CRL26 S1 Data & Analysis
Authors:
AlpeLast updated: 2026-04-18
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- Created: 2026-04-18
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Clash Royale League has been fairly conservative with its format in recent years. Participating players seem satisfied with the system of monthly qualifiers and finals, so the event organisers have reused it year over year with slight adjustments.
In the 2026 edition of CRL, the change that stands out is the increase in players eligible to compete in the monthly qualifier. This participation had been always restricted to the Top 1,000 players of the main ladder mode; this year it has increased to 1,500 players.
In this blog we'll look at some effects of this change and other random stats of the first season of CRL 2026.
Historical Participation Rate
Many of the players who finish in the Top 1K of a season don't actually participate in CRL. There are many reasons for this, but just to name a few:
- Player is under 16 years old
- Player lives in a non-eligible country
- Player doesn't pass Terms of Service checks
- Player has multiple accounts, so only competes with one
- Player isn't interested in esports
- Player can't spend 8 straight hours of a Saturday to play a qualifier
- Player forgets to sign-up or check-in
This means that although the CRL format was designed to have 1,000 participants, the actual player count was always way below that.
The average participation reached an all-time low in 2025, with 418 players. This decline may have been the reason why the rank requirement was changed this year.
In the first season of this edition, 726 players registered in StatsRoyale to participate. Of those 726, only 617 actually completed the check-in process. That's is 41% of the theoretically eligible players. Compared to previous years, this means that the participation rate is lower than ever, but the absolute amount of participants is a record high.
Participation by Country
In the season recaps we look at which countries dominate the leaderboard, but how do those numbers convert to CRL participation? Are all countries equally interested in esports?
Although the United States was the country with most players, in terms of actual CRL participants they came in third, far behind Japan. The main reason for this is a quite low participation share, the lowest among the top 10 countries.
This chart shows it clearly. In red, the amount of participants that signed up and also checked in; in blue, the Top 1.5K players who didn't.
Italy and Japan stand out as the countries with highest participation share, both above 50%.
Participation by Rank
Another way to look at participation is through player ranks. On the surface, this is a less insightful perspective, as the distribution is fairly balanced around 40%. But some may find it surprising to know that players at the very top of the leaderboard aren't more likely to participate than lower-ranked players.
Smurfs in CRL?
Lastly, we are going to look at players based on their total game time. This is based on the amount of battles played by the account, and is a fairly reliable metric to categorise accounts.
Accounts with low amounts of battles played are rarely main accounts. The main options here are:
Players who restarted their progress after being banned
Secondary and smurf accounts
Accounts with high amounts of battles are usually main accounts. Play time is a
Secondary or smurf accounts?
These types are similar in some ways, but the main differentiator is how the main player treats them.
Secondary accounts are publicly known to belong to a certain player.
On the other hand, smurf accounts are generally anonymous and secretive. These obfuscate the main player behind them, usually to avoid analysis from opponents and gain a competitive advantage.
Does it make sense for Clash Royale League to allow these accounts to participate? How much does it harm competitive integrity? Food for thought.
After separating total game time in a few groups, we can see very different behaviours.
Players with 10+ weeks played are the majority of the participants
About 20% of players are using very new accounts, with less than 5 weeks of play time
It's interesting to notice the amount of players in the Top 1.5K; there is a very significant amount of accounts in this category, even if most don't actually compete in CRL. This is arguably because most players prefer to use their main accounts in the competition.
This participation share is seen clearly with a stacked chart:
There are other ways to estimate the prevalence of smurf accounts in CRL. For example, at RoyaleAPI we spend significant effort to keep track of secondary accounts, and allow players to submit their own information for validation. Of the 617 participants, 95 (about 15%) were labelled as temporary profiles. These are profiles that haven't been validated as real competitive players.
Swiss Stage Results
Players Qualified to Group Stage
| Rank | Name | Matches | Score | Battles |
|---|
Country Stats
The Swiss Stage of Season 1 is already over. In aggregate, these were the strongest countries based on their average rank.
Note: this list only sorts by rank the top 20 countries by participant count. Some countries with a few participants have even higher averages.
Table of top 20 countries
| Rank | Country | Players | Average Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | South Korea | 15 | 157 |
| 2 | China | 8 | 213 |
| 3 | Spain | 15 | 244 |
| 4 | Brazil | 27 | 246 |
| 5 | Canada | 13 | 254 |
| 6 | Argentina | 8 | 259 |
| 7 | Turkey | 16 | 281 |
| 8 | Mexico | 44 | 286 |
| 9 | Venezuela | 11 | 288 |
| 10 | Italy | 21 | 289 |
| 11 | Colombia | 15 | 302 |
| 12 | Germany | 42 | 309 |
| 13 | France | 40 | 310 |
| 14 | Ukraine | 11 | 311 |
| 15 | Japan | 76 | 319 |
| 16 | Peru | 13 | 325 |
| 17 | United States | 43 | 334 |
| 18 | Egypt | 18 | 371 |
| 19 | Poland | 8 | 382 |
| 20 | Saudi Arabia | 8 | 402 |
Table of all countries
| Rank | Country | Players | Average Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Morocco | 1 | 9 |
| 2 | Azerbaijan | 1 | 22 |
| 3 | Slovakia | 1 | 40 |
| 4 | Chile | 3 | 149 |
| 5 | South Korea | 15 | 157 |
| 6 | Denmark | 1 | 172 |
| 7 | Bosnia and Herzegovina | 2 | 178 |
| 8 | Russia | 7 | 211 |
| 9 | China | 8 | 213 |
| 10 | El Salvador | 2 | 218 |
| 11 | Vietnam | 2 | 224 |
| 12 | Israel | 2 | 228 |
| 13 | Bulgaria | 2 | 229 |
| 14 | Taiwan | 3 | 233 |
| 15 | Lithuania | 1 | 239 |
| 16 | Indonesia | 3 | 244 |
| 17 | Spain | 15 | 244 |
| 18 | Brazil | 27 | 246 |
| 19 | Cyprus | 1 | 254 |
| 20 | Canada | 13 | 254 |
| 21 | Argentina | 8 | 259 |
| 22 | Jordan | 3 | 260 |
| 23 | Syria | 2 | 271 |
| 24 | Pakistan | 4 | 271 |
| 25 | Czech Republic | 2 | 275 |
| 26 | Turkey | 16 | 281 |
| 27 | Mexico | 44 | 286 |
| 28 | Venezuela | 11 | 288 |
| 29 | Italy | 21 | 289 |
| 30 | Kazakhstan | 3 | 294 |
| 31 | Ecuador | 6 | 295 |
| 32 | Bahrain | 2 | 299 |
| 33 | Colombia | 15 | 302 |
| 34 | Germany | 42 | 309 |
| 35 | France | 40 | 310 |
| 36 | Ukraine | 11 | 311 |
| 37 | Iraq | 3 | 313 |
| 38 | Montenegro | 1 | 314 |
| 39 | Dominican Republic | 3 | 315 |
| 40 | India | 7 | 316 |
| 41 | Japan | 76 | 319 |
| 42 | Tunisia | 2 | 320 |
| 43 | United Arab Emirates | 1 | 320 |
| 44 | Peru | 13 | 325 |
| 45 | Greece | 5 | 331 |
| 46 | Honduras | 6 | 332 |
| 47 | United States | 43 | 334 |
| 48 | United Kingdom | 8 | 336 |
| 49 | Libya | 2 | 347 |
| 50 | Serbia | 5 | 350 |
| 51 | Bolivia | 4 | 351 |
| 52 | Portugal | 3 | 359 |
| 53 | Costa Rica | 2 | 362 |
| 54 | Egypt | 18 | 371 |
| 55 | Guatemala | 5 | 374 |
| 56 | Lebanon | 1 | 378 |
| 57 | Poland | 8 | 382 |
| 58 | Switzerland | 1 | 382 |
| 59 | Finland | 1 | 386 |
| 60 | Romania | 3 | 388 |
| 61 | Ireland | 1 | 389 |
| 62 | Georgia | 1 | 393 |
| 63 | Norway | 2 | 396 |
| 64 | Saudi Arabia | 8 | 402 |
| 65 | Oman | 1 | 402 |
| 66 | Hong Kong | 7 | 405 |
| 67 | Hungary | 1 | 414 |
| 68 | Cuba | 1 | 417 |
| 69 | Uzbekistan | 1 | 418 |
| 70 | Netherlands | 5 | 420 |
| 71 | Australia | 5 | 425 |
| 72 | Nepal | 1 | 426 |
| 73 | Nicaragua | 6 | 437 |
| 74 | Congo | 1 | 455 |
| 75 | Algeria | 2 | 471 |
| 76 | Croatia | 1 | 474 |
| 77 | Moldova | 1 | 479 |
| 78 | Austria | 3 | 492 |
| 79 | Iran | 4 | 508 |
| 80 | Malaysia | 1 | 543 |
| 81 | Slovenia | 1 | 550 |
| 82 | Sweden | 1 | 601 |
| 83 | Guadeloupe | 1 | 613 |
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