Finding and raiding an abandoned base is the holy grail in Clash of Clans. It’s easier to raid and you will be able to grab tons of loot very easily. In fact, there are several myths around abandoned bases that made me write this guide – how to find dead bases, how they behave in the matchup algorithm, etc.
What Are Abandoned Bases & Dead Bases?
I know most of you know what they are, but I want to start at the beginning. An abandoned base is a base that is not played actively – this means the owner of the account just didn’t play for quite some time:
- Collectors & Mines still generate loot and are filled;
- Traps are not re-armed; and
- Inferno Tower, X-Bows and Eagle Artillery are not re-filled;
It is stated that a base that hasn’t been played for more than 57 hours is flagged abandoned in the system, but that’s something we will look at more closely in the last part about the matchup algorithm.
How To Identify A Dead Base?
There are several things you should look out for that indicate whether a base is dead or not:
- No league badge;
- Player is not in a clan;
- Collectors & Mines are completely filled (or filled almost completely); and
- Inactive defences.
These four indicators will show you that this is an abandoned base, or let’s just call it a lucky punch!
The Mines & Collectors can be spotted very easily:
I posted a complete guide about scouting loot here, worth a read:
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If you’re raiding TH10 and TH11 bases, you also might want to take a look at the Inferno Towers. If it looks like this you’re good to go:
How To Raid Abandoned Bases?
The easiest answer is sniping the Mines and Collectors with Archers, but in the end, you will need to use the troops you have in your pocket. If you’re not BARCHing right now, you might have totally different troops – and just farming abandoned bases is not a good idea (read more about that in the next chapter).
The best way is using your Heroes to get the outside Collectors and Mines easily and after a short regeneration time you will be able to continue raiding as usual.
If you’re pushing trophies right now you can count yourself lucky, because raiding a Dead Base will not only give you tons of loot but will also be easy to win:
- No defending Clan Castle Troops;
- No (or almost no) armed Traps; and
- Hard defenses are not active.
Simply go for the base as you normally would.
How To Find Dead Bases in Clash of Clans?
Now let’s have a look at the matchup algorithm and how we can find abandoned bases. I wrote at the beginning of this guide, that a base that is not active for more than 57 hours will be flagged as abandoned in the system.
Abandoned bases get removed from the matchup. Otherwise there would be so many of them that the whole economy would collapse due to too much loot. That’s why Supercell removes them.
However, we still see them from time to time and that’s because the matchup algorithm will put some back to balance the economy – it’s nothing more than throwing in some extra loot from a global perspective. After the removal of exposed Town Halls, Supercell decided to raise the number of abandoned bases in the system to keep the global economy more balanced.
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The Fairytale About The Leagues
I’ve had this discussion a dozen times that there are more abandoned bases in lower leagues than in higher leagues. The general thought behind this seems logical – abandoned bases will constantly lose trophies, whenever they are raided. So this means that most of them are in lower leagues.
It’s right that the percentage of abandoned bases in lower leagues is higher, but that is not changing anything for you because Supercell decides how many of them get thrown back into the active matchup algorithm. When they say they throw in 1%* of all bases to be abandoned bases, it doesn’t matter if there are a thousand or a billion abandoned bases – only 1% of the bases shown will be abandoned ones.
*The 1% is just a figurative number and not representing any fact – nobody knows the exact amount of abandoned bases.
The only thing that’s true about the lower leagues is that you will find bases there that have probably been abandoned for a longer time in total, but when the Mines & Collectors are filled that doesn’t matter at all, right?
[irp posts=”9643″ name=”Why Sub 200 Farming is wasting your time”]
Conclusion
I hope you understood why the often claimed “dropping trophies” is not helping you to find more abandoned bases – it’s simply luck to find them. The only thing you do when dropping trophies is making your League Bonus lower and I doubt that will raise your profit.
Straight searching for abandoned bases exclusively is also not a good idea. Imagine you have to make 100-150 nexts before you find one of them, you spend up to 150,000 Gold just for that and I believe the number is even higher in reality. Just enjoy coming across one of them and take the extra loot, but don’t expect or plan to find them and you’ll be good and less frustrated.
Thanks for editing: EnchinsuOcha and Punchy
