Clan Wars: Scoring, Attacks and Etiquette
Mechanics
Updated: 18 September 2026 · By the Goblins Farm team
Clan Wars are the most structured part of Clash of Clans and the part most new players get quietly wrong, not because the attacks are hard but because the scoring and the etiquette are unfamiliar. Both are learnable in ten minutes and will make you welcome in any decent clan.
How a war runs
A clan leader starts a search, matchmaking finds an opposing clan with a comparable roster, and the war enters preparation day. During prep nobody attacks. You set your war base, donate defensive Clan Castle troops to teammates, scout the enemy map and agree who is attacking whom.
Then battle day begins and each member gets two attacks. When the clock runs out, the clan with more stars wins; if stars are level, the clan with the higher total destruction percentage wins.
The single most important scoring rule: only the best result on each enemy base counts. If a teammate already took two stars on base seven and you take two stars as well, your attack contributed nothing. If you take three, you contributed exactly one new star. This is why coordination matters so much more in war than anywhere else in the game.
Mirror discipline and target choice
War maps are ordered by strength, and your position on your map is your mirror, the equivalently ranked base on theirs. Most clans expect you to attack your mirror first, or something close to it, for a simple reason: if everyone attacks down for easy stars, the top of the enemy map never gets touched and the war is lost with a hundred per cent destruction on the bottom half.
The usual convention, which varies by clan:
- First attack: your mirror, or one or two above it. Try for three stars.
- Second attack: whatever the clan needs. Late in the war that usually means cleaning up a base sitting on one or two stars, not hunting a fresh three-star for personal satisfaction.
- Never attack far below your position early. It takes a base out of the pool for the teammate who was meant to handle it, and it wins nothing.
Ask your clan what their convention is. Every clan has one, and being the person who attacked base fourteen from position three is a fast way to be removed from the war roster.
Preparing an attack properly
- Scout before prep ends.Look at your likely targets on preparation day, not thirty seconds before you attack. Note the Clan Castle, the defence layout and the compartments.
- Plan the Castle lure.Decide where you will pull the defending Castle and what will kill it. See Clan Castle troops.
- Plan the funnel.Pick the side, identify the shoulder buildings you need to clear, decide what clears them. See funnelling.
- Request what you need.Castle troops, siege machine, spells. Ask early; donations are not instant.
- Attack with time to spare.Do not leave both attacks to the last hour. Clans lose wars to time zones far more often than to skill.
The etiquette nobody writes down
- Use both attacks. An unused attack is a star the clan cannot get. This is the number one reason players are removed from clans.
- Fill your war base's Clan Castle. An empty war Castle is a free star for the enemy.
- Do not change your war base mid-war unless your clan asks you to.
- Call your target in chat before attacking so two people do not burn attacks on the same base.
- Post the result honestly. If you failed, say what happened; someone else needs to clean it up.
None of this requires skill. All of it makes the difference between a clan that wins wars and a clan that argues about them.
Frequently asked
How does Clan War scoring work?
Stars decide the war, and total destruction percentage breaks a tie. Crucially, only the best result on each enemy base counts, so attacking a base that already has three stars adds nothing at all, and matching a teammate's two stars adds nothing either.
Which base should I attack in war?
Convention in most clans is to take your mirror, the base at your own position on the enemy map, or one or two above it with your first attack, then use your second attack on whatever the clan still needs. Attacking far below your position early wastes a target another member was meant to handle.
What happens if I do not use my war attacks?
The clan permanently loses the stars those attacks could have earned, and there is no way to recover them. Unused attacks are the most common reason players are dropped from war rosters or removed from clans entirely.
Goblins Farm is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or specifically approved by Supercell. Clash of Clans is a trademark of Supercell Oy. This material is unofficial fan content produced under Supercell's Fan Content Policy. Game values change with every update; always verify in-game before committing an upgrade.