Nod in March 2019 – Top40 Players – Unit Distribution

Yesterday, I posted a similar analysis for GDI. Today, it's about Nod. I made some tweaks based on your feedback: Top40 instead of Top25 for a bit bigger sample size; added commanders; added deviation from average winrates & unit levels; improvents in the visualization.
The basics stayed the same:

• Data: Nod decks of the Top40 Nod players by medal count
• Distribution of Units & Commanders
• Split out analysis of the 10 lower-level decks that still make the Top40

Let's look straight at the data:

Frequency means share of decks in which this unit is included. Low-level columns show the data for the 10 decks with lowest levels (L10-11). Deviations vs average show how winrates and unit levels of all decks with the respective units deviate from the average. These deviations are of course not really conclusive, especially for units with low sample sizes.

Observations:

• On average 1.9 infantry units, 2.8, factory units, exactly 1 air unit and 0.45 tech units
• This is significantly more factory and less air, about the same infantry and tech compared to GDI
• The most common unit by far are the Scorpion Tank with 93% usage and Laser Troopers with 90% usage – more on this further below
• Bikes at 78%, Flames at 68%, Wheels at 63% complement the most common units, followed by the Banshee at 55% 
• Oxanna is the dominant commander at 58%, followed by Seth at 33%. Jade is seen 4 decks / 10%. No one uses Kane. Seth and Oxanna both have identical winrates, and Seth is used more by low-level decks. The latter is possibly partly driven from players chosing Seth because their Oxanna is not as high level, yet. But according to these stats, Seth is perfectly viable.
• Inferno / Phantom users enjoy a 7% higher winrate compared to the average. Why they still see not that much usage compared to GDI air might be down to unit cost (Mohawk / Talon is a stronger early-game threat) and the fact that many players might not yet have levelled the Inferno and Phantom high enough to feel comfortable fielding them. Also, the Inferno playstyle is very particular, and it might not be an accident that we have very experienced players like Gizarius, Bikerush and AliciaDestiny among the 8 Inferno users
• Venom sees no usage in the Top40, which likely is down to both Cyberwheels being a strong alternative and overall air becoming more commonplace, which weakens the fragile Venom
• Unsurprisingly to Masters players, but surprising to many players in lower leagues, Scarabs see no play. They are just not good as soon as the opponent has any 10 Tiberium unit in their deck, and in Nod, 93% of decks have at least one of Militant or Wheels
• The Avatar seems to have a similar role as the Kodiak – a game ender by destroying the base, plus an option for the very late game. It's telling that the three players with the highest winrate all run it. 
• Other Tech units are uncommon besides a handful of Cyborgs. Most of them star in pretty unique decks, and their decks all have a bit lower-than-average winrates. Artillery and Rock Worm see no usage in this list.

3 Decks without the Scorpion

• VictorBansemer with a L10(!) deck with a strong 80% winrate is the only Laser Drone deck in the list: Militant / Laser – Bikes – Laser Drones / Inferno / Phantom
• ResterVivant with the only deck without war factory (L11 @ 68% winrate): Militant / Laser / Chem Trooper – Banshee – Widowmaker / Avatar
• Nukin with the lowest winrate in the Top40 (L11.5 @ 55%) with Laser / Flame – Wheels / Bike – Inferno / Phantom

The 2-3-1 Meta Deck

14 players use the most common deck: Flame / Laser – Wheel / Bike / Tank – Banshee. 9 of them use Oxanna, 4 use Seth. It's especially popular for high skill / low unit level players (e.g. Russo Mau, nightmaRok, HayprO) , as it offers hard counters to all non-Tech units, allowing it to compete at for the first two rockets against decks that sport higher-level units.

An interesting variant that illustrates this thought is the deck of zFaDestiny – it flips out the Banshee in favor of a Phantom. As zFaDestiny has L12 tanks, he likely runs into overlevel tanks less often, so might not feel the need for the Banshee as strongly as the owner of L10 Scorpions. Yet, his higher levels might not help him as much once an opponent gets out heavy air, so the Phantom might help him more often than a Banshee might. 

Korean player KlarJK runs a curious variant of the 2-3-1 meta where he flips out Banshee for Cyborg, maintaining a 71% winrate on L11.

About Scorpion and Laser – and the Predator

On Reddit and in the official Discord, there is a recurring discussion: The Scorpion loses tank wars against the Predator pretty clearly, despite both of them having the same cost.

This explains why most Nod players feel forced to play Laser, as it's a cheap hard counter to mix in against Predators and force different units (Banshee being the other common counter, but Pitbull/Predator beats Banshee/Scorpion usually). GDI's missiles also see less usage because Jumpjet Troopers are strong, and there is no Nod equivalent to them.

Yet, why is the Scorpion so useful despite the Predator being so much stronger? First, GDI has more alternatives to it, e.g. with MLRS and Jumpjet Troopers. Second, thanks to Raider, the Pitbull is better in various situations compared to Bikes, so the relative need to run the Scorpion Tank increases. Third, because the Scorpion can be better than the Predator in various situations:

• Chasing Dogs / Wheels / Bikes / Pitbulls
• Moving away from Lasers / Missiles, e.g. when circling a harvester, or when switching positions with Flames or Wheels
• Killing Harvesters – here, the Scorpion's superior speed and DPS make it often better than the Predator

I'm not saying that the Predator is weak. It's still very powerful, maybe even too powerful. My point is that it's relative strength to the Scorpion might be balanced in the overall game due to the other units at play, and due to the Scorpion's advantages in certain key situations outside of tank wars.

Hence, calling for nerfing Predator / buffing Scorpion solely based on the 1:1 relationship of these two units is not reasonable – that line of thinking would in the end dilute the unique differences of the two factions, which would not be good.

As long as the overall gameplay between the factions is balanced and diverse, I see no issues with the Scorpion being dominated by the Predator.

Unusual Decks – Lex[Xen] is back!

As with GDI, Lex[Xen] from the S.O.R.T. alliance also utilizes a pretty unique Nod deck successfully, despite his relatively low L10 deck. No other player uses the Laser Drone or the Confessor, and there's only one other Centurion user. Kudos!

An honorable mention goes to Chuckylate with his Chem Troopers / Jade deck. As annoying as it can be, I'm glad you play this, as it increases overall diversity of play.

As with GDI, bhman also has a curious tech deck with Nod. and is the sole player without infantry: Bikes / Buggy / Tank – Flame Tank / Basilisk / Cyborg is the name of his game. Thanks to you, too! (I still hate it when you get this stuff out.)

List of all decks, and more data!

First, you can find the list of all 40 decks here in a spreadsheet.

Second, here's another chart, similar to the one I've plotted for GDI. It shows the relation between Unit Levels (I rounded the deck levels to .5 when gathering data) and Winrates. In comparison to the GDI chart, I inverted the axis, as I felt it makes it easier to read.

x-axis: Unit Level category for the deck;
y-axis: Winrate;
Blue dots: Players/decks;
Red line: Trendline (illustrative)

As always, looking forward for your feedback. And please feel encouraged to share this with your alliance or other Rivals-playing buddies!