How do I counter a baby dragon?

Solution 1:

There are a few different tactics that will allow you to come out ahead against a baby dragon.

It's important to use your crown towers to your advantage, to apply additional damage. The first way to leverage them without letting the baby dragon hit your crown tower is to drop a tank troop, like a knight, a giant, or even a pekka if you'd like. If you drop the troop while the baby dragon is within range of your crown tower then you will end up killing the baby dragon from the crown towers arrows before they can kill your tanky unit, making this an effective trade which you can follow up on to create an offense.

Another strategy involving your crown tower is to allow the crown tower to take the baby dragons hits and then summon some troops to kill the baby dragon outside of the range of the baby dragon's splash. This tactic works well because the baby dragon doesn't really do that much damage; it's just its splash damage kills groups of minions so quickly it becomes hard to kill.

If you've reached Pekka's Playhouse, using an Inferno Tower against the baby dragon will also work. The Inferno Tower has increased damage the longer it hits a target; since the baby dragon has quite a bit of HP, it works quite well.

Since you mentioned the musketeer, it's worth mentioning that the musketeer is a great minion to play against the baby dragon. If you use my first tip with a giant, putting a musketeer down behind the giant will almost guarantee you a crown tower at lower arenas, as your opponent is now down their baby dragon, and new minions will prioritize the giant while the musketeer shreds them.

If you can't afford to put a Giant in your deck and you're running tombstone, the same effect can be made if you put the tombstone down and then the Musketeer. Ensure you don't stack them so the splash damage doesn't kill them both at the same time. This strategy is less efficient than the previously mentioned Giant strategy because it will not give you the offensive push the Giant strategy will.

Finally, and maybe ironically, a great counter against the baby dragon is... the baby dragon. If you play it while the enemy dragon is on your side of the field you will win the trade due to your crown tower.

Solution 2:

Here's some good tips I got from Youtube user Orange Juice's video, How to Counter Baby Dragon:

When first starting out the dragon can be a pain to counter. It's a mini tank that can splash and fly. You can counter dragon with dragon. But there are much better methods that'll put you at an advantage:

Dragon splash attack

It's important to realize that the baby dragon's attack splashes. You don't want to place archers and spear goblins beside the tower. It's better to wait until the dragon is targeting the tower. You want to place your spear goblins or musketeer one tile away from the tower to avoid the splash.

Archers and Pulling

For archers, they can tank at least 2 shots from the dragon, completely preventing it from touching your tower. Lets take this a step further, you can do an advanced archer pull: If you plant the archers in the center, slightly in the other lane, and one second before the dragon is within the archer's aggro range, the second archer will wander off for a moment and then reengage at a safe distance, completely shutting down that dragon, while only losing 1.5 elixir worth of troops. This requires perfect timing or the second archer will run away.

Dragon/Prince combo

If you're in a lower arena, one of the most devastating combos you'll encounter down there is the dragon-prince combo. The dragon splashes away at all the troops you're trying to lay down to defend against the prince. After learning the lesson the hard way, most people will plant their troops behind the tower but the dragon / prince will still do over 1000 damage over that tower.

The best way of dealing with this combo is with a pull using archers, skeletons, or spear goblins. Since we know your archers can tank 2 hits from a dragon, you want to use them to pull the prince within range of both your towers.

You can get creative with this and do a splitting chain pull for the cost of 3 elixir.

With the good understanding of these techniques, you could apply them in any situation.

Other countering methods

The Hog rider can turn your offensive move into defense by luring the dragon into a U-Turn.

Witches are also great against the dragon. If the timing is right, the dragon will be distracted by all the skeletons. If timed properly, she will take minimal damage from the dragon, which gives you an opening to counter push.

Since the dragon is a mini tank. Players tend to place it in the back to accumulate elixir for a strong push. If you have lightning or rocket it's a perfect excuse to damage their crown tower for 2 elixir. Because it's flying unit, you can easily miss the rocket, You need to react as soon as you see the dragon deploy and launch it just below the tower. The trick is to aim for its shadow.

Buildings

Buildings are incredibly effective against the dragon. Telsa and Inferno towers shred the dragon like it's a goblin. Tombstone works too, but only if the dragon is by itself

A good unit to counter a lone dragon is the mortar. Dealing 700 damage to their tower, while your crown tower chips away at their dragon

Source: How to Counter Baby Dragon by Orange Juice