeed be the limiting resource or not. With 121 cards at 120K Gold each, that’s a total of 14.5M Gold needed to upgrade cards from Level 15 to 16... that does sound like a limiting resource, but we’ll see. We can always hope for another Chess.com collab.

Winners and losers

We can separate 2 categories of players depending on how these changes will affect them:

• Underlevelled players: their upcoming upgrades are now cheaper.
• Players with maxed cards: upgrading cards to Level 15 required a lot of resources, and this upgrade is now going to be devalued significantly.

So this update will mostly benefit players who were behind. They won’t be better off than players who were already ahead, but the progression gap will close by a lot.

Playerbase Analysis: Card Levels

The argument for players losing retention once they max their deck makes sense, so we wanted to dig a bit deeper into the topic.

We have looked at a sample of the active playerbase on November 3rd, and separated players by their trophy range. How many maxed cards do they have?

These were the maxed cards (Level 15) for each trophy range:

The median player only starts having maxed cards after reaching 9K trophies. For players above 10K trophies, the median is 8 cards, which means a fully maxed deck.

Another interesting perspective is for cards at Level 14, which is before the arduous Elite Level upgrades start. How many Level 14 cards do they have?

The average player gets their first Level 14 card after reaching 7K trophies. By the time they reach 9K trophies, their full deck is at Level 14.

We can also see that even players above 10K trophies have a relatively small portion of cards at this level, 28 out of the 121 cards.

A summary of this section could be:

• Around 5M active players have a full maxed deck (Level 15)

• Around 16M active players have a Level 14+ full deck

Overall, the portion of players with Level 15 upgrades is rather small, so not a significant part of the playerbase should feel "set back".

A bigger portion of players who had reached Level 14 and were stuck in front of Elite Levels will now have a much easier path to continue their progression.

Our first impressions and expectations

It’s hard to have solid opinions considering there’s still a lot we don’t know. But we already see some clear pros and cons:

• The new level system seems better than Elite Levels. The requirements don’t scale so abruptly, so they’ll be more attainable for more players. This will specially help players who haven’t reached Level 14 yet.
• Card rarities will become relevant again. This will make more sense in terms of game design, but will make it harder to level up cards like Champions.
• Players with maxed out decks will feel that something is taken away from them. At the same time, this will give them more motivation to keep playing.
• The most advanced players have been stuck with overflowing progression for a long time. Holding back players in this way seems like a flawed economy with insufficient resource sinks. It’s unclear if these changes will solve this going forward.

Overall, there are reasons to be positive and negative. If you care about the health of the game, many of these changes make sense. If you care the most about your personal progression, this may not seem a sufficient reason to be set back.

Finding out about the rest of the update will help us know if these changes are worth it. Players are usually more welcoming of new levels if they bring novel gameplay, mechanics and strategy, instead of just hollow stat changes.

Feedback

Do you have any questions or feedback about the update? Let us know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this article and all our other content, don’t forget to use our code: RoyaleAPI to support us!

You can also get bonus rewards at the Supercell Store. Using our code RoyaleAPI before you check out will help us greatly keep our servers running, and to keep providing quality content in the future.

Buy Pass Royale

Discuss

Share this post

Related Posts

2026 Q2 May Update - Preview 2

2026-05-23

update client update

Clash Royale 2026 Q2 May Update Preview

2026-05-13

update client update

Clash Royale 2026 Mid-March Update (Season 81)

2026-03-16

update client update

Clash Royale CHAOS Mode - March 2026 (Season 81)

2026-03-06

update client update