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^{This post was made as entry for Splinterlands Community Engagement Challenge}
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There are a lot of unique combos in Splinterlands but these are the top 5 combos and synergies in Splinterlands Modern Ranked Format that I think is strongest. To vouch for their strength and synergy, I included some personal favorite of mine which carried me all to Diamond 1.

I think majority of people's post will be focusing on units so I will provide a more general approach which is the synergy in abilities. I will still give unit examples but at the same time, since I'm focusing on ability synergies, you can still use the concept when faced with certain rule sets like Explosive Weaponry giving your team Blast ability instead of using summoners like Nidhoggr.

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Double Strike is an ability that allows a unit to attack a second time after the first initial attack. Blast, on the other hand, applies a splash damage to the units beside the main attacked unit. If I attacked a unit in second position, the blast would hit those in first and third positions inflicting a portion of the main damage.

By this logic, if the unit attack twice, blast would also hit twice which is pretty strong. It's also not that hard to pull off with the current cards we have in Modern Ranked Format.

The easiest way to do this combo is having Nidhoggr add Blast and Deathblow to three of your units with Double Strike ability. Some of these units are Kelan Gaines, Dhampir Infiltrator, Raa and Drybone Raider.

(In case of Drybone Raider who has both melee and range attacks, both Double Strike and Blast applies to each attacks which means he can attack melee twice and range twice along with blast for each attack. Try using Drybone Raider in rule sets like Melee Mayhem for a surprise!)

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Taunt is a strong ability on its own as it redirects all the possible attacks to that unit except for Scattershot. This means Opportunity, Snipe, Sneak and Charge abilities loses their effects if the Taunt unit is alive and that unit will be the target instead.

Shield halves the damage of melee and range while Void halves any magic attack. With these three on one unit, that means not only attacks are redirected to that unit but also halves any possible damage he gets. Be aware that that still increases the chance of this unit dying since every unit on your enemy's side is out to get him.

To produce such a combo, there's a few summoner and units combination you can use. The easiest is probably Prophet Rosa's Shield summoner tactics given to Wave Brood as Wave Brood already have two of the three, Void and Taunt.

You can also do this without any summoner with Iziar and Mana Warden. Iziar already have Void and Taunt abilities like Wave Brood while Mana Warden grants Shield ability to the unit in front of him at the start of the battle. Just be aware that Mana Warden is a melee unit and cannot attack unless he is in front or with the help of rule sets like Super Sneak. On the bright side, you're now free to choose the summoner you want to pair them with.

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Inspire increases a melee unit's attack. It is one of the many abilities that can stack on top of another. If you have two Inspire, you add 2. If you have 3 Inspire, you add 3. Simple, right? What if we add Double Strike? It multiplies by 2.

Yes, you heard it right. Multiply. Because the increased attack is per hit, and your unit hits twice, then you multiply it by 2. If your Coastal Sentry has 5 melee attack and you have an Inspire unit to increase that to 6 melee, that means that two attack totals to 12.

This is a simple combo that is very effective if the enemy is not prepared. There's also a lot of variations of this from summoner abilities that increases attack to units that grants inspire. If you want a lot of units to do this, I suggest using a Dragon summoner (any of them) with Fire element. Dragon element themselves have a lot of good melee units with Double Strike abilities like Carnage Titan and Dhampir Infiltrator while Fire element has a lot of good Inspire units like Immolation, Tusk the Wide and Nimbledook Scout.

You can even use Nidhoggr for that Blast ability we talked about on top of that for a more cruel but effective combo.

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This combo is something that took me Diamond 1. It is very expensive but very effective. First we must learn how healing abilities work.

I learned that Heal, Triage and Tank Heal is not based on the current health of your unit but is based on 30% of the unit's max health. This means that if the unit's max health increased, then theoretically, the amount of heal also increases.

This is where Scavenger helps. Scavenger increases the max health of the unit by 1 for every unit that died. In a full battle, the field would have 12 units in total so if one unit in each field survived at the very end, theoretically, the unit with Scavenger can gain up to 10 extra max health or 3 extra heals per round on top of the initial heal.

For example, if a unit has 12 max health, he should heal for 4 health every round. If a total of 9 units dies (5 on your side, 4 from the enemy side), then your unit now has 21 max health and is healing 7 health per round. I don't think I need to explain how absurd this heal amount is. This means the enemy needs to deal 8 damage just to inflict 1 damage per round because you would heal the other 7 and even if they do that, it would take them 21 turns to kill your unit.

This idea and concept can easily be accessible but with a huge price tag. I use this idea with three units and this literally took me from Gold 3 to Diamond 1.

The first combo is the summoner Eternal Tofu (Source for the Scavenger and Triage) and Iziar (the unit gaining Scavenger and Triage). Eternal Tofu gives both Scavenger and Triage (heals any back line unit with most damage) to Iziar (which gets most damage because of Taunt). This is a solid combo as it frees your choices for other units.

The second combo is Eternal Tofu and Uriel the Purifier. In this combo, Uriel the Purifier gets Scavenger for the extra max health and Triage to heal another unit. Uriel the Purifier has high health (14) and Heal for himself giving you a solid tank.

The last one is what I use for lower mana but same idea. Eternal Tofu gives Scavenger and Triage to Pelacor Mercenary who already have the Heal ability. Uriel the Purifier costs 14 mana and Eternal Tofu costs 7 so that combo requires a minimum of 21 mana but if you only have those two units, then Scavenger loses efficiency as you do not have dying units for Scavenger. On the other hand, Pelacor Mercenary costs 7 mana which means you only need 14 mana with Eternal Tofu which gives you extra 7 mana for units for Scavenger.

(Additional Tips: Since Eternal Tofu has can control both Earth and Life elements, buy or rent Soul Fiend and Fungus Fiend, both 0 mana units. This gives you 2 extra health for Scavenger without using any mana for filling up any unused slots during battle.)

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This is another combo that helped me stayed in Diamond. I learned this from observing my opponent which, unfortunately, I forgot the name because it was a long time ago. These two abilities can be used to work with each other but it's effective if you didn't. Let me explain.

Life Leech is an ability that gives your unit extra max health everytime they hit an enemy's health. Corrupted Healing, unlike other heals, heals 70% of the other unit's health insted of 30%. At the same time, it heals everyone except the unit that has this ability at the cost of 1 max health per heal. Now, let's get to the main strategy.

Arachne Weaver, the only unit so far that has Corrupted Healing, is your bread and butter. If this unit dies, your healer dies. So, theoretically, if he lives, your team is almost invincible because of the 70% heal per round. To fix this, we use Lorkus and put Life Leech to Arachne Weaver. While this doesn't heal Arachne Weaver, this still gives him extra health per attack increasing his chance of survival. Since he survives longer, you also get to use Corrupted Healing longer increasing your chance of winning.

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There are many more synergies out there between summoners and between units but these 5 are I think the easiest to remember but most effective when done properly from the least complicated to the most.

In total, all of these combined, are probably my secrets that allowed me to jump up from Bronze to Diamond. Unfortunately, I haven't found a consistent strategy to go past Diamond as the level of your enemies increased a lot in between Diamond 1 and Champion. Maybe with the release of the new set, I can find a new effective way to increase my rank with the help of new abilities, rule sets and combos.

Disclaimer

Other photos and images that I used in this post can be found in these websites below:

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About the Author

<sup>Hey! I’m Mavis the Muggle, your friendly Splinterlands addict with a slight obsession for all things Harry Potter. 🧙‍
When I’m not immersed in gaming or wizardry, I’m busy learning new things. Recently, I’ve been having putting a lot of effort and having a blast creating content on Hive so relax!

You can support me by upvoting this post, reblogging, leaving a comment below or by using my Splinterlands referral link.</sup>

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Life is like a camera. Focus on what's important. Capture the good times. And if things don't work out, just take another shot.
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