Ruin Knights Nerf: Where to Put Spring Traps Now (2026)

The change is part of Supercell's October 2026 balance changes, posted on 17 October.

I pulled the Spring Trap and Ruin Knight tables from the fan wiki and checked them against Supercell's post.

All numbers here are as of October 2026.

Supercell's balance post says the Knights get a little slower and lose a little HP and damage. Their housing space drops from 20 to 18.

The fan wiki already lists the exact values for the change.

Every Knight level loses 200 HP and 15 damage per second in that list.

The HP and damage cuts are small. The housing change is the one that changes how bases defend.

It's all about Spring Trap capacity. A trap throws a troop off the map only if that troop fits its capacity.

At 20 housing space, a Knight never fit. Every Spring Trap in the game tops out at 18.

A troop that's too big gets a different result. The trap throws it up, stuns it briefly and deals damage. It only leaves the map if the damage is enough to kill it.

I compared those numbers. A level 13 trap deals 1,400 damage. A level 1 Knight has 3,100 HP. So a trap could never remove a full health Knight before the nerf.

At 18 housing space, that changes. The trap now launches it outright.

Capacity climbs for the first five levels, then stays at 18.

So any trap at level 5 or higher can launch a Ruin Knight after the nerf.

The Ruin Witch needs Town Hall 16. Almost every base she attacks will have traps well past level 5. In practice, every Spring Trap she meets can now launch her Knights.

Higher trap levels still add damage. That damage matters for bigger troops that can't be launched.

To trap a Knight, you need to know where it appears. That comes from how the Ruin Witch works.

1. 1She waits until a building is destroyed.
2. 2She walks to the rubble and vacuums it for four seconds.
3. 3Two seconds later, a Ruin Knight appears at that spot.

She repeats this, up to ten Knights. After the tenth, her vacuum breaks and she's gone.

So Knights don't come from the deploy edge. They come from rubble. The first Knights usually appear where the first buildings fell, which is often the outer ring.

From there they walk to the nearest target. That path is where your trap should sit.

Here's a simple placement plan for a Ruin Witch heavy meta.

1. 1Put a trap one tile inside your outer ring, behind buildings that tend to fall early.
2. 2Put one in a deliberate wall gap. The fan wiki notes that ground troops tend to path through gaps rather than break walls.
3. 3Keep one near your Town Hall to catch a Knight closing in late.
4. 4Spread the rest so one attack angle can't trip them all.

Don't stack every trap in one spot. A Witch makes up to ten Knights, and each trap works once per attack.

Watch your defense replays after the change. Move a trap if Knights keep walking past it.

There's a detail here that helps defenders.

The wiki says a Spring Trap targets the troop with the highest housing space when several troops stand in its radius. It only launches that one troop.

At 18 housing space, a Ruin Knight is bigger than most support troops walking with it. So when a Knight steps on a trap next to smaller troops, the trap should choose the Knight.

That's good news for you. One trap can remove one of the strongest units in the attack.

It also means a bigger troop next to the Knight takes the trap instead. A tank larger than 18 gets stunned and damaged, not launched.

Spring Traps have a short delay before they fire. The wiki says troops with speed 32 or higher can run across them without being caught, unless they stop on the trap.

Ruin Knights were already slow at 16. After the nerf they move at 14.

So Knights won't outrun a trap. If one walks over it, the trap has time to fire.

The slower speed also gives your defenses more shots at each Knight. That adds up with the HP cut. A Knight that moves slower and has less HP dies sooner under the same fire.

Traps won't stop a Ruin Witch attack alone.

Each trap fires once per attack. A single Witch can summon ten Knights, so a few traps can't catch them all.

Traps also don't hit the Witch's rubble plan. She keeps making Knights as long as buildings fall and she survives to reach the rubble.

So think of traps as a tax on the attack. Each launched Knight is one less tank pushing into your core. That can turn a close three star into a two star.

Your defenses still have to do the rest.

Most likely, yes. Supercell says Ruin Witch attacks three starred about 76% of the time. That's the highest rate of any troop with meaningful use.

The average for every attack in the same data is 53%.

A 200 HP cut and a small speed drop won't erase a gap that large. The trap change is the bigger hit, and it only costs Knights that walk over a trap.

If you want to know how the Witch works on offense, our Ruin Witch guide covers deploying her well.

It's a turnaround from September, when Knights got stronger. We covered that in our Ruin Knights buff post.

Plan for traps now. You'll likely lose a Knight or two per attack to Spring Traps.

That changes how you count. If your plan needed all ten Knights from each Witch to reach the core, it may fall short now.

Here's what helps.

1. 1Let the first buildings fall away from obvious wall gaps.
2. 2Back the Knights with healing so the ones that survive last longer.
3. 3Watch your own replays for the spots where Knights vanish.

Traps are hidden until they fire, so you can't scout them. A replay of a failed attack shows you where they were.

Don't wait for a war loss to find out where your traps should go.

Ask a clanmate to run a Ruin Witch attack on your base in a friendly challenge. Watch where the first Knights appear. Then check whether any of them crossed a Spring Trap.

If none did, move one trap onto that path and run the test again.

If you'd rather start from a layout someone already tuned, browse fresh TH18 bases and look for ones with traps placed behind the outer ring.

Supercell says it'll keep watching the numbers. So recheck your traps if the Knights change again.