TH13 Upgrade Priority: What to Upgrade First in 2026

I know what you're thinking. You hit TH13, you see TH14 and TH15 and beyond, and you want to push to the next thing. Don't. TH13 is one of the most complete and fun Town Hall levels in the game right now and rushing past it is one of the biggest mistakes I see players make.

TH13 gives you the Royal Champion — the fourth hero — which completely changes your attack strategy options. You get the Scattershot defense, which is legitimately scary to deal with for mid-level attackers. And the troop options at TH13 are deep enough to learn and master multiple attack compositions before moving on.

I spent about nine months at TH13 before pushing to TH14, and those were some of the best months I had in the game. Our clan was in a CWL group where most bases were TH13, and actually being able to 3-star bases your own level consistently is incredibly satisfying — especially when you know your base is also holding 2-stars against comparable attacks.

But — and I can't stress this enough — you only get that experience if you upgrade in the right order. If you rush your TH (push to TH14 before maxing TH13), you're taking all your TH13 problems into a harder Town Hall and making them worse. So here's the real upgrade priority for TH13 in 2026.

TH13 gives you the Royal Champion (RC), bringing your hero count to four. And this is where upgrade management gets genuinely tricky because you're now juggling four heroes in a rotation instead of three.

Here's the priority order at TH13 heroes:

**Royal Champion first** if you just unlocked her. She's brand new to your base and even low levels of the RC unlock her ability, which is immediately useful in attacks. Get her to at least Level 10 before focusing on other heroes — the ability unlock at Level 5 and the stat jump at Level 10 are both meaningful.

**Archer Queen stays your top offensive priority.** At TH13, the AQ goes up to Level 75. The Queen is still your single most impactful hero for war attacks — a well-executed queen charge at TH13 can create a queen walk entry that your whole army exploits. Keep her upgrading aggressively.

**Grand Warden to Level 45.** The Warden's ability has a longer duration at higher levels and the aura range grows too. Warden at Level 45 is dramatically more effective than Warden at Level 30. Stagger his upgrades with the Queen so you don't have both down at the same time.

**Barbarian King gets less attention at TH13** compared to lower Town Halls. He's going up to Level 80 at TH13 and the stat gains are consistent but not dramatic. King goes last in the priority rotation — keep him upgrading but don't prioritize him over Queen or Warden.

The key rule across all four heroes: never have all four upgrading simultaneously. Always keep at least two heroes available for war attacks. My personal rotation was Queen + RC upgrading simultaneously while King and Warden alternated — gives you two heroes for war at all times.

Don't forget that hero equipment also matters now. The hero equipment tier list covers which equipment pieces to prioritize for TH13 level attack strategies.

TH13 defenses are strong. You unlock the Scattershot (2 of them), the Town Hall itself becomes a defensive building, and the Giga Inferno on the Town Hall is one of the most powerful point defenses in the game at any level.

Here's the defensive priority for TH13:

**Scattershots first, no debate.** The Scattershot is TH13's signature defense, the same way the Eagle Artillery was TH12's signature defense. At high levels, a Scattershot hits 4-6 troops simultaneously at long range and the damage output is obscene against ground armies. Two maxed Scattershots in your war base are worth more than 20 maxed Cannons.

Place your Scattershots covering the main approach paths to your Town Hall. Don't tuck them in corners where they only see the tail end of attacks — position them where they have crossfire coverage over your critical inner zones.

**Giga Inferno on Town Hall** upgrades automatically when you upgrade your Town Hall (it's attached to the TH building), but you can further upgrade it with Gold. Keep this upgraded because it activates when your Town Hall is destroyed and hits surrounding troops — at high levels it's a serious kill condition against armies caught inside the base perimeter.

**Inferno Towers** are TH12 introductions that stay highly relevant at TH13. Upgrade these to TH13 cap levels. A multi-mode Inferno Tower stops army healing (Healing Spells, Unicorn pet, Warden ability) from working on targeted troops, which is a massive defensive advantage against Witch attacks, Super Minion spam, and any composition relying on heal-tanking.

**Scattershot, then Inferno Towers, then Eagle Artillery, then X-Bows.** Everything else (Cannons, Archer Towers, Mortars) is low priority until the above are maxed.

The laboratory at TH13 is where you unlock some of the most powerful troops in COC. Don't leave it idle.

**Yeti — unlock and upgrade immediately.** Yetis are TH13's featured troop and they're still meta in 2026, especially in Yeti + Witch or Yeti + Root Rider hybrid compositions. Their Yetimite spawning gives them extra tanking ability that makes them excellent for taking hits in front of your main army push.

**Headhunters for CC defensive luring.** Headhunters are a TH13 troop and they're excellent for luring and killing enemy heroes. In wars where your clan sends Headhunters via CC to help clanmates, high-level Headhunters make a real difference.

**Ice Golem** is TH13 and becomes increasingly relevant in CWL strategies. Ice Golems freeze nearby defenses when they die — a mechanic that combos beautifully with your main army push.

**Battle Blimp Siege Machine** — if you don't have it maxed from TH12, get it done. The Battle Blimp delivers CC troops to the core of any base, bypassing all outer defenses. Combined with a strong CC (Dragon, P.E.K.K.A, Super Witch), the Blimp creates the kill condition that lets your main army push in unopposed.

**Spells to research:** Bat Spell is TH13 exclusive and absolutely brutal against bases without enough splash damage. A Bat Spell drop inside the base during a Lalo attack or Electro Dragon attack can completely flip the result. Get it researched early.

For the meta TH13 attack strategies that use these troops effectively, the TH15 attack guide shares many of the same fundamental principles — especially for Hybrid and Root Rider compositions that you'll be learning at TH13 to carry into TH14 and TH15.

Here's the honest answer: don't push to TH14 until you've maxed (or nearly maxed) heroes and have key defenses at least 80% done. And don't go before you can consistently 3-star comparable bases in war.

The reason this matters practically: TH14 is a significant difficulty jump. The Eternal Tome hero equipment, the Apprentice Warden, and the immunity-mechanic on attacks at TH14 change how everything works. If you walk into TH14 with TH12-level heroes and half-upgraded defenses, you're going to have a miserable time in CWL.

I've watched clanmates rush from TH12 to TH14 in three months by just upgrading the Town Hall whenever they saved enough Dark Elixir. Every single one of them had to take a 6-month break from active war participation because their base was uncompetitive and their attacks were consistently failing against proper TH14 defenses.

Be patient at TH13. The upgrade costs and times are shorter than TH14+, which means you can actually get close to maxed in a reasonable timeframe with consistent play and Gold Pass.

According to the Clash of Clans subreddit community guidelines, the consensus is that heroes at 70% of max and defenses at 60-70% is a reasonable bar for pushing to the next TH level. For TH13, that means heroes around Level 60-65+ before going to TH14.

If you're in a war-active clan, talk to your war planner before pushing. Some clans need TH13s for matchup purposes — rushing to TH14 might hurt your clan's war weight balance even if it feels like personal progression.

Walls at TH13 go up to Level 14 (purple tier). They're not cheap — each segment runs 4 million Gold or Elixir — and you've got a lot of them. Here's the approach that doesn't drive you insane.

Set a simple rule for yourself: whenever you have overflow resources that can't go into an active upgrade, spend it on walls. Don't specifically farm for walls. Don't dedicate builder time to walls. Just use surplus loot.

For farming loot efficiently at TH13: the Master League range (3000-3700 trophies) gives excellent loot bonuses without putting you against bases that are too well-defended. Trophy sniping (winning one attack to drop back down to a loot-rich range) is something I did regularly at TH13 to maintain a consistent Gold and Elixir flow.

Dark Elixir is always your limiting resource at TH13 because heroes consume enormous amounts of it. Keep your Dark Elixir Drills maxed and upgrade them immediately — at TH13 cap, each drill produces 288 Dark Elixir per hour, which adds up.

For base layouts that protect your resources and hold war at the same time, browse the TH13 layouts on CocBaseDrop. A good TH13 hybrid base (one that works for both war and regular farming) saves you from having to swap layouts constantly, and the right compartment design protects your Dark Elixir storage specifically — the most valuable resource at your TH level.