This is the combo that's largely responsible for me getting into gold league out of silver.
The key players
1st - Commander Slade. He's one of my most used cards. In this combo gives him a ton of damage and it goes through shields. At his current level he gets which means that explosion, thorns and corrosive ward don't matter.
Just these three can do. Heck I've won with just Elaise and Commander Slade but the combo really kicks off with the 3rd member of the team
Nimbledook Explorer - Gives + 2 armour. Boosts Slades armour by 2 and makes it that much harder to get through the tank.
These 3 are the core of the combo, but there's some pretty good additions I like to add.
Soothsayer. Healer with cleanse. This keeps the tank alive as long as possible. Cleanse means effects like corrosive ward, cripple and poison don't get to have lasting effects.
Someone with repair. I often use Tidal Tsunamist because it also does some decent damage esp with the boost from my favorite summoner, but has the down side of being vulnerable to thorns and Corrosive ward. Which is why I used Archer Koi for this fight.
Aerial shield-maiden, really only good at level 4 when they get armoured strike. Why is mine level 5? Cause I'm a goof that is bad at math.
Other good cards with this set up
Secondary repair - In life and water splinters there's three options for units with repair.
Speed - Sometimes I'll risk using the shock trooper for both the extra damage and swiftness, or I'll use pixie knife hurler to block my rear and give swiftness. Plus with their
Thanolorian Scion - I like using her to distract units with snipe. With her one health, lots of armour, and one or more units with repair she'll take a lot of hits before going down...unless she gets poisoned.
NOTE : DO NOT USE HER WITH SHOCK TROOPER. The one damage from shock trooper will take her out.
Rune Arcanist - 2 magic damage and weaken. But costs 7 mana so only for high mana matches
Zargul - Lots of health, and taunt. Longer it takes them to get past my tank the better.
Halfling refugee - I will if I have only a small amount of mana left stick this card at the end to block folks with sneak. The self heal means they can take quite a bit of
Best rule sets for this combo
Armoured up - +2 armour for my armour happy friends. Yes please
Arcane dampening - taking half magic damage, yes please
Lost magic - While this means no soothsayer, it also means no one skipping past armour.
Weak Magic - Magic has to get through armour. Means it's that much harder to counter this combo.
Meelee Mayhem - This ruleset means melee units can attack from anywhere and it allows for more flexibility as you no longer need someone with flanking in the first position.
Worst rule sets
unprotected - Since this entire strategy is based around armoured strike this obviously isn't going to work with this rule set.
Keep your distance/Wands out - Both of these really restrict who you can use and mean no Slade, Oversser or Nimbledook explorer.
Why it's broken
With a tank that refuses to go down, and Slade doing 14 or so damage a turn, its a combo that'll get through most front lines really quickly. The Uladine overseer when being healed and repaired is really hard to take down. And since they don't attack they aren't going to take damage from things with thorns or other counterattack measures.
Commander Slade at level four also has deflection shield so counter measures don't bother him.
How to counter
The times I've lost with this combo it's either been to someone doing the same combo but better/luckier or someone leaning hard on magic. Due to it skipping past the armour, and someone doing a lot of folks with either swiftness or slow they can get through my tank before my healers get a chance to fix things. Magic also is undodgeable so Slade's speed and dodge ability aren't going to save him.
Lets see it in action.
The ruleset
Corrosive ward, arcane dampening, lots of mana and water and life splinters active. Perfect.
How it begins
Watch the battle here - https://splinterlands.com/battle/sl_939c6fa3c784b5a27f64f49fc7ee9e97?ref=artofkylin
Elaise, Commander Slade and Nimbledook explore
I've got Soothsayer for healing and cleansing, the single magic damage is nullified by arcane damenping but their still a vauled member of this team.
Archer koi - or as I think of them Repair fish.
Zargul - With 11 health, and armour from both Elaise and Nimbledook, he's going to take a lot of punishment to go down meaning that my other units will be protected for a bit.
Looking at the opponents team, they're all higher level then me. Even their scale weaver is max level. This is a strong team that I actully wasn't sure if I'd win against esp since three of my units weren't going to be doing any damage.
First round my Slade missed theirs, but come the second round, he does a whooping 14 damage. 9 in amoured strike then five from his normal attack. Slade makes an excellent tank, with high health, dodge, and in this case the added speed, plus slow means that I wasn't surprised when a lot of attacks were missing.
Near the end of round two Zargul goes down. But Overseer still has lots of health, and none of their units have sneak or anything that would make them target my more vulnerable units. He did his job of diverting damage until Slade took out their tank.
Round three and Slade's taken out another unit.
Round four and I'm not sure if my tank is going to survive. Lucky for me it turned out Soothsayer goes before scaleweaver.
Combined efforts of Archer Koi and Soothsayer have kept my tank alive. The healing gave them back four health and the archer koi's repair was taken out by the Calabash sage, protecting the tank from four damage.
Round five, and Slade takes out another unit.
Round six and another goes down, and at this point I win as their only unit left is a ranged unit who cannot attack.
At the end of the match the only one whose missing anything, is the oversser whose armour is not full, and Zargul who fell at the start.
This combo is also flexible, while Slade is ideal, I've also risked the exhaust problems and used Salt-wraith bulkhead which when they aren't to tired to do their job is devastating. But it can also backfire and they do nothing for several turns.
Anyway that's my entry to this weeks contest for broken combos.