How to Beat Boss Units Every Time in Merge Tactics: Ronin Guide

Ronin Bamboo Beats Boss Units

Boss units are the defining problem of this season of Merge Tactics. They are absurdly tanky, they snowball out of control, and if your opponent has one while you have no answer, the round is usually decided before it starts. The good news: there is a near foolproof counter, and it comes down to one Ruler and one well-placed ability.

This guide is based on Ricky Royale's video on beating boss units every time. It covers why the Ronin is the best boss destroyer in the game, how the bamboo charge mechanic works, where to place it round by round, which boss units to prioritise, the equipment trap that can ruin your setup, and the honest strengths and weaknesses of the strategy across three live games.

Why Ronin Destroys Bosses

The entire strategy rests on one interaction: boss units are incredibly tanky, and the Ronin's bamboo scales with charge time. As Ricky Royale explains, the longer the bamboo charges, the more damage it does, and at full charge it can one-shot a boss unit or pretty much any other Troop on the board.

Ronin: the Ruler that makes this whole plan work. His bamboo is the only reliable way to delete a fully buffed boss before it takes over the fight.
Charge time matters: the bamboo needs time to build up, so anything that disrupts that window costs you the kill.
Trading bosses wins rounds: killing one boss unit leaves the opponent down a boss while yours is still alive. Ricky Royale frames this as the core idea: they get much weaker, you stay strong, and you can simply outlast the clock.

Key insight: you do not need to out-scale a boss unit. You need to delete one. The Ronin turns the scariest unit on the enemy board into its biggest liability.

Mastering Bamboo Placement

Placement is the whole skill expression of this comp, and the video is refreshingly honest about how easy it is to misplace. Ricky Royale openly admits to several bad round one placements, including one where he expected the Dark Goblin to path one way and it walked the other.

Default to the middle: with the frontline-heavy boss boards in the current meta, Ricky Royale says he likes the bamboo dead centre most of the time, since enemy front liners funnel straight into it.
Under your own tank: against a frontline-heavy board he places the bamboo right under his Pekka, because the enemy pushes into it anyway.
Bait with your own units: in game two he shifted his board so the enemy Mini Pekka was bound to walk onto the bamboo, and it got the kill.
Place late when you can: he deliberately dropped the bamboo on the Mega Knight at the last second so the opponent would not plan around it.
Copy what works: in game two he kept the bamboo in the exact same spot round after round, and even mirrored his opponent's bamboo positioning, which he says ended up working out better for him.

⚠️ Round one placement is the hardest because you have the least pathing information. If you are unsure, the middle is the safest guess.

Boss Units And Equipment

The Ronin plan is not only about killing bosses: you want your own too. The clearest takeaway from game one is that securing a boss unit early is what made the game winnable at all.

Mini Pekka first: Ricky Royale calls securing a Mini Pekka early the key to his game one win, and he chases extra copies hard. Its self-upgrading snowball is exactly why it is so dangerous on the other side of the board as well.
Pekka and Boss Bandit: both get picked up as extra boss units when available. In game three he opens on a Pekka, then adds the Boss Bandit simply because the slot is there.
Skeleton King: taken for free to complete four bosses plus Undead, but the video is blunt that it is extremely weak right now and barely worth running on its own merits.
Boss access is a race: he repeatedly cycles the shop hunting extra boss copies, and twice notes that every boss in the lobby was already taken.

Equipment And Orbs

✅ Build orbs early: in all three games he pushes for orbs as fast as possible to stack equipment, and in game three the equipment he ends up with is a big part of the domination.
✅ Queen's Cloak on Mini Pekka: he calls this a no-brainer and leaves it there rather than shuffling it around.
❌ Fisherman's Hook is a trap here: the hook pulled the Mega Knight in and set the bamboo off prematurely, costing him the round. He takes it off and says plainly that the hook ruined all of his bamboos.

Pro tip: anything that moves enemy units can break your bamboo charge window. Check your own equipment before you blame your placement.

Comp And Trait Choices

The Ronin plan is flexible because the Ruler does the heavy lifting. Across the three games the comp gets rebuilt on the fly depending on what the shop offers.

Lead with bosses: Mini Pekka, Pekka, Boss Bandit and eventually Skeleton King form the core, and four bosses drags Undead along with the Skeleton King.
Pivot traits as needed: in game two he scrapes toward Noble when he has nothing to work with, moves into Forest, then abandons it for Clan once he stabilises.
Merge hard on your carry: a four-star Mini Pekka showed up in game one, and a four-star Queen plus a three-star Mega Knight in game two. Star level on your boss carry is what lets you survive to the clock.
Support picks: Monk, Musketeer, Magic Archer, Witch, Spear Goblin and Baby Dragon all appear as filler or trait glue. The Musketeer stunning an enemy Mini Pekka is called out as a genuinely useful bit of value.
Sell without hesitation: he sells the Witch to make room for the Monk and keeps chasing bosses. Nothing in this comp is sacred except the bosses and the bamboo setup.

Game Plan By Stage

Early Rounds

✅ Prioritise a boss unit, ideally a Mini Pekka, over almost anything else.
✅ Abuse the Modifier. On Echo Bench he considers purposely losing a round to set up the Mini Pekka on the bench for an echoed copy, and he benches it an extra round to bank a third copy for a clean Merge.
✅ Take free rounds where you can get them. He calls a free round against a weak board always optimal, especially under a strong Modifier.

⚠️ Do not stress a perfect round one bamboo. Pathing is unpredictable and even Ricky Royale admits he is bad at round one placement.

Mid Game

✅ Push for your orbs as fast as possible and get equipment online.
✅ Lock the bamboo into a spot that keeps getting kills and stop moving it.
✅ Keep your carry out of danger. He repositioned his Mini Pekka specifically so the inferno could not target it.

Late Game

✅ Trade one boss kill per round and let the clock do the rest. In game two he was down to 1 HP and still kept himself alive in the lobby.
✅ Keep cycling for boss copies and the last trait unit you need for a breakpoint.

⚠️ If every boss in the lobby is already taken, the game gets much harder. The Ronin can still kill bosses, but you lose the mirror-boss safety net.

Strengths And Weaknesses

Strengths

✅ The best boss answer in the game: three games in a row of what the video calls straight domination with the Ronin.
✅ Swings rounds on its own: one bamboo kill can flip a losing board, because the opponent is down a boss and you are not.
✅ Comp agnostic: it works alongside Noble, Forest, Clan or Undead, depending on what the shop gives you.
✅ Low HP friendly: it wins by outlasting the clock, so even at 1 HP you are still live.

Weaknesses

❌ Placement dependent: a bad bamboo spot is a wasted round, and round one is genuinely hard to read.
❌ Fragile charge window: effects like the Fisherman's Hook can trigger the bamboo early and waste it entirely.
❌ Boss access is contested: if the lobby drains the boss pool before you get your copies, you are leaning purely on the Ruler.
❌ Skeleton King is dead weight: it only earns its slot as boss count and Undead filler.

⚠️ Season instability is real. Game three ended in a win with no trophies awarded, which the video flags as a bug for the devs rather than a player mistake.

Key Units & Traits

Ronin: The Ruler the whole strategy is built on: his charging bamboo one-shots boss units.
Mini Pekka: The boss unit to secure first. Ricky Royale calls it the key to his game one win.
Pekka: Strong boss frontline and a solid anchor to place the bamboo underneath.
Boss Bandit: Easy extra boss pickup to pad your boss count and soak leftover equipment.
Skeleton King: Called extremely weak in the video, but completes four bosses and brings Undead along.
Musketeer: Support pick whose stun on an enemy Mini Pekka is called out as real value.
Monk: Support pickup worth selling a Witch for when the slot opens.
Undead: Trait that comes along free with the Skeleton King in the four-boss build.

TL;DR

✅ Run Ronin: his charging bamboo one-shots boss units, which nothing else reliably does.
✅ Secure a Mini Pekka early. It is the single most important pickup in the comp.
✅ Default the bamboo to the middle of the board, or right under your Pekka against frontline-heavy boards.
✅ Kill one boss per round: they drop to a weaker board while your boss survives and you outlast the clock.
✅ Rush your orbs and put Queen's Cloak on the Mini Pekka.
❌ Never pair this with Fisherman's Hook: it drags enemies in and sets off your bamboo prematurely.
⚠️ Skeleton King is very weak right now and only worth running for the boss count and Undead.

The Ronin boss-killer plan is as close to a hard counter as this season of Merge Tactics offers. Ricky Royale ran it three games in a row and was competitive or dominant in every one, including a win from a disastrous start in game one and a trophy-positive finish from 1 HP in game two. It is not fully automatic: bamboo placement takes reps, round one is close to a coin flip until you learn pathing, and one bad piece of equipment can waste the ability entirely. But if you are tired of losing to tanky boss units you cannot kill, this is the strategy to learn, and it rewards players willing to think carefully about where that bamboo goes.