Baby Dragon in Merge Tactics: The Season's Most Valuable Unit

Why Baby Dragon Carries Every Board

Some Troops win you a round. Baby Dragon wins you the whole board. After every attack it blows wind out of its mouth and buffs nearby allies, and at three-star that buff reads 30% hit speed and movement speed. Stack that on a board that is already merged up and enemies stop looking like a fight and start looking like a countdown.

This guide is built entirely on Ricky Royale's video on the most valuable unit in Merge Tactics. It covers how the wind aura works, why the free Forest and Clan overlap is so strong, the pairings that appeared across three games, how to position and itemise the dragon, and the one thing that can ruin the plan.

How The Wind Aura Works

Baby Dragon is an aura unit first and a damage dealer second. Every time it shoots, it pushes out a gust of wind that buffs allies standing in a short radius around it.

Scales with star level: Ricky Royale says the buff varies by level and tops out around 30%, and the in-game stats at three-star confirm 30% hit speed and movement speed.
Hits multiple allies: it is not a single target buff, so a merged frontline and your ranged units can both be inside the gust at once.
Movement speed matters too: faster units close the gap sooner and drift back into the aura quicker, so the effect compounds with itself.

Key insight: Ricky Royale describes it as a card that can make any synergy good. You are not playing Baby Dragon for its own damage, you are playing it to multiply the damage your board already has.

Because the gust triggers off its own attacks, a higher star Baby Dragon does not just buff harder, it buffs more often. That is why rushing copies early pays more than the star level alone suggests.

Forest And Clan Double Value

The aura is only half the reason Ricky Royale calls it the most valuable card in the season. Baby Dragon provides both Forest and Clan, so one board slot pays into two Trait lines at once.

Free trait progress: running three Forest and three Clan together is far easier when a single unit counts toward both.
Speed on top of speed: paired with Clan and Forest, the video shows a board attacking at what Ricky Royale calls the craziest hit speed ever.
Flexible pivots: with two traits already covered, your remaining slots can drift into Noble or Undead without your board collapsing.

⚠️ Count your traits carefully every time you swap. In game one Ricky Royale removed a Forest unit when he meant to remove a Clan one, an easy mistake when a single card is holding both lines together.

Best Pairings And Comps

Across three games the dragon slotted into completely different shells and made all of them look strong. These were the standout partners.

Forest and Clan speed board

Prince: a three-star Prince gave the comp a real damage threat that scaled hard with the hit speed buff.
Ram Rider: the rider tiles left on the board stack with the aura, and Ricky Royale calls out those two effects together as the reason enemy boards get melted.
Boss Bandit: the 60 merges milestone produced a four-star Boss Bandit, which he immediately parked inside the wind.
Archer: described as decent now because she gains bonus damage per shot after crossing a shot threshold, which is exactly what a hit speed buff accelerates.

Noble and Pandora shell

Queen: contested in two of the three games, but when he lands her the ideal setup is placing Baby Dragon right beside her so she gets the speed up from the wind.
Musketeer: a three-star Musketeer filled out the back line in game two.
Demolisher: taken over the Firecracker in game two simply because it is stronger, and it held the early frontline without losing HP.
Spear Goblin: merging her is pure profit on top of what a Spear Empress ruler already earns you, and in game one Ricky Royale notes she sells for more than usual early on.

Undead shell

Giant Skeleton: a three-star Giant Skeleton turned into an accidental Undead pivot in game three and still worked, because the aura does not care where your damage comes from.
Witch: added for skeleton spawns, which gives the wind more bodies to ramp up.
Dark Prince: a late melee body that ended up as the item holder over the Royal Ghost.

Positioning And Items

The aura is a radius, so placement is the single biggest skill expression on this unit.

Park your best carry next to it: Ricky Royale repeatedly slides the four-star Boss Bandit or the Queen into the wind rather than leaving them where they landed.
Pathing does some of the work: even when a unit is not adjacent at the start, it often walks into the aura as the round plays out, so you are rarely getting zero value from a slightly off placement.
✅ Items on the dragon are strong: he puts the Pekka's sword on Baby Dragon in game two and the dragon scale on it in game three, since anything that improves its uptime improves the whole board.
⚠️ Read who your real damage is: he admits he should have put the Pekka's sword on the Queen in one round instead, so do not auto-pilot items onto the dragon every game.

Pro tip: treat Baby Dragon as a mobile buff zone. Build your frontline and carry placement around where that zone will be mid-fight, not where your units start.

Game Plan And Modifier Notes

Early

Contest copies immediately. Ricky Royale scouts other boards to see who already owns a Baby Dragon and buys every copy he can, because copies sitting on an opponent's bench are copies you will never see.
Do not tank your board for it. In game two he passes on an early dragon to take the stronger Demolisher line, then picks the dragon up a few rounds later.
⚠️ At low HP you cannot greed. One game starts him at 2 HP and forces a much tighter cycle.

Mid

Merge toward three-star. The jump to 30% hit speed and movement speed is where the board visibly changes speed.
Lock in three Forest and three Clan, remembering the dragon covers one of each for free.
Keep cycling to 60 merges. That milestone handed him a four-star Boss Bandit twice across this video.

Late

Re-optimise placement every round. Move your highest value unit into the wind before you hit ready.
Cut dead weight. He swaps out a Royal Ghost that was doing nothing to bring Clan back online.
✅ Speed matters beyond the win: he notes that as a Duchess a clear that fast would have earned an orb.

Modifiers seen in the video

Your Mine: the straightforward cycle game. Grab dragon copies early, merge to three-star, then ride Forest and Clan.
Pandora's Bench: Ricky Royale recommends maxing a Goblin Machine or a Skeleton King and running it through the Pandora tile to turn it into a champion, and calls that a genuinely valid strategy.
Trait Dummy: two traits are removed, so it becomes the cleanest way to maximise the traits you do have. He went from disliking this modifier to missing it for that exact reason.

Worth noting from game three: the Goblin cage and a wider pool of three Elixir goblins make Goblin boards consistent again instead of being locked to one option.

Strengths And Weaknesses

Strengths

✅ Two traits in one slot with Forest and Clan, which frees up the rest of your board.
✅ 30% hit speed and movement speed at three-star, applied to several allies at once.
✅ Comp agnostic. It carried a Forest and Clan speed board, a Noble board and an Undead board in the same video.
✅ Forgiving placement because unit pathing pulls allies back into the radius during the fight.

Weaknesses

❌ Heavily contested. Ricky Royale fights for copies in every game, and in game three he simply cannot afford the three-star because other players already hold copies.
❌ Not a standalone carry. It amplifies damage, it does not create it.
❌ Slot juggling risk. Since it covers two traits, removing the wrong neighbouring unit quietly costs you a trait tier.
⚠️ Value scales with stars. A one-star dragon is a shadow of the three-star version, so a dry pool can leave you holding a mediocre unit.

Key Units & Traits

Baby Dragon: Buffs nearby allies with a wind aura worth 30% hit speed and movement speed at three-star, and provides both Forest and Clan.
Boss Bandit: The four-star payoff from hitting 60 merges. Park her inside the aura for absurd output.
Ram Rider: Rider tiles stack with the dragon aura to push the whole board's speed even higher.
Prince: A three-star Prince gives the Forest and Clan shell a real damage threat that loves extra hit speed.
Queen: Ideal aura neighbour when you win the contest for her, but she is fought over in most lobbies.
Giant Skeleton: Three-star anchor that shows the dragon still works in an Undead pivot.
Spear Goblin: Merging her is pure profit on top of Spear Empress income, and she sells well early.
Archer: Gains bonus damage per shot past a threshold, so she scales directly with the hit speed buff.

TL;DR

✅ Baby Dragon buffs nearby allies after every attack, worth 30% hit speed and movement speed at three-star.
✅ It provides both Forest and Clan, giving you two Trait lines from one board slot.
✅ Target three Forest and three Clan, then park your best carry inside the wind.
✅ Items like the Pekka's sword or the dragon scale are excellent on the dragon itself.
✅ Push to 60 merges: it produced a four-star Boss Bandit twice in this video.
⚠️ The unit is heavily contested. Scout opponent boards early and buy every copy you can afford.
❌ It is not a solo carry. A weak board with a dragon is still a weak board.

Baby Dragon is exactly what Ricky Royale calls it: the most valuable Troop in the season. One slot that hands you Forest and Clan while pumping 30% hit speed and movement speed into everything standing near it is value nothing else in the pool matches right now, and it plugs into a Forest and Clan speed board, a Noble shell or an accidental Undead pivot without changing your plan. The catch is the pool: everyone wants it, so scout early, commit to buying copies, and accept that a one-star dragon is a shadow of the three-star. If you are willing to contest it and you position your carry inside the wind, this is the best default pickup in Merge Tactics, and it stays beginner friendly because pathing drags your units back into the aura even when your placement is not perfect.