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.
- 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)
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.
- the Nod equivalent of this analysis
- the interview with AliciaDestiny
- my thoughts on how to improve Rivals outside of balance & economy
- this overview of how many credits and cards it costs to upgrade your units
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