Clash Royale continues the proud SuperCell tradition of charging you real-world money for imaginary gems. As we've come to expect from free to play games, there are a few ways to hoard a limited number of these ultra-useful gems. If you're wondering "how do I get more free Clash Royale gems?" or "what should I spend my Clash Royale gems on?" - search no further! In this Clash Royale gems guide, I'll give you all the tips you need to know to maximize your Clash Royale gems.
Earning Clash Royale Free Gems
Obviously every time we can get premium currency for free, we're essentially sticking it to the man. However, the man is pretty good at sticking it right back. In Clash Royale, there's only two ways to get "legit" free gems:
- The Crown Chest, which you can only open once per day, and requires 10 crowns to open
- The Free Chest, which as its name implies, is totally free. You get one of these every four hours
I covered these chests in my Clash Royale chests guide, so I'll try to just stick to how they impact Clash Royale gems.
Basically, each of these chests has a chance to drop between 2 and 4 gems. Two gems is by far the most common reward, 3 gems is pretty rare, and 4 gems from one of these chests is extremely rare. Thus, expect to get around 14 (2 from the Crown, and 2 from each free every 4 hours) gems per day. You might end up with 15 or 16, but don't expect to get 20+ per day.
Buying Clash Royale Paid Gems
Just as obviously, you can spend your hard earned cash on gems if you so choose. Shop around for cheap iTunes or Google Play gift cards (there are lots of discounts around the holidays!) to save a few bucks here and there.
SuperCell really wants you to spend big, so they put a huge discount on larger purchases. If you plan on dropping $20, do it all at once to maximize your gems-per-dollar ratio.
Pro Tip I use Google Opinion Rewards on my Android phone to earn a few pennies each day, which adds up over time to enough to afford a good barrel of gems or so.
Spending Your Clash Royale Gems
There's three things you can spend your gems on:
- Buying Gold, at a rate of 20 gold per gem (with the exchange rate being better the more you spend)
- Immediately opening a Win Chest
- Buying Treasure Chests in the Shop
So what to spend gems on? Good question.
Spending Clash Royale Gems on Gold
For my money, the best thing you can do is save your gems up and spend them on buying gold. Gold is the limiting factor in a number of ways. You can spend it on card upgrades, or it can be converted to cards in the shop. Buying a card in the Clash Royale shop is 100% guaranteed to give you the card you want, unlike chests where you only have a percentage chance of getting what you want. Buying cards and requesting them from your clanmates are by far the best way to acquire cards.
As your Clash Royale card levels grow ever higher, you'll find that it quickly gets very expensive to upgrade them. Having a stockpile of gold can go a long way - doubly so when you consider that leveling your cards is the way to level up your crown towers as well!
My suggestion is to save up for the 10,000 Clash Royale "bucket of gold." At a rate of around 15 Clash Royale gems per day, this will take about a month, plus or minus a couple of days. The conversion rate of gems to gold is halfway decent at this rank, and it doesn't take forever like the 4,500 gem purchase would. You're looking at a good 9+ months of grinding gems to get to that tier...
Try to resist the temptation to buy a cheap pouch of gold just to get a card when it's in the shop. Cards rotate through the shop daily, so it'll be back again. Remember that upgrading your cards in Clash Royale is a long game - this is a marathon, NOT a sprint!
Spending Clash Royale Gems to Open Chests
Besides buying gold, I occasionally will use gems to speed up a chest opening. The trick here is to use it sparingly and in a smart manner. For instance, if you're going to sleep but there's still 30 minutes left on your current chest, spending a few gems to open that sucker and start a new one can be a big bonus.
On the other hand, just gemming Clash Royale chests open over and over burns through gems and doesn't have a great probability of getting you the cards you want.
Spending Clash Royale Gems on Treasure Chests
Finally, there's buying chests in the shop. Honestly, if you're spending $400+ on this game, by all means, buy Clash Royale chests in the shop. However, for those of us who can't afford to spend that much, it's a total waste of gems. You're guaranteed to get Giant and Magical chests periodically, so getting one more for the crazy number of gems you have to spend seems like a waste.
That leaves the Super Magical chests, which in Clash Royale aren't guaranteed. They're your best shot at legendary cards, but let's be honest here. Just buying one Super Magical chest is going to run you something like $30 in gems, or waiting more than half a year to collect them for free. And that's only buying you a teensy, tiny chance of getting a Legendary card. Chances are good that you're not going to significantly expand your Legendary collection by buying a Super Magical chest.
My advice? Cross your fingers and hope for the best out of your normal chest drops, or just wait around a bit - SuperCell will eventually make these cards a lot less rare.
Clash Royale Gems: Conclusion
That's everything I can tell you about Clash Royale gems. Chances are good that SuperCell will patch something about gems and render my article out of date, and there's almost certainly something I don't know about gems that you might. Feel free to leave a comment! I appreciate all your effort in helping me make the best Clash Royale gems article on the internet!