each time you play, you can start by placing an item from your Inventory anywhere on the Board, You can also Watch an Ad to start with the item of the day, or Buy one of 2 rotating items for Gold. otherwise, from within the inventory screen, you can merge 3 same-type items for the next tier item. ie, 3xStone can be merged to form 1 Base Tower. 3xBase Towers can be merged to form a Bronze Tower, and so on. when it comes to War, i generally pull the appropriate item out of inventory for the easy head start. otherwise, i either watch the ads if the freebie resource will help form a combo and earn free swaps or i'll pull one from inventory for the same.
meanwhile, the additional hearts are nice but not necessary to succeed. i'm maxed and, again, they're nice but consider that dragging 1 stone up and into the Castle is the same as a heart.
when it comes to the mother dragon, walls are crucial. make sure to move firepower in line with the wall/walls so towers, cannons and ballistae can pound away while the mother (and her children) are slowed, now matter how briefly. and, remember, when the babies spawn, they may do so in adjacent columns so ideally that's accounted for, as well.
hitting level 30 and you're becoming seasoned. now refine your strategies. you can check out other Clanmates by clicking their names in the Roster. click their Best Score to see the final layout of their battlefield. you can review all Clans at Clans - Tower Swap , their members and those final battlefields and you'll note a couple of different Strategies being employed which is what i did early on. there are many who score higher than me (and with fewer starting hearts) where i tend to play it straight ('m a little stubborn, you see) but i consistently hit 50 if i try hard enough (and find a little luck).
with over 3,000 plays across 2 accounts, i can attest to said addiction (and blame curtis for that :) ).
and i gladly do it all for the king!
NOMAD [Bad Iron]
BTW, i'm generally monitoring the TS Discord Server if you are so inclined and have more Q's. Once upon a time, i had fleshed out a number of TS Articles on Fandom which kept getting shut down due to lack of use.... so, here we are.