What troops can counter a Giant Skeleton?
Solution 1:
If you're at or above Pekka's Playhouse then including an Inferno Tower in your deck may help you counter this easily if you're seeing a lot of the Giant Skeleton. Due to its nature this is actually true with any high HP targets, but it works really nicely against the Giant Skeleton because it means you don't have to sacrifice troops to his bomb.
Alternatively, if you can distract him with a low cost building like a Tombstone, attacking him with faster units like minions will allow them to leave the area before the bomb goes off. The Giant Skeleton will run off the path to attack a Tombstone or other unit that is coming at him, so kite him away from your Crown Towers and isolate that bomb!
Solution 2:
Giant Skeleton, like any other Tank is best countered with swarm.
By far the best swarm in the game is the skeleton army. But I've been countered with, and have been countering with a Witch or Barbarians, the later being quite popular among my enemies.
Pretty much anything that will keep him busy long enough to die, before reaching your towers.
The best strategy I'm aware of is to wait for it to come on your side of the map, and then place the army around him. Even if the enemy has arrows or something similar, the skeleton would'be dead by the time they react.
Good point worth mentioning is, flying swarm is not good, as the skeleton ignores them and keeps going to the tower. It will die eventually but not before dealing 1000+dmg to the tower ...
Solution 3:
My main deck uses Giant Skeleton, so I've seen a lot of defensive strategies. To summarize:
- Hordes - Generally Giant Skeleton attacks slow, so he'll only take out one Horde troop at a time, and will get pummeled by the rest. Minion Horde or Skeleton Horde will take him down in seconds.
- Turning - Anything that kills the Giant Skeleton will promptly path right past his bomb. To avoid this, put troops behind him once in your territory, so that they get clear before the bomb goes off.
- Kiting - The best Elixir trade on a Giant Skeleton is to use cheap Horde troops like Skeletons or Goblins to kite him to the center and even across to the other lane. This is most easily attempted when he is not backed up by ranged Area Damage troops like Wizards/Baby Drags (who will instantly splat cheap troops).
- Inferno/Other Towers - Giant Skeleton will target anything, so Towers/Huts are a great distraction, essentially similar to kiting. The Inferno Tower is a positive Elixir trade if he is alone, but does need to build up enough DPS to take him down. If the opponent is using Freeze, Zap, or has Hog/Horde backup watch out for it to be taken down to quickly.
Above all, the biggest priority is to keep the bomb away from your towers and avoid sacrificing too many troops to it.
Solution 4:
Honestly, the Giant Skeleton is one of my favorite cards, I think however the giant skeleton can be easily countered as long as you remember these things:
- Watch how much elixir you spend. You want to spend 6 or less elixir to counter him since he costs 6 elixir to use. Using goblins, valkyrie or even regular skeletons can distract the giant skeleton for a long time, hopefully long enough for you to kill it effectively.
- Place troops behind it so after killing the skeleton they can run away and hopefully you can form a counter-push.
- Inferno Tower
- Remember the range of the giant skeleton.
- Round-abouts, place a fast, building targetting unit that isn't too fast behind the giant skeleton. The giant skeleton will actually turn around and usually walk all the way back to the enemy's side to kill whatever (hog rider works well) and this allows you to cycle back to a small troop or save or a inferno tower or something.
- Just know the giant skeleton, know it's stats, bomb damage, etc.
- What other people have said, kiting, luring, etc.
- Wait until the bomb explodes before placing any troops, otherwise the troop will take unnecessary damage.
- Remember, giant skeletons will keep walking if you use only air troops to counter it.
- Good luck!
Sources: EXP and pushing to Royal Arena