April 23, 2019

Omeleet & StrikerVX – the deepest Rivals interview you might ever read

Today, we have a very special interview – it’s the first double interview with two unsung heroes of the Rivals community: Omeleet & StrikerVX. These two are not just strong players, but respected in the community and by the developers for their contributions to analyzing the game and providing valuable insights for players and feedback to Redwood’s balance team. They belonged to the players EA thanked in the recent balance patch notes.

Both currently live in the US – StrikerVX is a 19-year old Chinese-Canadian who went to study in the US, and Omeleet attends college for a Nursing degree in his home country.

You can find both on Twitch:
• Omeleet’s Twitch Channel
• StrikerVX’ Twitch Channel

Q: Hey Omeleet, hey StrikerVX! Thanks for taking the time for this interview. Especially for Rivals players who visit the official Rivals Discord, you’re known for your contributions to discussions on balance, strategies and tracking / analyzing unit stats. What brought you to Rivals?

Omeleet:  I first heard about Rivals when I stumbled on a morbid clip from Totalbiscuit's wife. At the time, I did not have much interest in mobile games. Bryan, who streams Red Alert 2, made me consider giving Rivals a chance. As I just had purchased a new phone, and my my friend was trying to get me into a mobile game he enjoyed, it was a perfect storm.

In StarCraft 2, I mained Zerg for a very brief time in WoL/HotS, hit diamond (before masters existed) and lost interest. Grew up playing a lot of the C&C games, from Tiberium Dawn to Kane's Wrath, so nostalgia was a factor.

StrikerVX: I’ve played video games for most of my life and started my C&C journey with Red Alert 2. I’ve since bought the ultimate collection on origin and caught up on most of the other titles.

I first heard about Rivals watching a Generals Gentlemen cast of the game and was immediately interested. As it was close to the release of the game, I never had the chance to participate in the beta and instead jumped in on the first day of release. I play a variety of games and the highest level (which isn’t too high) that I’ve achieved is diamond in SC2 with both Terran and Zerg.


Q: Let’s learn a bit about you as players. What's your personal favorite decks? What game types do you play mostly?

Omeleet: I like so many decks, it is hard for me to choose: With Nod, I’d say:
• Jade – Militants / Lasers / Chem Warriors – Bikes / Scorpion – Laser Drones
• The Oxanna Giga Cannon deck
• And the Seth variant of the 2-3-1: Seth – Militant / Lasers – Wheels / Bikes / Scorpion – Banshees [Zaku's deck]

And with GDI:
• Jackson – Rifles / Missiles / Grenadiers – Drones – Disruptor / Sandstorm
• And closer to meta, I’d say: Solomon – Rifles / Missiles / JJT – Pitbull – Drones / Orca  (On the commander choice, I feel Strongarm is universally a better pick, but this deck often floats lots of Tiberium, so I want to experiment with Solomon as a tool to clear large clusters on pads)

I prefer playing Events and Tournaments over Ladder. Yet, most of my play has been on Ladder due to time constraints lately.

StrikerVX: 
• For GDI: Missile / Shock – Dogs / Pitbull / Predator – Mohawk or Orca
• For Nod: Laser / Flames – Wheels – Bikes / Scorpion / Phantom.

These decks are both competitive and fun to play. They are designed to have no units that the decks auto-lose to. I play around 10-15 games of ladder per day and around 15 games per week for our alliance’s internal tournaments. I enjoy playing and streaming the Champions events especially when the rewards are good.

"Tiberium income accelerates throughout the game"

Q: Currently, the Tiberium income accelerates throughout the game, creating distinct phases with less and more income. Many players are at best intuitively aware of this -- do you know how exactly this works? How does this info flow into your strategies / decks?

Omeleet: Silvercruise measured the Tiberium income during the game, the time it accelerates is after 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Which means it's not dependent on the nukes. See this chart:


On how to use this information: This is a very complex topic that I mostly play by intuition. If you are going to make double harvesters, you should do it as soon as possible. Even though the income is substantially higher later, if your deck’s win condition is to make it to late game, every delay in income will make that win condition harder to achieve. If you lose the first nuke, you have less time to reap the benefits of multiple harvesters, and building another really puts you on the backfoot.

Income matters less around the third nuke, at which point I think it is generally incorrect to attack the opponent’s harvesters. If you are floating enough tiberium to make it to the end of the game, you should pull your harvesters to the pads so that you can concentrate your military offensively. If I am floating 200+ tiberium on 2nd nuke, and there is enough time for my harvester to make it to the pad, I will pull my harvester to pad and concentrate as much damage on enemies as possible.

StrikerVX: From my experience, spamming a unit that costs around 50 will allow you to use approximately all of your income of a single harvester (it also depends on how quickly your units are dying). This means that spamming tanks will leave you resource starved. To combat this, I like to mix in lasers when I’m fighting a tank war, only making more tanks when I’m certain my economy can sustain it.

"EA should advertise tournaments with in-game mails"

Q: As you both enjoy tournaments, what would you like to see more of?

Omeleet: Tournaments are always beneficial. I don’t really think prizes need to be a focus of them, but rather attracting interest should be the primary goal. The best way to do that is to show how competitive and fun the game can be, while having lively commentary. Prestige or unique skins could be rewards to encourage competition. I feel like this may be an unpopular opinion among some of the more competitive players, like Bikerush, who seem to be very interested in high-stakes tournaments.

StrikerVX: More tournaments would definitely be good. We are seeing more grassroot tournaments pop up and I hope EA takes notice and delivers on their promise. A good place to start would be for EA to advertise tournaments with in-game mails (even if they are community-run).

As for tournament formats, there’s a lot of room for creativity. Blade and I did a mock draft for 4 players a while back and ended up with some interesting decks. Adding unit vetos to tournaments  would also make the games more strategic and reward players for knowing their opponents.

StrikerVX' ingame profile – one of the players to follow if you enjoy watching high-level play

"This is the most diverse meta I've played in"

Q: What's your view on the current state of the balance in Rivals? Generally, and with regards to the latest balance patch?

StrikerVX: I think this is the most diverse meta I’ve played in. I’m generally happy with the state of balance. Several units that I originally thought didn’t deserve any play (such as APC and Orca) are now showing their strength. The nerfs to boost commanders also added some commander variety into the meta.

My biggest gripe about the current state of the game continues to be the difference in anti-air capabilities between the two factions. In my opinion, well-controlled Pitbulls are able to defeat all air units. Nod, however, doesn’t have such an easy time with air. Stealth Tanks are expensive and vulnerable and takes a lot of micro to keep effective, while Phantoms struggle to take out units like Drones Swarms and Laser Drones. I’m not sure which is the healthy state for air units, but lately I’ve been bringing only my GDI deck to tournament games in order to avoid losing to Borcas.

About buffs before nerfs, I think nerfs are at least equally as important as buffs. It’s much worse for player experience to play against the same overpowered unit than for a player to never see an underpowered unit. But we need to be careful with nerfs to avoid what happened to MGs and MLRS.

Omeleet: I also like the current deck diversity relative to balance. The balance team should continue to focus on the following:

  1. Buffs Before Nerfs: Nobody likes to see their units nerfed. Sometimes a buff for one unit can nudge another unit into balance. MGs are a unit that was nerfed, but buffs to other units have invalidated the unit mostly, unless it has significant level advantage. Nerfs should be a last resort: the unit should be too strong with no buff to other units able to bring it in line before a nerf should be considered.
  2. Counterplay needs to be available so units are not oppressive: Certain units are frustrating to play against, since there is very little counterplay available, such as a wildcard Bomber coming out moments before the nuke goes off to clear pads and take full control. There needs to be at least the potential to outplay these units that enables win conditions; e.g. while pitbull can beat a Bomber, if it is chased off the pad and the nuke goes off, it doesn't mean much. 
  3. Creating unique unit interactions:  I think it is fine for some units to be designed with new players in mind, but generally these types of units should be unlocked very early, like Zone Troopers or Wolverines. Units that have a vanilla playstyle and a 1:1 analog across factions dull the point of opposing factions. I feel like Marauders are a disappointment for this reason, they play identically to Grenadiers, but are generally worse. In contrast, I think Drone Swarms reverting to 5 squad members was a stroke of genius, while perhaps overtuned, it isn't frustratingly stale like the previous incarnation (pre-change: 8 missiles to clear a drone swarm – tedious to clear but not really interesting otherwise). Some people have advocated for Laser Drones to receive the same treatment; this change would make the unit more forgiving to play, but more frustrating to play against.
Something I would like to see is to make the Factions feel more distinct in both play styles and themes. Even at the expense of balance. I think a shifting dynamic of differing points of relative power makes the game more interesting.

Both StrikerVX & Omeleet aren’t the happiest playing against Orca Bombers – especially as Nod


Q: If you had to name some units each that are "too strong" and "too weak", which ones would you list & why?

Omeleet: This is kind of subjective, I feel there are versatile units that keep other units in check, and there are very strong units that are oppressive with specific or weak counters.

Pitbull is a very strong unit, but its presence keeps some potentially oppressive units in check, like Bombers or Swarms. So I consider it a necessary evil. Giga is strong too, but it performs best when you are already winning, and the meta is more air oriented.

Strong Units:

  • Orca Bomber answers pretty much every unit on the ground; this is why I think Pitbull is a necessary evil, it should be possible to outplay units at times even if they are favored.
  • Drone Swarms are very sticky units that do well as anti-infantry, countering even Zone Troopers in 2v1 scenarios. Very few units are adept at removing drones, meaning they can hold a pad reasonably well in 1v1 scenarios.  These two traits make them very good for securing objectives. They most vulnerable to bikes/pitbulls, but outperform lasers (which feels okay given that they are only strong against infantry).
  • Stealth Tank is a very safe pick, it counters all air at equal level (even Kodiak/Basilisk with a little micro), and can turn tank battles lopsided by lowering time to kill to one volley. I think it is too versatile, making it a no-brainer include in most decks.
  • Honorable mentions: 
    • Phantom gets an honorable mention, because its EMP effectively shuts down all air choices (50% reduced AS, 30% reduced MS), allowing a well micro'd phantom to infinitely trade up in value. While I don't think the unit fits into the meta, because of Drone Swarms, I think it is too good at what it does.
    • Chem Warriors are extremely tanky, I think a good whale leveraging high level Chem Warriors / Jade would be terrifying to face. They also do decent damage to vehicles: At the same level a Chem Warrior will defeat a Tank 1v1. Drone Swarms have artificially brought them in line.

Weak Units:

  • Widowmakers & Wolverines come out at a point in the game where they rapidly become obsolete. They probably perform best when opponent is only fielding Air/Infantry. I think they should be specialized to deal with air, and priced accordingly. Sandstorm is the only unit from Tech Lab that is adept at dealing with Air, and only trades evenly with Kodiak. If Widows/Wolves are seen primarily as a beginner's generalist tool/support for other tech, and are not meant to be very powerful, perhaps it is best to leave them alone.
  • Marauders are beefy boiz. Nothing really special, they win if your opponent chooses (or is forced to) crash war factory/tech units into them
  • Rockworm: While it has the best cost-to-stat ratio in the game, it spends too much time underground. Pad control is the primary means to win, and since Rockworms do not excel at killing bases (they shouldn't), they are not really tailored for success.  There is some really fun micro you can do with their emerge/cleave, that involves eruption damage, attacking, then burrowing and erupting again 6 seconds later (or continue attacking against a big armored vehicle). 
    • As an aside, I think Rockworms are very frustrating to play against, since they can burrow and are very tanky it is painful to try and kill them, I have often thought that the delay to burrow should be much higher, and the time underground should be lower; the downside is once you commit to burrowing, you already lose control of the unit for at least 3 seconds. This would probably make it worse.
  • Scarabs
  • Units that are weak but could be strong given the right meta/new units: 
    • Flame Tanks come out at a point in the game where they are not useful. If infantry becomes more meta, particularly for late game, this unit may find more use.
    • Confessors with good infantry

StrikerVX: This meta has been pretty good and there aren’t any units that I think are absolutely broken/need nerfs. However, there are a few units that could potentially be nerfed.

Strong units:

  • Orca Bomber: This unit is causing a lot of grief among players and for good reason. Ground counter play to this unit is relatively difficult and micro intensive while the borca player just has to fly them over units. Perhaps adding more counterplay by increasing reload can make the unit less frustrating to play against. 
  • Giga Cannon: Although Giga is not seen much on the ladder and seems easy enough to answer, it is a huge pain to play against a competent giga player when not running anti vehicle air units. The recent buff to Giga damage also made no sense to me. Nerfing Giga infantry damage is my idea for adding a way for non-air decks to handle Giga.
  • Drone Swarm: I’m not sure that this unit is actually too strong, but it is very frustrating to play against. Because they can handily beat Missile Squads on defense, Nod players must rely on Bikes or Banshees to kill these in a timely manner. Being forced to run certain units to counter drone swarms doesn’t feel good. That said, only the devs have data on the performance of the unit, and have a more objective way of gauging the power of the unit.

Weak units: There are a lot.  I’ll be ignoring tech units since they are a different discussion entirely.

  • MLRS: The reverted nerf on its cost didn’t help it come back. The increased orcas in the meta doesn’t help it either. Perhaps some mobility related help (such as no pack-up time) will help it become more viable without being oppressive.
  • Mutant Marauders: If this question was asked before mutant marauders were released, I would’ve chosen the grenadiers. After some brief testing with blade, it is clear that marauders have a fundamental problem: they can’t effectively engage their targets. When I tested the unit with blade, I could feel his frustration as I simply moved my vehicles away and sent shocks to take down these fairly expensive units. Grenadier’s problems may be fixed by slightly longer EMP time, but these Marauders will likely need something drastic to see play. They are very very tanky though, so adding raw stats may make them op.
  • MG Squad: I hate playing against these things, so I’m not too sad that they aren’t in the meta anymore. However, this unit created a unique (albeit annoying) playstyle that makes the game more interesting. My idea to fix this unit would be to simply revert it back to the state it was in months ago, before the movement speed buff and the damage nerf.


"Scarabs provide a unique learning curve that acts as a rite of passage"

Q: Do you think it's a valid goal to make all units usable at high level play? Or do you think it's okay / natural that there's some core units and others that are fringe (e.g. because they otherwise might be too powerful for beginners)?

StrikerVX: It depends on what you think is usable. In my opinion, having a core set of meta units is fine. Having all units see play just doesn’t sound realistic. For example, I find the Basilisk interesting. While it doesn’t necessarily work as a win condition, it can be used to effectively shut down avatar and most tech units. Overall, I wouldn’t try to force units to be usable by arbitrarily adding hard stats (such as the unwarranted sandstorm health buff and Liang drone cost decrease).

Omeleet: I believe this will always be in flux. Meta and counter metas are determined by the units in use. People will advocate for certain units to be better because they want an answer to every situation. If such a deck exists, it pushes deck diversity down at higher levels. Examples:

  • Orca edged out Mohawk because of Stealth Tanks (and Avatar)
  • Drones are rising in popularity despite Talon being the more flexible choice
  • Stealth Tanks are still highly represented in the highest level of play, despite being a slow answer to Drone Swarm
  • Drone Swarm has encouraged the reappearance of Bikes

With proper adjustments, viability is a good goal to work towards, but it should not take precedence over healthy meta balance.  A meta where one unit [or certain pairs] answers most situations is dangerous. Orca Bombers nearly represents this in my mind.

Personally, I appreciate the different play styles appearing, but I know many become upset having their favorite units become less “meta” viable. Making more units viable probably threatens those that have limited deck selections the most, since it has the potential to challenge their units the most.

Some units are actually very polarizing despite not being viable at high levels. Scarab is an example of a unit that frustrates players in lower division, but is a liability in higher divisions. There are many fans of Scarabs, so I think Redwood is taking this into consideration before changing them. Scarabs also provide a unique learning curve that increases the value of cheap units and acts as a rite of passage to break into higher levels of play.

"If Tech becomes more viable, it could invalidate other pla styles"

Q: What's your take on the "tech debate"? Do you think the current way that tech is used, and the amount and diversity of tech play we see in the ladder is good?

Omeleet: Tech holds more weight as a core identity of the game than my opinion of it does. I think many people are drawn to Tech because they like the idea of big units demolishing other units. I think it is dangerous to try to abruptly change this dynamic; I would like to see tech be significantly less tanky, but faster, cheaper, with only a slightly advantageous trade potential in even matchups. However, based off what I wrote before, I realize this may not be best for the game.  Remember, the vast majority of players use 3 tech units in their deck. This kind of change will impact them the most.

Tech is actually very powerful; the issue is you give up field control to make it: If tech was to become "viable" in its current form, it could invalidate other play styles. It is not because tech is weak, it is because the current game timings prevent tech from making a large enough impact to consistently regain control of the game. I am certain anyone who has faced tech of equal or higher level, can attest to how difficult it is to remove it once it has a foothold.

StrikerVX: Tech on the ladder is usually run by players with high level units. I think this is mostly fine since our aggro players have more or less reached the level where they have a chance against tech whales. I think tech units are interesting and shouldn’t sit there being useless. There needs to be some kind of rework. I hear the devs are experimenting with some of these rework options and await their results.


Q: If you play a new deck, do you have a "learning by doing" approach, or do you come up with a deliberate game plan for the most common situations / opponent decks?

StrikerVX: I’ve recently tried out the APC drone orca deck that Suzaku is running. Before I played the deck I would have an idea on what to make against different enemy units and keep in mind any key breakpoints I can think of.

For example, an Orca can kill a full health scorpion with only around 5 shots of chip damage from the APC, meaning that having your APC fight a tank isn’t as bad if you have orca follow up.

However, theory isn’t enough. When you play a deck enough there’ll be an intuition to build the right unit for the right situation. As situations can vary so much, the only way to obtain this intuition is by practicing a certain deck a lot.

Omeleet: Usually I try to build my decks around a very specific unit. This means picking units that accentuate that unit. Sometimes it doesn't work out very well. There are so many situations where you will learn by doing, that I have to say it is a little of both.

For example, I just learned the other night that Rockworm eruption damage cools down every 6 seconds. I can exploit Disruptors cleaving squads on the tile between my target and the disruptor for double base damage or faster squad kills. It is these weird mechanics you have to be on the lookout for. Mastering all the little quirks is how you make a unit your own.

I think most meta decks are happy accidents that try to field cheap fast counters with enough firepower that forward the primary objective: Holding pads when the Nuke fires.

Advice for new Rivals players

Q: What’s your advice to new players to get better?

Omeleet: I think the only way to improve is to play more and think about what is going wrong in games. Starting a new "throwaway" account can be a low investment way to do this:

  • Don't level any units on it beyond the minimum level of the league (Level 5 for Gold, Level 6 for Platinum etc.)
  • Your average unit level should disqualify you from Challenge Matches and should not give you an advantage against opponents
  • Climb as high as you can, don't worry about your rank
  • When you are down in levels, you have to outplay your opponent to win
  • Think critically about how you can leverage every advantage. 

The tip that really opened my eyes, suggested by Striker, was Militants taking damage from Tiberium dying in the same number of shots to shocks, no matter how much tiberium damage they took. This is called a unit’s breakpoint, and it is the key to getting advantageous trades and snowballing advantages.

StrikerVX: An advice that I don’t see often is to make units and to make the right units. Sometimes players get so fixated on microing the units that they have that they forget to make more units. If and when their unit dies, having a hole in their production would most certainly mean they lose the missile.

In most RTS, macro is a lot more important than micro. In Starcraft, no matter how good your micro is, you’ll have a hard time beating an army twice your size. While this isn’t nearly as extreme in Rivals (which focuses on smaller scale battles), making the right units is very important to winning the game.

"We should show EA that non-p2w monetization can work for Rivals"

Q: Thanks a ton for your time & commitment to this! Any other messages to the Rivals community?

Omeleet: Thanks for reading! And remember to have fun: if you can't find your fun in the game, take a break.

StrikerVX: Lately I’ve seen a lot of negative feedback on the vanity teasers. While I’m personally not too impressed with these, I think we should show EA that non-p2w monetization can work. If the reception of these vanity is poor, there is a chance that we get more p2w mechanics, and that’s something that I would hate more than a couple of bad emotes.

You cYou can find both on Twitch:
• Omeleet’s Twitch Channel
• StrikerVX’ Twitch Channel
Omeleet in Rivals and his alliance – California with a Spanish flag, should the FBI investigate?!


April 20, 2019

Top 51 GDI decks in April – Orca and APC outperform

Note: This is a monthly analysis. You can find the most recent one here.

If you're new to Rivals, also check out my "Basics" category for a number of useful beginner resources.

After I published the Nod analysis for April yesterday, it's time for GDI!

On the methodology: I crawled through the Top51 GDI players as of April 19, and picked their most relevant deck. The ideal "most relevant deck" is one that is recently played and has a large sample size. In most cases, this is a pretty straightforward selection. There are some cases where two decks could have been chosen – I tried my best to make good decisions based on winrates, recent match list etc., and even if my choices were not ideal, the impact on the overall analysis should be small.

Why Top 51, and not Top 50? Because StrikerVX was on #51. He's one of the best players in my opinion, and his 93% winrate with an L11 deck in this analysis are testament for that. The ladder ranking always has the issue that it's a measure for strength rather than skill (strength being a compound of unit levels and skill), hence I want to include players like StrikerVX if possible.

StrikerVX's impressive record for a deck that has among the lowest levels in the Top 100

The data: Below, you can find the main table. You can also access the data in spreadsheet-form: Unit Stats, List of Top 51 Decks. In the main table, the frequency shows how often a unit/commander occurred in the Top50. The ppt Δ vs Mar 28 shows how the frequency has changed compared to March 28 (in percentage points). The Winrate Δ vs average shows the percentage points that a unit's average winrates deviates from the total average, the Levels Δ vs average shows the same for the unit level.

Reading example: Liang occurred in 20% of the deck, no changed to the previous list. The winrate of decks with Liang is 4 ppt higher than the average. Liang decks have 0.1 lower unit levels compared to the average.


Some additional data points:
  • The average deck level increased from 12.3 to 12.6 (Nod went from 12.0 to 12.6)
  • Average winrate stayed constant compared to end of March at 75% (Nod 77%)
  • 8 decks under L12 (vs. 4 with Nod) could indicate that GDI has more options to compensate unit levels deck composition (and of course skill)
  • For the lower-level deck, the spread of winrates is larger than with Nod, i.e. there's more decks with comparably low winrates (<70%), but there's some standout players with lower levels and >90% winrate – more on them below

Diversity of Play: GDI vs Nod

Unit type distribution: See the table below on how many decks have how many units of which type.

Diversity score: Let's define a diversity score as follows: 0 as "everyone uses the same deck" and 100 as "every unit and commander is equally frequent". 
  • Then the diversity score went down from 41 to 33 for GDI, whilst it went up from 31 to 37 for Nod 
  • The average deck contains 2.2 infantry, 1.5 vehicles, 1.6 air and 0.7 tech. This is 0.3 more infantry, 1.7 less vehicles, 0.8 more air and 0.5 more tech than Nod
  • So the unit type diversity is higher with GDI, but the actual unit diversity is very similar
  • But this is just math: I would say the practical diversity of GDI is much higher right now (Commanders being a great example, see below)
Deck composition vs winrate: You can find deck composition vs winrate data here – might be a bit hard to read, feel free to ask with a comment here in the blog or directly in the spreadsheet. The short takeaway is that purely statistically, decks with 3 infantry, 1 vehicle, and 2 air units would have the best winrate, and more than 1 tech unit reduces the winrate. 

Infantry: Let's go cheaper!

Rifles saw another jump in usage, similar to Nod Militants – Shock usage decline further. Sniper usage declined a bit, possibly because their prime targets shocks/flames/JJTs went a bit out of fashion. and because Droneswarms see more usage. Some more Jumpjets were flipped out for Missiles, e.g. to make Orcas or Orca Bombers more viable from a Tiberium income vs spend perspective. 

Vehicles: No Apex Predator anymore

  • Pitbull usage declined, but this is driven by deck composition: Only 2 of the 34 decks with vehicles did not have the Pitbull. 
  • Predator Tank usage went further down, and is now at just 37%. Besides the meta shift to / buffs for counters to it (like Orca, Orca Bomber), the Jackson nerf actually hits the Tank much more than the Oxanna nerf hits Nod: The Predator is more reliant on the speed boost, which makes the time reduction of Jackson more impactful than the Oxanna equivalent, which was mostly used for increased damage output (where the 8 vs 10 seconds don't make a big difference). 
  • APC: I'm a bit surprised that the APC is only used in 18% of the decks, I expected it to be a bit higher
    • That might be perception bias as I played it this month and felt that the APC deck with Rifles, Missiles, Pitbull, APC, Droneswarm, Orca and Strongarm is pretty very strong and fun to play
    • On the other hand, APC deck winrates were 6% higher than the average, without the decks that used it being overlevelled.
    • I feel this was partly because the APC decks countered certain decks very well and needs adjusting to (how to get rid of APCs efficiently & get an infantry counter in place just in time when it dies)

Air: The best Orca Bomber deck has Jumpjet Troopers

  • Droneswarm usage went up from 4% to 24% after the recent buff. There's already calls for it to be nerfed, but I think they are way premature. 24% usage isn't huge, and the droneswarm is pretty weak to Bikes and especially Pitbull. So it feels the complaints about the Droneswarm rather come from certain decks, which e.g. relied on Stealth Tanks or Phantoms to clear air, which is annoying vs Droneswarms due to their squad mechanics.
  • Talon usage stayed constant despite the rise in Droneswarm popularity – a clear vote of confidence!
  • Orca usage more than doubled to 41% after it's hefty buff. The interesting thing is it's diversity, a bit like Nod's Stealth Tank. Orca sees usage as the single air unit in classic Aggro decks, it's core to a number of Infantry/Air decks, and it is part of more than a third of all decks with Tech units. Orca decks were also pretty successful with a 4% above-average winrate, which might partly correlate with the APC: 6 of 9 APC decks use the Orca. if you add the high-winrate Orca decks from AliciaDestiny and MavMitchell (see further below), the high Orca winrate is fully explained.
  • Mohawk usage declined despite the buff; this is likely an effect of the Tank meta disappearing. The Orca is more versatile in matches where the opponent isn't likely to build multiple tanks.
  • Orca Bombers (aka Borca) are complained about a lot – but are used in just 18% of the decks (+4 ppt vs end of March). 
    • When I play GDI and run the Pitbull, I generally don't see the Orca Bomber as too powerful. 
    • With Nod, it's indeed more tricky, as Bikes don't have raider, and Banshees are more expensive than Talons (but not much better vs Borca). Stealth Tank is an option, but is map dependent and sucks when the Borca is higher levelled.
    • Side thought: I wonder why so few Orca Bomber player also uses Jumpjets. Yes, they are more expensive and thus can delay your Borca. But they are a hard counter to Bikes, Stealth Tanks and Pitbulls (the main ground threat to Borcas), and they are fast enough to dodge the Borca bombs. As an example for how great this combination can work, I want to highlight ZeroReward's Orca Bomber deck, which he got to 92% winrate with L11 units (among the lowest levels you see in the Top 100):

Tech: Forecast diverse with regular sand storms

  • All tech units see play in the top 50! (Ok, Disruptors are still very rare.)
  • The Sandstorm is most common, as it features in 5 decks with multiple tech units, and in 6 decks as a "Tech Splash"
  • Zone Trooper and Wolverine are seen in 12% of the decks each
  • There are even 3 Titan decks and still 3 Juggernaut decks (besides the Kodiak and Mammoth, the Jugger is the only Tech units that saw their usage decline a bit)

Commanders: Awesome diversity

Between Strongarm (31%), Liang (20%) and Jackson (41%), GDI commander diversity is in a great spot. Especially considering that Jackson usage might decline further as people adjust to the new meta, and as Jackson has a lower winrate compared to the other commands. And there's even two Solomon decks, among them MavMitchell's incredible 97% winrate deck:


What's cool about Liang is that the duality of "Liang = dual harv tech" disappeared. Only 6 of the 21 decks with Tech use the Doctor, and 3 non-Tech decks use Liang. I want to highlight especially Alicia's Liang deck, which, as usual for her, is very micro intensive, but is incredibly powerful in her hands. It's basically a GDI variant of her trademark Nod "air superiority" deck (also see the interview with Alicia).




If you liked this content, also check out my other articles on this blog, e.g.

April 19, 2019

Top50 Nod Decks in April – Avatar goes, Stealth Tank stays

It's time for another version of my analysis of what the Top50 players of each faction play. GDI will follow soon. If you like this content, also check out my other articles on this blog, e.g. the interview with AliciaDestiny, my thoughts on how to improve Rivals outside of balance & economy, or this overview of how many credits and cards it costs to upgrade your units.

On the timing of this analysis: I came to the conclusion that the time window between 15th and 20th of a month is ideal considering the monthly seasons and balance patches. It means that the "new meta" has established itself already a bit, but there's still time in the season to use the information to try out a new deck, adapt to it, and grind the ladder before the reset. Let me know if you disagree and what other timing might be preferrable.

On the methodology: I crawled through the Top50 Nod players as of April 19, and picked their most relevant deck. The ideal "most relevant deck" is one that is recently played and has a large sample size. In most cases, this is a pretty straightforward selection. There are some cases where two decks could have been chosen – I tried my best to make good decisions based on winrates, recent match list etc., and even if my choices were not ideal, the impact on the overall analysis should be small.

The data: Below, you can find the main table. You can also access the data in spreadsheet-form, including a full list of the Top50 decks. In the main table, the frequency shows how often a unit/commander occurred in the Top50. The ppt Δ vs Mar 28 shows how the frequency has changed compared to March 28 (in percentage points). The Winrate Δ vs average shows the percentage points that a unit's average winrates deviates from the total average, the Levels Δ vs average shows the same for the unit level.

Reading example: Flame Troopers occurred in 22% of the decks vs 48% at the end of March (-26 ppt). The winrate of decks with Flames was 3 ppt higher than the average, despite the Flame decks having 0.6 lower-levelled units on average.


Additional data not visible in the chart:
  • Average winrate of the top50 decks is down from 80% to 77% – likely down to the Avatar, which had above-average winrate in the last analysis
  • Average unit levels went up from 12.0 at the end of March to 12.6 now. Seems like a big increase for 22 days, I assume it's because many top players make intense use of the cloning vat to level up some core units.
  • The lowest level decks are three L11s, run by RussoMau (Portugal), LaFaf (France) and VictorBansemer (Brazil)
  • Overall deck diversity has grown slightly (measured in the average deviation from a situation where every unit is used equally frequently), which is good news (ceteris paribus)
  • The average deck has 1.8 infantry, 3.2 vehicles, 0.8 air and 0.2 tech units
  • There's only a single deck without a war factory
  • There's 14 decks without air, 29 with a single air unit, 6 with two air units, and one with 4 air units
  • 2 infantry units is the absolute standard; only 3 decks run no infantry, 2 decks a single infantry, and 2 decks 3 infantry units

2-3-1 with Laser, Scorpion, Banshee

16 decks are the Nod 2-3-1 without Stealth Tank, which always has Laser, Scorpion Tank, Banshee; the other roles are taken in the following distributions:
  • 12x Militant vs 4x Flame
  • 12x Cyber Wheels, 3x Buggy, 1x Chem Buggy
  • 11x Seth, 5x Oxanna 
Some of the players with the lowest unit levels play it, and from the data, the best deck seems to be the variant with Militant, Laser – Wheels, Bike, Tank – Banshee – Seth.

I'm one of the 3 players who tried to make the Buggy work. And whilst it indeed became more viable, I can testify there's many situations where it's pretty weak and clearly inferior to the wheels, still. The typical being against the two staple units that are run by most decks: GDI's Pitbull and Nod's Tank. They quickly get to the Buggy due to speed & raider mechanic & take it out even faster than wheels.

Yes, there are some situations where the Buggy is a bit better – an example being GDI Drones, which recently became more common. But in the most relevant situations, the Buggy is just worse than wheels, and that's ultimately what counts:

Buggy same as wheels:
  • vs Militant / Rifle / Flame / Shock – they both kill reasonably quickly & force the opponent to disengage if at all possible
Buggy worse than wheels:
  • 3x the cost
  • less vision
  • less speed
  • less sustain vs Tanks due to the squad mechanics
Buggy better than wheels:
  • vs single Laser Troopers/Missile Troopers
  • vs light air (e.g. Droneswarm, Talon)
My best suggestion would be to actually flip the vision range of Wheels and Buggy. It gives the Buggy a unique advantage. And Wheels are still viable as scouts due to speed and low cost (you can scout much faster still). Also, it would differentiate it more against the relatively weaker GDI Wardogs (except if you did the flip there as well).


RussoMau consistently plays the Militant-Wheel-Seth version with a very high winrate considering the (for top50) low unit levels


The New Allrounder: Stealth Tank

50% of all decks run the Stealth Tank. The distribution shows that it's both useful in the anti-air and the anti-vehicle role. This makes them viable in a broad range of decks: Of the 25 Stealth Tank decks, we have ...
  • 8 Avatar decks
  • 14(!) of the 16 decks that don't use Scorpion 
  • 3 of them Giga Cannon decks, where they serve as the Anti-air
  • 19 Oxanna decks (vs 3 Seth, 3 Jade)
What can we learn from this? 
  • If you don't want to run Scorpion, the Stealth Tank seems to be the only option (besides trying to make a non-factory Nod deck work)
  • If you want to run Giga, strongly consider the Stealth Tank; not just 3 of 4 Giga decks use it, but they also seem to work better (winrates vs level)
  • If you still want to run the Avatar, run the Stealth Tank as well
  • If you run the Stealth Tank, use Oxanna
LaFaf switched from a seemingly anti-Avatar deck (with Stealth Tank) to a Giga Cannon deck (with Stealth Tank), showcasing the versatility of this unit in the hands of skilled players

Avatar's fall from Grace

Only 18% of decks (vs. 44% at the end of March) run the Avatar. This is obviously related to the recent balance patch, which delivered on some of the Avatar nerfs I hoped for.

Last time, Avatar decks had a higher-than-average winrate. This time, it's a bit lower than the average – despite the Avatar users running higher-level decks.

Beyond the patch, a reason certainly is that players adapted to the Avatar: They learned who plays it, learned to look for the timings, and ran more counters (in the GDI analysis, we'll likely see a growing use of Orcas). If you still have trouble with ir, check this article on how to play against the Avatar (it's from before the patch, but the general idea stayed the same).

The most archetypical screenshot I could find: Repsycho switched from the standard Avatar deck to the Standard 2-3-1 after the patch


HusseinTamvan shows that the Avatar is still very strong – for the Top50, Hussein's unit levels are below-average, and his winrate significantly above-average


Inferno – strong, but not too strong

If you read Reddit and Discord, you'd assume more people would play the Inferno. But actually, Inferno usage is at just 16%, having growth by 2 percentage points. I feel this is a good spot for a heavy air unit to be in frequency-wise.

Winrate-wise, they seem very strong – but this might be propelled by highly proficient Inferno users like Magni, VictorBansemer, AliciaDestiny and wwfyin – who all sport excellent winrates of 92% and higher.

Some argue that you need high unit levels to play Inferno. That might be true, but on the other hand, these four 92%+ winrate players I mentioned have L12 decks (one even L11), which is below average for the Top50.

My hypothesis is that Inferno needs a highly skilled user ...
  1. to get there (1-2 fewer cheap units compared to the 2-3-1, depending on whether it's a deck with or without Phantom)
  2. to successfully use the Inferno (it is quite fragile and especially when Oxanna-boosted, very quickly dies to a single Pitbull whilst recharging)
This is also illustrated by the fact that Inferno is not a clear single- or dual-harvester unit. Yes, some lower-ranked Inferno users always go dual harvester – but it's not necessary, and e.g. Alicia plays her Inferno deck usually on a single harvester. Speaking of Alicia: Her favorite deck with Flames, Wheels, Bikes, Tanks, Infernos and Phantoms is a great example for the skill needed to get Infernos out. As Alicia's deck sacrifices Lasers, and Infernos are quite expensive, she has to win early Tank battles even against higher-levelled tanks. That's actually quite hard to pull of.

Nod's inferno – expect it to stay relevant

Honorable Mention: ZeroHour's no-Harvester Deck

ZeroHour runs a very interesting zero-Harvester deck, built around flooding the battlefield with cheap units (especially Militant, Laser, Wheel, Bikes). The goals are to keep pad control with superior numbers (harvester goes against the pop cap, so if Tiberium allows, ZeroHour has a unit more on the map) and to ideally score a harvester kill that allows to pay for a Stealth Tank to snipe some Tank or Air unit that the other player squeezed out.


As you can see, ZeroHour's winrate has been incredibly high for unit levels that are – for the Top50 – not that high. This is testament to his skill and that this deck works.

Quality of Life Changes that would make Rivals a better game for everyone

Roughly, you can split the debate on C&C:Rivals into three buckets:

  1. Balance (individual units being over- or underpowered, certain styles not being viable, "how to fix tech" debate)
  2. Economy (Pay-2-Win elements, reward balance, ability for low spenders to keep up)
  3. Quality of Life (usability of the app and other things that have impact on the experience without being related to 1 or 2)

Today, I want to focus on #3. Partly because Redwood recently announced the introduction of some vanity features. This is generally laudable, as it opens revenue sources that are not related to the "Pay 2 Win" elements of Rivals.  The connection to "Quality of Life" is that if implemented badly, these new things could make the usability of the game much worse. If you don't know yet what I'm talking about, watch the video below:


The feedback on this video so far was mostly negative, focused on the quality and style of graphics and voice overs. Check the Reddit thread if you want to read this feedback.

Yet, my main worry is that one player's vanity features reduce the usability of the game for the other player. Hence, my strong recommendation to Redwood: Allow players to deactivate the visual and audible impact of their opponents' vanity purchases such as unit skins, taunts, in-game animations. It's okay to make an exception to small visuals or short audio – but it needs to be subtle, and spam must be prevented.

Below, find a list of additional Quality of Life changes I'd suggest.

Username Changes

There's also downsides to allowing user name changes, especially if you can do it repeatedly. But there's little speaking against at least a one-time username change. Some ways to implement it so that it could be good for the developers include:

  • Allow a one-time change for free for Tiberium players
  • Put a Diamond cost to changing your username, e.g. 100 Diamonds, and then 100 Diamonds more for each repeated change (100, 200, 300, ...)
  • If it's too low priority to implement, but it could be done manually: Consider to offer it manually as a 1,000 Diamond purchase ($10 revenue for probably small effort), or consider it as a courtesy for your loyal spenders (e.g. offer it as a one-time option for players who spent more than $X00 on the game

Unit Filter in C&C TV

One of the obvious goals of the game is to promote diversity of play. Diversity of play is generally desirable from a fun perspective, but it also means players want to level up more units, which can increase their spend. 

At the same time, many rarely used units that seem fun are hard to play. And because they are rare, it's not easy to learn from other good players. But there's an easy fix: Put a unit filter into the C&C TV replay interface. See this mock-up:


That would allow fans of a unit to easily explore in which deck compositions a unit is used, and how good players approach the game and use the unit.


Alliance Comfort

For alliances, I suggest two small changes:
  1. Make links in the alliance description clickable. This is not more abuse-able than the alliance name, and the reporting feature can still flag bad links. If the devs want to play it safe, they could restrict it to discord links, so that it's at least easier to contact the alliance / chat with them.
  2. Allow it to invite players in your match history to your alliance. This could be a powerful feature, and help with community building and retention of newer players. Imagine a new player playing their first games, losing against a good player, and then getting an alliance invite from them. I bet that would be a cool, friendly user experience for many new players that would make Rivals more persomable and engaging. To prevent spam, this feature could be limited to e.g. 1-3 invites a day, and potentially allow players to toggle that they do not want to be invited at all (e.g. to spare AliciaDestiny invite-spam from 100 alliances)


Masters Map pool

You could argue that this is a bit off-topic, as it's a bit of a balance / meta related ask. But as there are so many good, balanced maps, I feel it's mostly a quality-of-life feature. And a really, really important one.

Why is it important?

  1. Especially many of the most active players will spend a lot of time in Masters. It has gotten harder to get to Tiberium (without L10 units, many will not make it). But due to win streaks and challenge matches, it's relatively easy to reach Masters for competent players that play for more than a month.
  2. Two of the maps (Pillbox and Tiberium Stripes, s. map images below) can feel a bit similar, and one is disliked by many players (Canal Row). I personally actually have grown to appreciate Canal Row for being different – but that's also because I only play it for a couple of days each season before I'm back in Tiberium. I would not want to play it all month long.
Why isn't the Masters map pool changed actually?

The reason the devs give is that it takes a lot of time and effort to change the design of maps. And that they would need to do that, as each league has their own theme ("red dust" for Iron, "beach" for Gold, "volcanic" for Platinum etc.).

But in my view this reason is not valid! Why?
  • The argument is also not used for Tiberium, even though Tiberium also has it's own style / flavor in the screen before you start a match.
  • Which is good, because Tiberium players prefer a good selection of map (and some rotation each season) over some aesthetic detail. But: This is also true for Masters players! Especially as in recent months, it has gotten harder for new players to get to Masters (due to unit levels going up a bit over time). Masters players also prefer map diversity over this artificial design limitation.
  • There are even some ice maps that could be used for Masters – because Bronze League has the ice design, too! See the below list of map images.
So, my recommendation: For next season, expand the Masters map pool with the three maps "Down the Middle", "Open Water" and "Hand and Half". This would make the Masters map pool much more diverse and probably even make Canal Row much less of an issue, because you play it just every 8 matches.

Masters League maps:

Two Fuses (my favorite Masters map)

Tiberium Stripes

Pillbox (yes, not fully identical to Tiberium Stripes, but enough similarities to make certain strategies/matchips feel not that different)

Peaks and Valleys (I like that it's also quite different from nearly all other maps, but it also can get old if you play it too often)

Canal Row (the narrow choke can make it feel very annoying if you don't have enough fast air (incl JJTs or 2-range units, and it also can feel very tough to overcome level differences as there's less room to micro open fights)


(Some of the) Bronze League maps:

Open Water (good enough for the Tiberium map pool, and quite different from other Masters maps)

Half and Half (very different from many maps, as the harvester harass scouting lane is very different from the pad control lane; on basically all other maps a 3-vision-range scout can cover both at the same time)

Down the Middle (another 2-pad map that still feels pretty different from Two Fuses)


April 02, 2019

Interview with AliciaDestiny – “EA should get two of the best Rivals players to the next E3 to demonstrate how intense this game can be at the highest level”

Edit: New interview with AliciaDestiny from November 2019.

We have a true star guest in part 3 of our interview series after former SC2 pro HayprO and Rivals YouTuber CptBenzie: AliciaDestiny!

Alicia has been the #1 player for five seasons straight (#1-#5) and already won 5 tournaments in the young history of Rivals, including the Rivals Launch Celebration. Alicia also has a perfect record on every single Champions event so far.

In the unlikely case that you didn’t hear about Alicia so far, you might want to see her in action first. Here’s a recent one of many videos on Alicia’s YouTube channel:


Q: Hey Alicia! Please tell us a bit about yourself.

Alicia:  I am a 26 year old transgirl living in Toledo, Ohio. I have a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering and my hobbies include computers (obviously) and cars. I really like cars. I just have a fascination for everything mechanical or electronics; it really intrigues me. I was always a big PC gamer growing up and that has not changed in the slightest.


Q: In the Rivals community, we all know you for your insane ladder and tournament results, and for winning the Rivals launch celebration convincingly. What brought you to Rivals? Did you play other multiplayer games on a high level before?  [if well-known ones like SC2, maybe include the race you played or something like that]

Alicia:  There were quite a few reasons why I was brought to Rivals. At the time when I started playing. I was getting fed up with the current game I was playing “Star Wars Force Arena” and wanted something new to play. SWFA ended up shutting down due to the game dying and not gaining enough traction. I hope that does not happen to Rivals, as Rivals is also another hyper competitive mobile game. I was looking for a game to get big in.

Shooters were the biggest thing at the time (and is still is) and they are just not my thing. I don’t really fancy the shooter genre as it doesn’t really interest me. I wanted to find content to grow my YouTube and Twitch channels and I felt like Rivals would be the game for it as I’ve played all of the original C&C games PC with the exception of C&C 3 & 4. I’m a huge fan of the franchise and even though the game didn’t look that competitive, upon trying it out I noticed there was a lot of potential.

I’ve always been big on the RTS genre my entire life and have grown up playing games like Age of Empires, C&C, StarCraft (both Broodwar and SC2), etc. Those games already have established professionals and communities and I wanted to be part of something new. C&C Rivals is not there yet. I don’t believe that there is a market for super competitive mobile games as the most competitive gamers are typically ones that either primarily play on PC or console.

The game is in a very niche category and I don’t see it surviving unless EA devotes some serious resources into increasing the playerbase. There is a lot the game is missing and I do believe it’ll get there one point.

The negative press that the game has received at E3 is what is hindering the game right now. What EA needs to do is get two of the best players in the world at E3 and demonstrate to everyone how intense this game can be at the highest level. I don’t believe the launch event wasn’t enough as you can see the event itself doesn’t even have 10k views on YouTube and most people have not even seen it.

Alicia on her decks

Q: I wholeheartedly agree that Redwood could & should do much more to increase the player base. Whether it’s big events like E3, or supporting community-run tournaments.

Let’s get to the game itself. Let’s start with a question I bet many have who watch your games from time to time: One of your trademark units seems to be the Rhino / Buggy, which seems to have fallen out of favor even before it’s recent vision range nerf. Is this a personal playstyle, or do you think that there is a strong case for the unit as part of decks or even as the opener? Do you think people underestimate the unit and should more often chose it over the Cyberwheel?

Alicia: Currently, there is little reason to play “hummer and bugger” because there really isn’t much going on for the two vehicles. For Buggy’s case, it deals less damage than Cyberwheels and in some cases it’s less tanky than Cyberwheels. A Predator Tank will take 4 hits to take out the Wheels, while the Buggy takes 3 hits, or 2 if the Predator Tank is at a higher level. Do you think that is fair that a unit that costs 1/3rd the amount of the other is just better in almost every way?

The main reason why I use Rhino and Buggy in ranked ladder is mostly due to levels. I have the rhino at level 14 and Buggy at level 13. I do not put any money into the game so I am stuck with the levels I have and can only slowly grind to get the newer units to a level where I’m comfortable with using them in my current position.

Of course I would use Wheels and Dogs over Rhino and Buggy; I already do when I make decks for the Rivals Champions event as the unit levels have a really low cap compared to the cap of 15 in Tiberium League. I would also not put wheels + buggy or rhino + dogs in the same deck as that would be idiotic as you mainly need them for their anti-infantry capabilities; not their anti-aircraft performance as they’re obviously better choices for dealing with aircraft.

One of Alicia's trademark units – Nod's Inferno bomber

Q: One of your trademark decks has been the 2-2-2 (and more recently 1-3-2) with Inferno and Phantom. Your way to play it seemed to not rely on getting the Inferno out, and your games looked very organically. Do you make your decisions with this deck “on the spot” (e.g. when to save a bit for an Inferno switch), or did you work out a clear game plan for typical situations?

Alicia: I was never known for the “2-2-2” deck. I’ve only starting experimenting with it on ladder recently just to see if my deck would do well with laser troops. My most successful deck of all time has always been my “Nod Air Superiority” deck as I’d like to call it which is Oxanna, Flamers, Buggy, Bikes, Scorpion Tank, Inferno, & Phantom. 

A modern variant of this deck would be to replace the useless Buggy with Cyberwheels and it will perform just as well as it always did (maybe even better because wheels are ridiculously strong). I was playing with this Inferno deck before global release and the deck has even won me 1st place in the first tournament the game has ever had. Here is an example of that exact deck being played in that tournament:

FourCourtJester commenting on a tournament final between 13lade and AliciaDestiny

It is also the same deck I used at the Rivals Launch Celebration tournament hosted by EA and I had a 100% winrate in that tournament with that deck. I’ve used the deck to get rank 1 with Nod on several seasons and it still to this day is my go-to deck to use during any in-game events as well as any tournaments that may come by.



AliciaDestiny's advice for new players

Q: Thanks for this background! On a different topic, what’s your advice for newer Rivals players on how to get better?

Alicia:  There is a lot of advice I can give. First of all, never expect big results to happen fast. The way the game is structured is that you have to grind every day for a month or two before you can really start competing in the big leagues. You won’t have anything unlocked and you won’t have high levels to compete in Tiberium League, so don’t expect that. With hardcore dedication and every-day grinding you can get there in a couple of months – if you have the drive and commitment to get better at the game. 

The Rivals Champions events can be grinded and provide the most progress out of anything else in the game in order to increase your levels. There will be times where you just lose due to high levels and that shouldn’t discourage you from playing the game as any level disadvantage can be overcome with superior tactics.

The easiest way to get better at the game really fast is to watch the best players. Analyze how they play to understand the mechanics of the game. You don’t have to copy their decks but watching them is a good idea on how the game is meant to be played. 

For a paid player, I would suggest to get good at the game first, and then spend money on buying in-game diamonds. And when there is an event with a really good payout then keep playing that same event and redoing it over and over again for the rewards.

There has been people who have been playing the game for only 2 months and have already been in Tiberium League. That is an amazing feat and it proves that anything is possible when you put in enough effort.

You can start watching one of the best players right away...


"We need to see more tournaments"

Q: Beyond your top-of-the ladder results, you’ve also performed strongly in a number of the tournaments we have so far. What was your favorite tournament so far, and why?

Alicia: I’m sure no one would be surprised by this answer. My favorite tournament would obviously be the Rivals Launch Celebration tournament. Can you blame me? Lol It was super fun to participate in and super fun to watch on top of it!

Alicia Destiny at the Rivals Launch Celebration

Q: Speaking about tournaments, how would you structure Best-of-5 / Best-of-7 rules so that we see both the skill of the players showing, and diversity in maps and decks used? E.g. fixed mapsets vs. loser’s choice? Forcing to play both factions or not? Allowing only the loser of a map to adjust decks, or grant both full freedom?

Alicia: I would structure those tournaments with set maps. I strongly dislike the loser picks map format as the “loser” can always pick maps in which they practiced hardcore on and had specific decks prepared for it. I want both players to be on an equal footing when talking about tournaments. Forcing people to play both both factions wouldn’t be a bad idea as it’ll keep the tournaments from being boring and seeing one faction be played more than the other. I definitely don’t think there should be a restriction on decks used.. People should be allowed to play whatever they want to play.


Q: What would be your advice for both Redwood and/or the community: What would make tournaments and events great for both the top players, and casual players who like to watch / follow such events?

Alicia: Bottom line is we need to see more events, and the viewerbase needs to be substantially larger. There is not enough energy going around for the esports scene and there needs to be for a competitive mobile game like Rivals to survive.


AliciaDestiny's take on balance

Q: Do you think the latest balance patch went into the right direction? What would be one buff and one nerf that you’d really like the devs to strongly consider?

Alicia: I would definitely say so. I really enjoy seeing 5 out of 6 units in my deck get nerfed… I love how I have to level up new units to try out instead as both my decks no longer work as well as they used too… I LOVE IT!! Thank you KyleF and Nivmett for contributing to ending my reign of terror as the forever rank 1 player on the leaderboards… I’M NOT SALTY IN THE SLIGHTEST !!

Jokes aside... I want to see a buff to the recently nerfed Rhino/Buggy, I don’t really care what it is but something needs to happen.

Also, I want to see every unit that costs 10 tiberium to be nerfed in some way as I believe Riflemen, Militants, War dogs, and Cyberwheels are all way too good and are a must in every single deck. I know I didn’t specify a nerf, but those 4 units all need nerfed and I don’t know what to suggest.


Q: Is there a deck that you’d love to play, but don’t because it’s not fully viable at your high level?

Alicia: Nope, I would say my favorite deck to play is the deck I’m known for the most; the 1-3-2 Nod Inferno Phantoms.

Q: There are some voices who think it’s a sign of imbalance if a certain unit like the Scorpion tank is used in a large number of decks. Would you agree and say a goal should be that most units see regular play at high level? Or do you think it’s okay if there’s a set of core units that most decks include, with playstyles differentiating around a few additional key units?

Alicia: I would strongly disagree. In games where you create a deck, or a lineup of units/cards before the game starts, there tends to be a lot of “netdecking”. What that means is that people usually see what the best of the best play in either tournaments or on ranked ladder and try it out for themselves. If it works for the best why wouldn’t it work for me right? Monkey see, monkey do! Obviously I’d say units with abnormally high win rates need toning down as opposed to units that are used the most. In the end, you cannot control what players use in their decks so frequency shouldn’t be a (huge) factor to determine balance.


Q: Alicia, thank you so much for this interview! Any other messages you’d like to get out to the Rivals community?

A: Keep following your dreams and one day they’ll come true!


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