Elixir Quest & Goblin Researcher: Summer Jam Week 2 Guide

The first week of July felt like a fever dream. Everyone was swimming in Gold, upgrading Eagle Artilleries for half price, and dumping excess loot into walls. But as of July 8th, the Gold Quest is officially over. Your Gold discounts are gone, the 2.5x Gold collector boost has vanished, and the Summer Jam event has rotated into Phase 2: The Elixir Quest.

> Quick answer: The Elixir Quest runs from July 8-15, offering a 40% discount (25% for TH17+) on all Elixir-based upgrades and a 2.5x boost to Elixir pumps. More importantly, the Goblin Researcher is back and only costs 1 Gem to hire for extra Laboratory research. Your absolute first priority should be upgrading the Grand Warden, followed immediately by your most expensive troop and spell upgrades in the Lab. If you've got excess Elixir, secure it with a proper layout from the Base Drop library.

If you planned your builder timers correctly during the Gold Quest phase, you should have a few free builders ready to go today. Let's talk about how to squeeze every drop of value out of this week before the Dark Elixir event takes over on the 15th.

Supercell sneaked this one in, and honestly, it's the best part of the week. The Goblin Researcher usually costs a ridiculous amount of Gems to hire — something like 40 Gems per day of research. Nobody uses him unless they're desperately trying to burn through their Gem stash.

During the Elixir Quest (and extending into the Dark Elixir Quest), hiring the Goblin Researcher costs exactly 1 Gem.

This means for the cost of a single bush obstacle removal, you get a second research slot in your Laboratory. You can have two troops or spells upgrading simultaneously. When you combine this with the 40% Elixir discount on the upgrades themselves, your Lab progression essentially quadruples for this week.

I immediately threw my Goblin Researcher onto a Sneaky Goblin upgrade while my main Lab slot tackled the Healing Spell. Do not let this 1-Gem offer sit idle. Even if you're upgrading cheap, low-level troops on an alt account, spend the Gem. It's the highest value transaction in the game right now.

The Grand Warden is the only Hero in the game that upgrades using Elixir. That makes him the undeniable king of the Elixir Quest phase.

If your Warden isn't maxed for your Town Hall level, every single drop of Elixir you farm this week should go toward him. The 40% discount on his upgrade cost and timer is massive. At TH15 and TH16, Warden upgrades take over a week and cost 10+ million Elixir. Chopping that down saves you unbelievable amounts of farming time.

Here's my strategy for the week: I put one builder on the Warden permanently. The second his upgrade finishes, I start the next one. Because the Elixir pumps are boosted 2.5x, farming the Elixir required for back-to-back Warden upgrades takes maybe three or four Sneaky Goblin raids a day.

If you want to know how the Warden stacks up against the other heroes in terms of overall priority, you can read our deep dive on which heroes to upgrade first, but for July 8-15 specifically, the Warden is the only one that matters.

With two Lab slots running (thanks, 1-Gem Goblin), you're going to burn through Elixir fast. The 40% discount applies to the cost, which helps, but you still need to pick the right upgrades to maximize the time reduction.

1. War Army Core Troops Whatever army you use in Clan War League, max those troops first. If you run Yeti Smash, upgrade Yetis and Witches. If you're an air spammer, upgrade Electro Dragons and Balloons. Getting a 40% time reduction on a 14-day E-Drag upgrade is a steal.

2. High-Utility Spells Rage, Freeze, and Invisibility spells are used in almost every attack strategy across every Town Hall level. They are expensive to upgrade. Do them now.

3. Super Troop Base Models If you rely on Super Wall Breakers or Sneaky Goblins, you need their base models leveled up. If you're unsure which ones to prioritize for the current meta, our Super Troops tier list breaks down exactly which troops are worth the Dark Elixir investment to boost. Get those base models upgraded this week so they're ready to go.

If your Warden is upgrading and your Lab is running full tilt, your remaining builders need Elixir jobs.

Army Camps are arguably the most important offensive upgrade when you hit a new Town Hall level. They cost a fortune in Elixir. If you recently upgraded your Town Hall and haven't maxed your Army Camps yet, do it today. Adding 20 extra housing space to your army is a permanent, massive buff to your attacking power, and getting them all done at a 40% discount will save you weeks of farming.

Barracks and Spell Factories are your next target. Unlocking new troops and spells usually comes with painful 10+ day wait times where you can't train troops properly. Use the Summer Jam discount to blast through these upgrades. I held off on upgrading my Pet House (which uses Elixir) specifically for this week, and it paid off perfectly.

Just like the Gold Quest, the 2.5x collector boost during the Elixir Quest means the multiplayer economy is flooded with resources. Finding a dead base with 1.5 million Elixir takes about three skips in Crystal or Master league.

But that also means you are a target. If you go to sleep with full Elixir storages and boosted pumps, you will wake up to a defense log full of 100% destruction replays.

You cannot run an anti-3-star war base right now. War bases leave storages exposed on the perimeter to protect the core defenses. You need a dedicated farming layout that centralizes your Elixir and spreads it out so no single Jump Spell can reach all of it.

If you don't have a good layout saved, use the Base Drop library. We just published a detailed breakdown of the best TH14 farm base specifically designed to stop Sneaky Goblins from draining your storages, and there are hundreds more for every Town Hall level in the database. Swap your layout before you close the app.

The Elixir Quest ends on July 15th, and that's when things get truly insane. Phase 3 is the Dark Elixir Quest, and it brings the Unlimited Heroes event with it.

Unlimited Heroes means you can use your heroes in multiplayer and war *even while they are upgrading*. It is the single most requested feature in Clash of Clans history, and it's coming back for one week.

Your goal for the next 7 days is to make sure you have enough free builders ready for July 15th to put all four of your heroes down at the exact same time. Do not start a 10-day Elixir upgrade on July 12th. If your builders are busy when the Dark Elixir phase starts, you're going to miss the window to farm with upgrading heroes.

Farm your Elixir, get your Warden levels in, abuse the 1-Gem Goblin Researcher, and get your Dark Elixir storages completely full by the night of July 14th. The real grind is just getting started.