Avatar decks – the joy of some, the bane of others – how to play against it

The Nod Avatar has become the most divisive unit in the game, even after it's health was nerfed by ~11% in the recent balance patch. In this post, I want to explore the controversy, and the big question whether the Avatar is overpowered or not.

How is the Avatar used?

42% of the decks of Top 50 Nod players I recently looked at play the avatar. How do these decks look like?

• Usually lean on cheap units in the early game: Nearly always, Wheels and Lasers are played, and half of the decks also have the Militant. Militant / Laser / Wheel allows for a very cost-efficient way to deal with a variety of early-game situations both to deflect rushes and contest pads (to stall the nuke if possible)
• Scorpion Tanks are also in nearly all Avatar decks (as in nearly all Nod decks in general)
• Can play an aggressive early game if needed with the all-round combination of Laser-Wheel-Tank plus either Militant or Flame
• Half of the Avatar decks also sport the Stealth Tank, which is all-rounder against light and heavy air units, can support tank battles, can finish off damaged harvesters, and – very importantly – can deal with counter units trying to kill the first Avatar (e.g. Orca, Mohawk, Banshee, Basilisk, ..)
• Decks usually aim to get a second harvester, but can make the decision to delay that significantly if the situation calls for it. Nearly all Avatar decks have a "Nod aggro core" to fall back on that allows to play against many decks without big leaks

How do Avatar games often go?

Let's go through the flow of typical Avatar games, mostly on the perspective of playing against standard Nod/GDI aggro decks.

• The Avatar player gauges whether they can go for a second harvester safely, scouting with Wheels or Militants
• If they feels they cannot, they might opt to play a normal single harvester game for a while
• In such a situation, they knows time is on his side. This brings a key advantage: The option to let the other player win first nuke  – a luxury the player playing against the Avatar deck can afford much less
• The Avatar player can use the higher need of the opposing player to get the first nuke quick to e.g. try to get a harvester kill, and get better Tiberium trades (because the player needing the nuke often must be willing to sacrifice a unit against a hard-counter – both help getting the Avatar earlier
• Often a bit before the 2nd nuke, the Avatar comes out – the factors that help A get it out are:
• second harvester, where possible
• a disadvantaged (5 unit vs 6) close Aggro-vs-Aggro fight that delayed one or both nukes significantly
• a sneaky harvester kill (potentially around the nuke)
• The Avatar will then usually try to go for a harvester kill – to quickly fund additional harvesters in case his first harvester gets destroyed
• The need to prevent the harvester kill often means the defending player needs to sacrifice units to try to block, reducing the "2nd nuke" pressure / presence on pads

Screenshot from Captain Benzie's first Avatar video

What are the issues?

Things that make it very challenging to deal with the Avatar decks:

• Not entirely dependent on Avatar: A key part is the fact that most Avatar decks are a pretty solid 5-unit aggro deck means that can fight many decks heads-on at least for a while, which at the very least delays the 2nd nuke
• Delaying is absolutely realistic: Thus, with players of similar skill, it can be very hard to win the first two nukes quickly without delays, with the only real advantage being one additional counter unit in the early and mid game. (As always, this is especially true if the Avatar player has higher units on their units, as this compensates for the lack of a 6th card easily, as less hard counters are needed – but let's ignore this issue for the rest of the post.)
• A bit of delay can be enough: Tiberium income gets faster over the game, which means that in a delayed 2nd nuke, the Avatar often becomes affordable without – plus, the Avatar player has the option to spam some more of his units in this phase to compensate for his lack of a 6th counter unit, i.e. afford to trade a bit inefficiently for a while to further delay the nuke
• Harvester snowball: The Avatar cleans up a path quickly when he comes out (especially with Oxanna) and very quickly threatens the harvester (which is a key threat, as with a harvester kill it becomes ever harder to stop the Avatar player, as it funds his subsequent Avatars)
• Counters getting countered: Behind this "cleaned up" path that the Avatar left, especially the Stealth Tank can quickly follow and take out the counter units the opponent throws at the Avatar (esp Banshee, Orca, Mohawk who frantically focus on taking out the Avatar)

How to play against the Avatar?

If you have trouble dealing with Avatar decks, consider the following options:

• Deck building: I feel that the Avatar means you either need to be very confident your deck counters the 5-unit composition of your opponent, or you need at least a decent counter for the Avatar in your deck, such as Banshee, Orca, Mohawk etc. – you can also make the choice to have a dedicated Avatar counter, such as the Basilisk in the "Naggrolisk" deck that e.g. 13lade and StrikerVX tested
• Do your best to keep the game fast – the standard advice for playing against tech decks, I won't go into more detail on stuff like keeping the nuke charging, keep the opponent spending Tiberium through trading and possible threats on harvester etc.
• Scout: 2nd harvester timing is key; if it comes, you really cannot afford any delays on the nuke  – whereas if it doesn't come, you need to be prepared for a tougher fight for the pad control as the other player has a good toolset to contest the first nuke
• Timing: You need to learn when the Avatar comes out – this is not easy, but possible if you keep a rough tab on Tiberium trades, on time the opponent had 2 harvesters, on possible harvester kills and on your own Tiberium bank
• Preparing: You need to gauge if you can win the 2nd nuke without the Avatar making it's impact. If not, you need to change your mindset and prepare for the Avatar more than keep the standard game for the pads going on (of course, ideally both). 
• Check your Tiberium and Pop Cap to see if you will be able to quickly churn out 2-3 of your counter units
• Check the timing of the nuke – is it far enough away that you must deal with the Avatar, or can you
• Think about how to protect your harvester, as often your counter units might not be able to kill the Avatar that fast
• If you play Orca, Banshee, Mohawk think about whether there's already Stealth Tanks on the field, and how to react once they appear
• If you play an MLRS deck, think about how you can maybe get 2 in position so that they can shoot the Oxanna'd Avatar when it takes on your harvester
• Engage: 
• Use your Jackson/Oxanna boost on your counter units if possible
• Focus on getting your counter units to shoot at the Avatar as fast as possible. E.g. microing 2 banshees against the fast Avatar sliding past your desparate blocker and to your harvester is not that easy if you didn't set it up properly
• If you have a big bank, consider moving your harvester to safety – a different Tiberium patch, the back pad, or even just far away – if the Avatar doesn't find it, or needs to go further, it can help you either prevent the harvester kill or allow you to get the 2nd nuke because the Avatar is too far away
• If you lose your first harvester, and still have a big bank, consider not rebuilding it, so the Avatar player cannot kill it repeatedly
• Keep an eye on the nuke and your chances for a last-second steal – Air of course is an obvious choice, but the Avatar player knows that of course, so will prepare by getting anti-Air to the pads usually

Should the Avatar be further nerfed?

I believe yes. In my view, it's too much of an all-round unit:

• Very fast, esp. with Oxanna
• Cleans up smaller vehicles and infantry super-quickly, which allows counters to it's counters to often have a relatively easy time (e.g. the Stealth Tank)
• Has raider, so can pursue it's goal (often the harvester) very fast

Units like the Mammoth Tank at least have slow speed, which is a huge difference, as it means they have a hard time killing harvesters (the snowball..), quickly threaten the base, and certainly not do these things and quickly get back to clean pads. Lower speed means both the super unit cannot wreak their havoc as fast, and give the other player time to react and counter the unit.

Yes, it's expensive to get the Avatar out – but especially due to the accelerated Tiberium income throughout the game, Avatar players ultimately get it out if they just delay the 2nd nuke a bit. And if both players have equal skill, the 5-card Aggro deck before the Avatar can absolutely delay the nuke, and sometimes even get one.

An additional issue is that the counter play against Avatar is not really an interesting player-to-player interaction. I think that strong super-units should allow counter play with micro, e.g. blocking the path, abusing slow speed etc.pp. – with the Avatar and it's threat to get the harvester snowball.

My suggestions to fix the issue would be (not necessarily all at the same time, but a wider array of options):

• Reduce the Avatar's speed
• Remove Avatar's raider ability – and if just against one of the unit types (e.g. vehicles or infantry) to allow for more blocking counter play
• Reduce the damage of Avatar on harvesters and the base a lot (to the degree it might seem un-intuitive if you come from the "lore and logic" of the units and their weapons)
• Reduce the effect of Oxanna on expensive units (generally a good idea for Oxanna/Jackson in my view)

All hail Kain – he'd probably be upset about this article