If you’ve ever spent 3 hours grinding ladder matches only to gain 50 XP and a handful of duplicate common cards you’ll never use, you know how frustrating slow level progress in Clash Royale can be. I’ve been playing the game for 6 years, hitting Ultimate Champion every season for the last 3, and I’ve tested every possible leveling trick both as a free-to-play player and a casual pass buyer. If you’re sick of the endless grind and want to know how to quickly level up in Clash Royale without dropping hundreds on gem packs, these tips work for every skill level and budget.
Prioritize your core deck first if you want to know how to quickly level up in Clash Royale
The single biggest mistake new and intermediate players make is spreading their gold and wild cards across dozens of random cards they never use. A lot of people assume upgrading every card in their collection will boost their king level faster, but that’s the opposite of how the XP system works. Upgrading cards you don’t play wastes gold that could go to cards you use every match, and the small XP gain from those random upgrades isn’t worth the opportunity cost.
Only upgrade cards that are in your main 8-card deck first, with a maximum of 2-3 extra backup cards for meta shifts. If you run a Hog Rider cycle deck, for example, there’s no point upgrading a P.E.K.K.A. just because you pulled a duplicate from a chest until every card in your main deck is maxed. I made this mistake my first year playing: I had 22 different cards at level 8, but my main deck was only level 7, so I kept losing matches and my king level was stuck at 9 for 2 full months. Once I cut all non-core upgrades, I hit level 11 in 6 weeks.
You also want to prioritize upgrades by rarity to get the most XP per gold spent. Maxing out commons in your deck first gives you the fastest XP gain per gold spent, followed by rares, epics, then legendaries. Commons cost 5 gold for 1 XP early on, while legendaries cost 5000 gold for the same 1 XP, so focusing on lower rarity cards in your deck will push your king level up far faster than wasting gold on high-rarity cards you rarely use.
Optimize your daily and weekly task grind for maximum rewards
You don’t need to play 4 hours a day to level up fast. Most of the game’s highest-value rewards are tied to limited daily and weekly tasks, so you can get 80% of your weekly XP and gold in less than 2 hours of play if you focus only on those tasks. I used to grind random ladder matches for 5 hours a day and barely leveled up, but once I switched to only completing the high-priority tasks below, I cut my grind time by 70% and leveled up twice as fast.
You can get 70% of your weekly rewards in less than 2 hours of play time if you focus only on these high-value tasks. Skip the random ladder grind when you’ve completed these tasks, because the rewards from those matches are negligible compared to the limited tasks. If you have extra time, play 2v2 matches for fun instead, because they still count towards crowns for your crown chest without risking your trophy count.
Join an active clan to unlock exclusive level-up rewards
So many new players join the first random clan they find, or play solo entirely, and miss out on thousands of free gold and XP every week. Clans are not just for socializing — they’re one of the most powerful tools for fast leveling, especially for free-to-play players. I switched from a dead clan with 3 active members to a top 100 local clan 2 years ago, and my weekly gold intake jumped from 10k to 35k overnight just from clan-specific rewards.
Clan donations give you both gold and XP every time you give away cards to other members. If you donate 10 common cards, you get 50 gold and 10 XP for free, no cost to you. If you’re in an active clan that donates 1000+ cards a week, that’s hundreds of free XP and gold every week that you’d never get playing solo. You can also request cards you need for your main deck every 8 hours, so you can get up to 40 commons or 4 rares a day for free to speed up upgrades.
Look for clans that require at least 100 donations a week and have 40+ active members, and avoid clans with no donation requirements or less than 10 active players. Higher clan war league ranks also give better chest rewards, so even a mid-tier clan in Gold League will give you twice the rewards of a dead clan in Bronze League. If you don’t have a clan yet, filter for clans that are “open” and have a 2000+ trophy requirement, those are almost always active enough to give you consistent rewards.
Avoid these common mistakes that slow down your level progress
Even if you follow all the tips above, small mistakes can set your level progress back weeks or even months. I’ve made most of these mistakes myself, and I’ve seen hundreds of players make the same errors without realizing how much they’re slowing down their leveling.
Don’t spend gems on chests or speed up chest unlocks — that’s the worst possible use of gems for leveling. Gems are best spent on the Gold Pass if you can afford it, or on special offer gold packs in the shop that give 100k gold for 500 gems, which is 3x more value than any chest you can buy. I made this mistake when I first started, spending 1000 gems on a magical chest and getting 3 cards I never used, which set my level progress back 2 full weeks. A friend of mine spent $50 on gems to buy legendary chests, and he still ended up 2 levels lower than me 3 months later because he wasted all his resources on random pulls.
Don’t upgrade cards just to complete the card mastery tasks, unless the card is already in your main deck. A lot of players upgrade random commons to level 10 to get the mastery reward, but the gold you spend on that upgrade is almost always more than the gold and XP you get from the mastery itself. Only complete mastery tasks for cards you already use regularly, otherwise you’re throwing away gold that could go to your core deck upgrades.
You also don’t want to ignore limited-time seasonal events. Most events give 2x XP, 2x gold, or free wild cards for a few days, and you can get months worth of progress in just a few days if you take advantage of them. Last year’s anniversary event gave 2x XP for all upgrades for 3 days, and I upgraded 12 cards in my deck during that window to gain 2 full king levels, which would have taken me 2 weeks normally.
Leveling up fast in Clash Royale doesn’t require spending thousands of dollars or playing 8 hours a day — it just requires being intentional with your resources and focusing on the highest-value activities. You don’t have to collect every card or win every match to level up quickly, you just have to stop wasting gold and XP on things that don’t help your core deck. If you follow these tips consistently, you’ll know exactly how to quickly level up in Clash Royale and climb to higher arenas way faster than players who grind random matches without a plan. I still use all these tips every season, and I hit Ultimate Champion by level 13 without spending any money, so they work for every type of player.
