Game analysis: Alarak's Nod against Mark's Mammoth Deck

Today, we're trying something new. The inspiration is a video that Alarak posted on Reddit. If you didn't watch it so far, I recommend you to start with it:

It's a fun game, but it's also having a lot of good moments to analyze and learn from. That's why I reached out to Alarak, and thankfully he was willing to help me with this blog post.

Alarak is a strong Rivals player, currently in the Nod Top 40 with a deck of just level 11.3. He hails from Sweden, and is a long-time RTS fan, having played Starcraft, Starcraft II, Warcraft III, Red Alert 3 and Tiberium Wars before. He found out about Rivals at the E3 2018, but back then didn't like it – in January, he still gave it a shot, and instantly fell in love with it.

Alarak on his Rivals journey: "In the first couple of weeks I played a lot of MLRS when I was still learning the game, got quite good at it and reached tiberium league with GDI at the end of January. A month later the MLRS nerfs came live, and they hit hard. Since then I fell in love with Nod Aggro decks but usually had some twist on it." – the current twist is for example that Alarak is one of the few players who still runs the Phantom.

Alarak about his new alliance: "The name of my alliance is Anacreon. Some of the Terminus Shores leaders and I discussed the idea of a new alliance for newer players, and I was very hyped about that. I got to lead it, and Anacreon became Terminus Shores’ 8th alliance. Anyone can join really, but you need to follow the general Terminus Shores rules and be ready to get feedback from others. Anacreon is actually a coaching alliance which offers daily coaching for all its members by some of the top Terminus Shores players. Join by applying in Discord!"

And now, let's dive into the game analysis. I recommend to open the video in a second tab to rewatch the key moments. (If you don't know this small trick yet: With the left and right arrows of your cursor keys, you can skip 5 seconds forwards and backwards in YouTube. This helps to rewatch the key moments without a lot of mouse-clicking on the YouTube progress bar.)

• The match: Mark’s GDI Mammoth deck against Alarak’s Oxanna Aggro deck. 
• Alarak has the handicap of having a significant unit level advantage. 
• Each level gives +10% hitpoints and +10% damage output. As it’s multiplicative, this is already +21% hitpoints and +21% damage for 2 level difference. 
• So you need to compensate your disadvantage with better decision making, hard countering, and better micro (e.g. luring shots on the wrong target, 2v1-ing, stacking your tanks etc.).

• Alarak’s first good move: After spotting the dual harvester with his wheels, he blocks it with the wheels (wheels after harv). 
• Often, this is a risky trade-off, as the Tiberium gain is offset with a loss of time by charging the pads. But in this case, the way that Mark sent his harvester means that he also charges the pad, which made the loss of time for Alarak much smaller (it’s still a bit of time lost compared to just charging the pad and putting some chip damage on the harvester, though)
• Alarak’s tipp if you are confronted with the choice of blocking harvester OR charging the pad is to even build a second wheel squad in such a situation. The couple of seconds charging time is worth the 10 Tiberium.
• Alarak follows up with a Scorpion tank.. It’s a good and aggressive move. But it’s also risky, as Alarak knows that he is outleveled. He knows there will be a Pitbull (or a delayed tank), and he knows the opponent has Jackson. 
• Personally, I probably would have played it safe and built a Laser Squad, especially knowing Mark’s deck: Mark does not have Missile Troopers & Militants, i.e. he cannot counter the Wheels with a Militant, and then will need a 40-TIb unit against the 20-Tib Lasers. But this is not a clear call either way in this situation.

Alarak's thoughts: "If I have to choose between Scorpion Tanks and Laser Squads, I usually go with Scorpion Tanks because of two reasons. Firstly, it’s two levels above my Laser Squad to it’ll deal with enemy harvesters way better and quicker. Secondly it’s also more mobile because it has raider, I can get trades on enemy Tanks or Pitbulls with the help of baiting shots with Cyberwheels."

• Alarak chose to give his Scorpion an Oxanna boost pretty early. I’m not convinced it’s a good move for two reasons:
• Whilst it’s very strong against harvesters, it’s good but not great against Pitbulls
• The 30 Tiberium investment means Alarak felt compelled to get another wheels. Otherwise, he could have gotten another Scorpion here for 70 or a Barracks and a Laser for 50. (Wheels 10, Oxanna 30, plus the 30 in the bank that you see in the bottom right of the above screenshot)
• In the screenshot above, you see that whilst Alarak lost his 10-Tib Wheels, the Pitbull is nearly dead. So micro-wise, Alarak won out, as he got his shots on the Pitbull, whereas Mark put his damage on the cheap wheels.
• But now Alarak makes one of his rare mistakes: He targets the opponent harvester before the Pitbull is dead. This is especially painful in this situation, where the higher levels means that 2 Pitbulls can take on a Scorpion.

Alarak's thoughts: "1 level higher Pitbulls are a pain in the first place because they survive an extra attack from Scorpion Tanks, but that mistake I did was pretty crucial, it made it possible for the next Pitbull to take my Scorpion Tank which eventually lead to me not killing the Harvester." 

• The consequence can be seen here. The second Pitbull can now beat the damaged Scoprion
• Alarak continues to target the Harvester now, hoping he can kill it before the Pitbull gets the Scorpion.

• You can see how that cost Alarak dearly: 
• He didn’t get the harvester
• As the Pitbull even survived, Mark can now further stall the Nuke – in the screenshot you exemplary see a time where the pads are not charging.
• Alarak is very low on Tiberium, whereas Mark can now finally harvest and build his bank for his desired late-game Mammoth
• Now, Alarak makes the switch to Lasers, as Scorpions would now have a hard time, especially with the threat of Predator tanks.

• The first nuke is now even close to finishing, and Alarak builds a second Missile Squad (he doesn’t even have the money for something else that is good against Pitbulls)
• It’s now Mark’s turn to make mistakes: He builds a tank in the second he even sees his opponent’s lasers. If he built Barracks + Shock here, he’d probably get the first Nuke.

• Now there’s another good moment!
• Mark wants to keep the pads neutral whilst not letting his Pitbull take a lot of Laser damage. So he logically moves south.

• But Alarak has exactly the right response: He blocks the path and gets all the advantages – favorable engagement on the Pitbull and charging the Nuke. Well done!

• Mark finally builds his Shocks, and Alarak rushes in a Scorpion – but the deciding factor is that the shocks were too late despite a Jackson boost, as Alarak nicely blocks the shock’s movement path the the pad with his Laser Squad.
• Alarak gets the first nuke.
• Now, both players need to think: How do they react directly after the nuke? Often, this is a timing where the dynamics of the battle goes up, as players don’t need to fully prioritize pad control anymore and can reposition their units. 
• Think about it: What should both players do as the Nuke launches? How should Mark invest Tiberium, as he wants to save up for Mammoth but now also must delay the second Nuke? What should Mark do with his Wheels and Scorp?

• Alarak does react instantly and exactly in the right way: He pulls up his Wheels to the Shocks, and moves his Scorpion back to help the Missiles engage the Predator. 
• You could argue that moving ahead with the Scorpion through the middle was an alternative, speculating that Mark will pull back the Predator from the Lasers. That way, the Scorpion would get a couple of pot shots on the Shocks (accelerating their demise), be able to pincer the bottom Predator, and gain scouting info from the Scorpion. But Mark’s reaction proved Alarak right.
• Mark on the other hand makes two mistakes:
• Leaving his shocks to fight against the wheels. Yes, he’s on dual harv, but he wants to save his units to save Tiberium for the Mammoth. He needs a ton of it, after all.
• Moving the Predator forward. It allows the Lasers to get all their damage on the Predator, and it also means it’s easier for Alarak to charge the pads. If he at least stood still with the Pred, the Nuke would not have charge further.
• If he had moved his Shocks back and down (to engage the Lasers), and his Predator back and up (to engage the Wheels), he would have been in a much more favorable position to engage Alarak and to delay the pad
• Still, the situation isn’t easy for Alarak, as the Shocks are still standing, and his Scorpion is up against a Predator 2 levels higher!

• Alarak decides to pull back and skillfully engage the new Predator with two stacked Scorpions and his single laser, whilst 
• Tactically, this fight went to Alarak. Strategically though, this helped delay further. You can see on the screenshot (and in the Video) that this battle significantly delayed the Nuke charging. Possibly there was an opportunity to move the wheels quicker to the middle pad instead of engaging the Shocks directly from the grass
• Note the timer: It’s at 1:46 now

• Now, it’s 2:27 – about 40 seconds later (the full Nuke charges 40 seconds), and Alarak managed to charge the Nuke at least a decent chunk of this time – about 25-30 seconds, so it’s about 7 seconds from going off.
• In this period, Alarak showed his micro and was able to trade favorably against higher-level tanks thanks to stacking and 2v1-ing. 
• At the same time, Mark saved a bit more and already built his Tech lab. But with 40 Tiberium, the Mammoth is still far away.
• But now Alarak makes some small mistakes:
• He builds Scorpion only, which makes life a bit easier for Mark, as he can rely on the sheer strength of the Predators that he can easily pump out on double harvester. 
• For Alarak, this means he must micro perfectly, as he doesn’t leverage hard counters. But this is very hard to do with 4 tanks.
• The above screenshot shows two small mistakes: First, the bottom Scorpion fires on the Harvester, which means that the boosted Predator will win this fight with a decent chunk of hitpoints left. Second, the near-dead Scorp doesn’t fight whilst not contributing to pad charging (the opposite, as the Nuke is neutral in this exact moment).
• Yes, these are really tiny mistakes, but when you’re behind two levels in a tank war, every little mistake can cost you the game.

• Consequently, Mark gets the second Nuke, as he couldn’t win the Tank war, and the lasers come a bit too late. And of course because Mark remembers to put his Harv on the pad! Seems obvious, but in these hectic moments, a lot of players don’t do this.
• Shortly before the above Screenshot, Alarak Oxanna-boosted his Tank. 
• My question: Would it have been better to Oxanna the Lasers? Maybe they would have barely killed the tank, neutralizing the pads. Some fast unit like wheels could keep the top pad neutral for a couple of seconds. The lasers could move left to contest or even conquer the left pad, and the harvester could have taken over the duty to control the right pad.

Alarak's thoughts: "I very rarely boost Laser Squads anymore because it is usually pointless. This is because when you boost a full Laser Squad, the whole squad needs to attack once with their normal attack speed before they can attack with faster attack speed. An entire squad needs 4-5 seconds for all squad members to fire and a boost only last 8 seconds. So nowadays I just never even think about whether I should boost Laser Squads. Maybe sometimes, this is not ideal."

The rest of the game is better watched on video than analyzed. The above screenshot, just after the Mammoth casually one-shotted a full-health Scorpion, is more for completeness than for analysis.

Thank you Alarak for sharing this match with us on YouTube!

• Follow Alarak on YouTube
• Join the Discor of Alarak's Alliance Terminus Shores

Interview with LaFaf – “Skill > $$$!”

Today, we have Gauthier aka LaFaf as a guest for an interview about Command & Conquer: Rivals. Gauthier is a 30-year old Rivals player from Lille in France, and he is one of the strongest players in the top alliance Baguette.

Q: Hey LaFaf! This season had started nice for you – a 100% win rate over 80 games with just L11 decks is pretty impressive. Do you think you’re in good form? Or just the start of the season making things a bit easier?

A: I'm not really in better form than usual. I didn’t lose because I met people with identical level units. This has become so rare for me!! For example, last season, I think I played more than 80% of my games against higher unit levels, and it became really frustrating. That's why I take full advantage of the beginning of the seasons and the many events (with level 11 max) that EA offers us.


Q: With GDI, you currently play the meta APC deck. Personal preference, or belief that it’s the strongest right now?

A: Actually, I hate the APC. I find it slow and easily killed with good micro. But
seeing the popularity of the deck, I wanted to test it. And as I won so much with it, it was difficult to change the deck, as it worked very well.

A deck I would like to play if I had the proper unit levels would be: Rifleman-Missile-Sniper / Talon-Orca / Sandstorm. Indeed, it is a very demanding deck in micro with weak starting units but especially in terms of timing and tempo of the missiles

Q: Your Giga Cannon / Banshee Nod deck is a bit less common. What makes you prefer it over the standard 2-3-1 Nod aggro deck, e.g. in the Militant/Seth or Flame/Oxanna variants?

A: I try to play 50% Nod and 50% GDI with 2-3 different decks for each faction. This allows me to be more versatile and to surprise my opponents during a BO3 or BO5 match. For the events I choose my deck and my faction only according to the proposed maps. There are events with more tech-oriented maps, other for air units for example.

With Nod, I prefer this Giga Cannon deck over than the other standard decks  (Bikes, Flames, Scorpion Tank, …), because it requires a lot more micromanagement:

• Hit and run with Stealth Tanks
• Protection of the Giga Cannon with blockages of units (Laser Troopers & Wheels)

Generally, I prefer decks that are hard to master over simpler decks or nasty rush decks.


Q: Everyone who sometimes clicks on the Alliance ranking will know your team, “Baguette”. Tell us a bit about it.

A: When the game launched in December 2018, I wanted to join a great French team. At that moment, looking at the top of the ladder, I saw Baguette's leader: Zarkos. So I applied and Zarkos accepted me. He chose the name Baguette because every time we say that we come from France, most people answer you “Baguette” – especially in videos games. :D

Our alliance discord is very active and we have also an international channel: It’s where ladder people come to say GG if they just win against us – lol. Of course it's open to anyone, whether you come from France or not! Come taste our baguette, our wine and cheeses :)

And if you want to see how we play: In Baguette there’s two people who regularly stream Rivals on Twitch: Zarkos and Mr tchetche.

• Zarkos' Twitch Stream
• Mr Tchetche's Twitch Stream

A "baguette de tradition française" – as delicious as LaFaf’s micro – Source: Wikipedia

Q: Did you participate in Rivals tournaments so far?

A: Yes, I try to participate in every tournament organized by the community. At first, there was a lot (thanks to Denney and Bikerush for their efforts!) but it is very rare now, too bad :(.

The 1st tournament I participated left a mark on me. It was organized by Koda from Terminus Shores and brought together the best players. I think it was during this tournament that my my name was becoming a bit more known in the community :) Very good matches were played!

I wish that more of these tournaments will be organized, and EA also organizes some tournaments, as they did it so well shortly after the release of the game. I found the idea great and I don’t understand why they didn’t continue. Possibly the game didn’t reach their hopes or expectations...

I also currently participate in the Rivals Team League which brings together several teams from around the world. I hope we will go to the final with our international team called "Scrappy". So far, we won 4 out of 4 matches. In any case, my team mates are pretty skilled. Besides me, our line-up is Bikerush / Alicia / Nickcool / Wwfyin / JadeXyan / Chuckylate.

– Remark from the editor: If you want to play Rivals tournaments, I recommend to join the following discords:

• CNCBattles tournament discord
• Rlong’s tournament discord – join this one now, the first tournament will start soon!
• Rivals Team League discord

Q: One of the units that was buffed in the latest balance patch is the Nod Artillery. Do you think it’s viable now? If you had to play it, what deck would you chose?

A: I never played units like Nod Artillery or Juggernaut myself, because i don’t have enough credit to level them up. So far, I met Artillery very rarely. It is true though that once laid with anti air next to it, it is very difficult to dislodge.

Excoundrel showing a replay where he lost against LaFaf, with LaFaf having units 2-3 levels below Excouldrel's

Q: What would be a deck that you would love to play if it were viable in competitive play?

A: A deck with 2-3 Tech units. I like GDI tech units like Wolverine, Zone Troopers and Titan but they are not viable, especially together. Developers should change something for tech units because I find that they are really used too little by top players.


Q: Uhh. you’re one of these Tech lovers! I have to admit that I personally dislike tech. ;) – Are there maps you particularly like? What new types of map would you like to see?

A: I like the maps where the four Tiberium patches are packed tightly together. Many players take advantage of this by opening with 2 harvesters. And that’s the moment when you can come in with a Giga Cannon, buffed by Oxanna. It’s just magic! … and then players leave :D


Q: Are there any multiplayer games that you played competitively before? Which ones?

A: Yes I love RTS games in general. I played a lot of different ones, but the ones I played the most are Warcraft 3, Starcraft 2 and Dawn of war 1 & 3.  I could not play many tournaments in Warcraft 3, because of my bad connection bad in the days – 56k. On the other hand, in Starcraft 2 I managed to get into the Master League and played a lot of tournaments. However, it was too demanding and too time-consuming to reach the top level, so this wasn’t possible for me.


Q: You seem to be spending no or very little money on Rivals. What’s your perspective on this experience? Do you think the game works well for players who spend little or nothing?

A: Indeed, I spent very little money on the game. A few months ago, I didn’t have too much problem to access the top 25 of the ladder. But today, I feel that the number of “p2w” players increased a lot and it is very difficult to access the top 100 with L10-11 level units. It’s very frustrating to lose against players with L15 units, knowing that you’d be are sure to beat them with identical levels. That's why I stopped playing much ladder, basically only for bounties. The most enjoyable part of Rivals for me are the events. Beating players who pay for higher level units, but don’t have access to these high levels in the event, is very funny. I sometimes picture them rage behind their screen!


Q: What would be one thing you’d like to change in the game or app outside of unit balance?

A: Clan wars! I find this concept in Clash Royale very nice. There should be added functionality for the alliances, because currently their only real purpose seems to be card requests & donations. Clan wars with rewards, and maybe an associated ladder, would be a good idea.


Q: Thanks for taking the time for this interview. Last question: What is your #1 tipp for newer players who want to improve at Rivals?

A: Never allow a unit to be beaten. I see a lot of players even in Tiberium league let their units attack their counters. Always keep an eye on each unit and manage them all at once. I know it's easier to say than to do, but with training and quick hands, you can do it!

And: Never surrender! Even with units with much lower levels, it is quite possible to win. I often beat players who have 2 to 3 and even 5 levels more than me. In such cases, I wouldn’t like to be in the shoes of my opponent. Skill > $$$.

→ Talk to LaFaf on the Baguette alliance discord

Lille – LaFaf's hometown, and one of the most underrated cities in France – Source: Wikipedia

Read more interviews with Command & Conquer Rivals players and personalities!

GDI Top 50 – May 2019 – Doctor Liang's amazing versatility

• The same analysis for Nod
• Previous analysis for GDI (also see for info on methodology)

It's time for our monthly check-in with the GDI meta. What do the Top 50 GDI players in the ladder play?

First, some base info:

• The average deck fields 2.2 infantry, 1.7 vehicles, 1.4 air and 0.7 tech units;  this is nearly identical to a month ago, just a shift of 0.2 from air to vehicles
• Average deck level in the Top 50 is 12.7 vs 12.6 a month ago (a bit lower than the 13.0 seen for Nod Top 50), 
• There's 6 decks below L12. I want to highlight two with high winrates:
• Lex[Xen] with a 77% winrate on a L10.5 deck with Grenadiers, Slingshot, Mammoth and Liang
• Russo Mau with 70% winrate on an "oldschool" L11.5 aggro deck (Missile, Shock – Dogs, Pitbull, Tank – Talon – Jackson)
• You can check out the decks of all of the Top50 in this spreadsheet

Frequencies of units in May 2019:

How to read the table:

• "Frequency All Decks" is the share of Decks that run this unit/commander
• "ppt Δ vs Apr 19" is the change in frequency to the last analysis
• "Δ vs average winrate" is how the winrate decks utilizing this unit/commander deviates from the average 
• "Δ vs average levels" is how the levels of decks utilizing this unit/commander deviate from average 

Units that got more popular:

• Liang +12 ppt – this commander sees use in a wide variety of decks, e.g. Bikerush's MG deck, Alicia's impressive Aggro deck, odd decks like that of Lex[Xen] (see above) and of course Tech decks
• Pitbull +10 ppt – basically, the Pitbull made back the losses from last month, and is still the 2nd most used unit after Missile Troopers
• Droneswarm +8 ppt – but overall usage is still at just 31%, which seems not too much for a cheap infantry option; I wonder if usage will further grow, or if talk about it being too strong is exaggerated
• Honorable mention, as they have similar roles as anti-vehicle infantry and are both up: Jumpjets & Grenadiers +6 ppt each

Units that got less popular:

• Talon -22 ppt – it's still at a strong 33% usage, but probably players who like Drones struggle to find a slot for it, as Pitbulls cover the anti-air well enough
• Jackson -22 ppt – people discovered that both Liang and Strongarm are very allround, so even more Tank decks (who often like Jackson for the speed boost on the Tank) switched to other commanders; but it's still at 24% usage, so far from unviable
• Hammerhead -10 ppt – the HH users still left seem to mostly put it into their deck to really have a strong counter in all situations. These players either afford the slot by means of their strong micro (e.g. Alicia doesn't have Missile Squads in her deck), or by means of high levels (easier to play on 5 cards outside the Hammerhead if you usually have a level advantage)

Popular decks:

• the APC deck didn't grow much in popularity, but still goes strong. From personal experience, I think people adapted and got better at dealing with the APC itself. Still a strong deck, but 4-6 weeks ago, it definitely also benefited from people not reacting ideally to it
• Orca Bomber usage went a bit down; I feel this because of the Stealth Tank. Before StealthTank got so popular, Nod struggled more vs Borcas than GDI, as Bikes both die faster and are harder to micro against Borcas than Pitbulls
• Outside of these two, there seem to be no clear patterns in the decks. Rather, there seems to 

Decks I recommend watching (you can find the players in the top player rankings in the app):

• ZeroHour, as he plays an interesting GDI zero-harvester deck
• AliciaDestiny, as her Liang Aggro deck is very strong, but only in very capable hands (I bet my winrate would drop 20 points if I tried to play her deck)
• Lex[Xen], as he successfully uses Grenadiers and Slingshot, which you might not often see in C&C TV replays otherwise

On the first view, you can see that 2-2-2 is a pretty common type of GDI deck; but there's also some decks with 4 infantry, or 4 air units, and even 4 tech units!

13lade's & Excoundrel's Unit Tiers

Like yesterday for Nod, I also put the data against the unit tiering exercise from 13lade and Excoundrel (I highly recommend to watch their video).

Here, I'm a tiny bit less aligned with them compared to their Nod tiering. Some thoughts:

• I'd see the MG squad clearly in Tier B, as there's some successful decks built around it (e.g. Bikerush), so I'd see it rather as a role player than a "would not recommend to use" unit. 
• I'm not sure if Slingshot yet deserves Tier B. Are there really proven decks that run it successfully? For me, Tier B is e.g. "working niche decks" like Jade, and I don't see it there, yet.
• Grenadier might deserve Tier B as a role player in certain decks, but I admit that I cannot fully judge this.
• I'm not fully sure if I'd really prefer to play Solomon than playing MLRS. Yes, MLRS isn't great, but I feel Solomon ruins a deck's competitiveness more. But well, maybe Tier C vs. Tier D anyways don't matter that much, after all.

Top50 Nod Decks in May – a more diverse meta, but little air presence

[Edit: Find the GDI version here]

A month has passed since my last analysis of the Nod Top 50. Here's finally the new one: What did the Top 50 Nod players in Rivals play so far in the May 2019 season? For info on the methodology used, please check the link above. For the full list of the Top 50 decks, click here.

How to read the table:

• "Frequency All Decks" is the share of Decks that run this unit/commander
• "ppt Δ vs Apr 19" is the change in frequency to the last analysis
• "Δ vs average winrate" is how the winrate decks utilizing this unit/commander deviates from the average (e.g. Artillery decks have a 11 ppt higher winrate)
• "Δ vs average levels" is how the levels of decks utilizing this unit/commander deviate from average (e.g. the 5 Inferno decks on average are just L12.3, 0.7 below the L13.0 total average)

• Top 50 decks on average were L13, up from L12.6 a month ago
• Six players in the Top 50 have decks below L12. All of them run Wheels and Lasers, 4 run Seth and 2 Oxanna
• VictorBansemer with a Stealth Tank / Inferno deck with Seth (interesting, as often Oxanna seems to be an auto-pick for Inferno users)
• Lopatka with a Seth – Laser – Wheel, Chuggy, Tank, Stealth Tank – Banshee deck
• Cheshire with the standard 2-3-1 Aggro deck with Militant and Seth
• r3bb with one of the four remaining Avatar decks, showing that the Avatar might not be completely useless even after the series of hefty nerfs
• marckill with a variation of the 2-3-1 Aggro deck that replaces Scorpion Tank with Stealth Tank
• HayprO with a Giga deck!
• The 11 of the highest-levelled decks (L14+)represent 33% of the sample size in this analysis, indicating that you will meet the higher-level decks a bit more often than the others when you play against Top 50 players. Reasons for this might include:
• It's more fun to play with higher-level decks
• If you really love Rivals, you both are likely to play more and are likely to invest more money into it

Units more used compared to April:

• Bikes +18 ppt – after various decks had replaced it with the Stealth Tank, Bikes are back to be the 2nd most used unit. A key driver for this is the popularity of drones, to which it's the only cheap hard counter. Dealing with only Stealth Tanks and Banshees against Drones is very expensive, and Lasers are pretty slow.  Also, I feel more players learned to micro bikes well e.g. vs the Pitbull.
• Flame Troopers +16 ppt – possibly a reaction to Mutant Marauders, who have such high health that whilst Militants still hard-counter them, they take a lot of time to die. 
• Artillery +10 ppt – no surprise after the recent huge buffs. And even the win rates look very strong, 
• Seth +10 ppt – to me, it seems like a mix of two reasons: Less prevalence of "Oxanna is awesome" decks like Avatar, and the realization of more players that Seth seems a bit stronger in the 2-3-1- Nod Aggro deck, at least in most situations that the current meta brings up.
• Stealth Tank +8 ppt – this all-rounder stays popular. It's a great counter for air units and some specialist vehicles (e.g. Giga, Artillery), and can even work in more conventional situations, taking out Pitbulls, Bikes, damaged Tanks, helping to take down APCs etc.
• Mutant Marauders + 8 ppt – got a huge buff, and more players figuring out the usefulness especially in combination with Chem buggy, also thanks to 13lade's videos

Units less used than in May:

• Militant -22 ppt – both the twin of the increase in Flame Trooper usage, and the result of fewer tech decks (e.g. Avatar) that make the cheap Militant especially attractive to save money for the Tech switch
• Oxanna -14 ppt – see Seth and Avatar; but it's still the most used commander, as it is favored by Tech players, and still works with Aggro and Inferno decks
• Scorpion Tank -12 ppt – more decks don't have space for it (Stealth tank or Giga) or the Mutant Marauders taking it's role
• Avatar -10 ppt – a result from the series of Nerfs
• Banshee -10 ppt – this is a result of a wider range of viable decks at top tier, so can be seen as a positive thing. The Banshee is still strong, but Nod players see more options without it, e.g. through Mutant Marauders

The following table shows the # of decks that have a certain # of units in the deck. For example, 38 decks have excatly 2 infantry units, and 21 decks have 0 air units. If we look a bit deeper, we find that 24 decks have exactly 2 inantry, 2 vehicles and 1 air unit. You could argue that whilst there are a number of viable meta decks in a number of variants, the structural diversity of Nod play is relatively low. 

Especially the lack of decks that utilize at least 2 air units is extreme. Inferno decks are not using Phantom anymore, and Laser Drones and Venom don't seem viable enough. So usually, it's no air or the Banshee.

Comparison with the "Unit Tiers" from Excoundrel, 13lade and StrikerVX

Just today, Excoundrel released a great video, discussing all units and commanders of both factions together with top player 13lade (also check out my recent interview with 13lade), and sorting them into "Tiers", with "S" being the top tier, and then A-D tiering the units from better to worse. I highly recommend to watch this video, so why not just embed it here:

Below, you can find a table where I combined this tiering info with the data from the Top 50 Nod decks. I removed the "unit type" info, as I re-sorted the units by the tier from the video above.

What's interesting is that just from the numbers, you could argue that Artillery and Inferno were under--estimated by 13lade in his tiering. But there's two important thoughts I have on this:

1. The numbers can "lie". E.g. the Inferno and Artillery players in the Top 50 could just be more talented than the average, driving up the winrates of these units without them needing to be particularly strong.
2. 13lade argues from the perspective of a top-tier player. It might well be that he struggles less with certain units like Artillery and Inferno, which can be tricky to deal with if you have a bit less skill and/or experience.

Hope you enjoyed this read. If yes, please upvote this Reddit thread so other players also see it. Stay tuned for the GDI version of this, which will arrive shortly!

teRror-rize your opponents with Jade & Chem Warriors

Edit Oct 2019: There's a newer version of the Jade deck that is very popular recently. Read about it here.

A month ago, about 10% of the top Nod decks utilized Jade as commander. When I soon re-do this analysis, I would not be surprised if that number has grown a bit. In recent weeks, more players have discovered that the recent buff to Chem Warriors to their vehicle damage made them even more viable.

Chem Warriors are hard to deal with for many decks, as they hold their ground against a variety of anti-Infantry, and can even beat Scorpion Tank in a hypothetical 1on1 (that in practice of course is rare and doesn't really play a role).

For Jade decks, Chem Warrior overall is the superior choice over Chem Buggies for a number of reasons:

• For a potential missile on the enemy base, Chem Warriors have a better chance to survive long enough to spray some clouds
• For a Jade rocket in a fight, they have the advantage that it's a bit easier to spread the chem clouds in a targeted manner. The Chem Buggies' raider ability is strong, but means that it's often a bit harder to have it attack a particular hex
• Also, the high hitpoints of the Chem Warrior mean it can often survive a bit against Tech units to then, with a Jade rocket, destroy one or multiple tech units. The Chem Buggy will often just instantly melt against tech

Still, it's far from easy to successfully utilize a Jade / Chem Warrior deck. Especially as beautifully as you see in the gif below, posted by Silvercruise (I don't know if he also played that game, but he certainly could have, as he is a very strong player who recently ruined 13lade's tournament run by winning the single match that 13lade dropped in his 14-1 run). 

Silvercruise in action. He also has a YouTube channel, of which I'm the proud second subscriber. Maybe we can get that up a bit as well to motivate him to do more Rivals videos?

Instead of writing a full-blown Jade guide (which I'm also not the right person for), I wanted to draw your attention to the YouTube channel of teRror. He's a strong player with a love for Jade decks, and regularly uploads videos on YouTube. Whilst they don't have audio commentary, they are nice bite-sized food when you want 5 minutes Rivals, but can't play right now. Some examples:

Jade vs Jade with Mutant Marauders

Jade vs Artillery

Jade vs Jade with an attack on the base

Jade vs Juggernaut

Interview with 13lade – “The #1 issue with Rivals is that people simply don’t know it exists”

Today, our guest is one of the most popular Rivals players: Henry ‘13lade’ Channing, a 29-year old Englishman from London. He’s known not just for his regular strong showings in the Rivals ladder, but also for appearing in tournaments such as the Rivals Launch Celebration , and for his entertaining and insightful YouTube and Twitch channels.

Some highlight quotes from the interview:

• “Don’t make two harvesters & don’t try too hard to preserve units”
• “Nod Artillery is absolutely terrifying right now”
• "I think I actually play better overall on my Phone than I do on PC"
• “The #1 issue with Rivals is that people simply don’t know it exists”
• “I stream pretty much every weekday from around 3pm my time (GMT or BST) to about 8pm and then again from 11pm on Friday”

13lade represented Europe at the Rivals Launch Celebration

Q: Hey 13lade! Thanks for doing this interview! Tell us a bit about your backgrund: What brought you to Rivals and YouTube?

13lade: Hi, thanks for having me here. I’m a huge fan of this blog and read everything you post! I especially like the season reports on unit usage. I’ve been playing games for almost my whole life, starting with Prince of Persia (the 1989 original) which me and my brother played on a black and white monitor, which was a nightmare as there were healing and poison potions in the game which could only be distinguished by colour.

I got into Rivals because my friend Dragoon, who I met through playing Company of Heroes, (one of the best RTS’ of all time), works on the game and got me into the beta. I kept playing because I think it’s a fantastic RTS that deconstructs the arduous macro usually required by real time strategy games, significantly reducing the barrier to entry and requirement for very high APM (actions per minute).


Q: Are there any multiplayer games that you played competitively before? Which ones?

13lade: My favourite genre is strategy and I mostly split my time between Rivals and Magic: The Gathering where I play for Team Axion Now, although I’m going to be streaming my new Battle Brothers campaign which is one of my favourite games of all time (check out the first episode here).

I also played Company of Heroes and Dawn of War 2 on a semi-serious level, although there wasn’t much of a tournament scene for them. I played Heroes of Newerth semi-competitively with my brother but we never made it out of the tier 2 teams.

13lade's 10-0 run through the latest event, along with insights on why he chose this deck

Q: You’re one of the most popular Rivals YouTubers, not just because you play very well, but because you also manage to give pretty good and insightful commentary whilst playing. Do you feel that commenting your game distracts you significantly?

13lade: I try to talk through my process as I’m playing and I’d say most of the time it doesn’t distract me too much, although those who watch me often will notice I do tend to get quieter as a game gets more intense. I’d say that all my backup processing power goes into the commentary so when I’m completely focused on the game there’s nothing left to provide comments!


Q: With Nod you currently mostly play the 2-3-1 Nod aggro deck in the Seth/Militant variant. It’s a very strong deck, and a very versatile one. With which decks (or maps) do you think this deck struggles the most with?

13lade: This is a great deck specifically because it has so few things it really struggles with. I’d say the Suzaku GDI (Strongarm – Rifle, Missile – Pitbull, APC – Drones, Orca)is actually one of the harder things to fight which is likely why that GDI deck has become popular. It’s very difficult to fight Drone Swarm and Orca at the same time unless you tech into Banshees which requires a large investment of resources.

Usually you can make good economic trades with Nod Aggro due to the use of multiple 10-20 cost units, but Drone Swarm and Orca don’t allow you to do this. Nod Aggro also used to suffer at the hands of Avatar and MG, but with all the avatar/MG nerfs they simply aren’t as scary as they used to be. I will also add that a new deck that is emerging (coined “Beefwall” by CopyCatTV) that uses Chem Warriors or Buggies combined with Mutant Marauders. This can be a very hard fight, as your low-cost units don’t have the DPS to remove Mutant Marauders or Chem Warriors in a reasonable time frame.

Nod Aggro profits heavily from maps with 3 pads that are spread out, since you have cheap highly mobile units and access to the Seth drill pod, which is much more powerful if you can deploy it shortly before a missile fires next to a far away ‘safe’ enemy pad to contest it. So I’d say any map that fits that description is best for Nod Aggro. Maps that are more enclosed and have touching pads are are less good for this deck.


Q: Since the buff, the Artillery has also become more popular. You played it in ladder against the Korean player with his 92% winrate Artillery deck, and you even played against it in RTL when you met Alarak. What’s your thoughts on the Artillery right now, and what are the decks in which it works well?

13lade: Nod Artillery, at a cost of 90 Tiberium, is absolutely terrifying right now. There are very few ground units that can approach it realistically. If it’s defended by Stealth Tanks, which one-shots most air units, it can be almost unbreakable. Artillery is actually another matchup Nod Aggro can really struggle with!

Having said that, Artillery is still locked behind the 120 Tiberium ‘Tech’ paywall and therefore forces you to play with one less unit for a large portion of the game. If the Artillery doesn’t have a big impact as soon as you make it, then you usually can’t catch back up.

So my thoughts on Artillery are that the unit itself is very scary and probably too strong but the inherent weaknesses of tech units leave it as not a desirable ladder option, if you make an Artillery and it turns out your opponent has an Orca Bomber, you’re going to be very sad a lot of the time. In fact that’s exactly what happened when I played Alarak. I was expecting him to make Artillery, so i brought an Orca Bomber deck and easily destroyed his Artillery as soon as he made it.

I think the optimal Artillery deck must include Stealth Tank and probably uses Oxanna. As with most decks that have a single very powerful unit, I actually like the Nukin Artillery deck the most (Oxanna – Militant or Flames, Laser – Wheels, Bikes, Stealth Tank – Artillery).

Q: With GDI, you currently play the meta APC deck (Strongarm – Rifle, Missile – Pitbull, APC – Drones, Orca). What do you think is it’s key weakness?

13lade: The APC meta deck’s key weakness is probably it’s inability to aggressively pressure double harvester builds. Orca is really the only unit you have that is good for harvester pressure and it comes out quite late after a Barracks opening. The deck is also reasonably weak to Pitbulls that are micro’d well as Orcas struggle to chase them down. I think the deck is riding the power of drones (especially against Nod who really struggle to remove a Drone Swarm) and the resilience of APC to be successful. Also when Strongarm is good, she’s easily the best commander in the game and most meta decks at the moment make strongarm good.


Q: Which deck (or unit) would you love to play, but don’t because it’s not viable at the moment?

13lade: The answer to this question has been Stealth Tank for almost all of rival’s history, but Stealth Tank is great right now so I can’t really say that. I guess I’d have to say Snipers. The health nerf and the introduction of Cyber Wheels have really put a damper on Sniper play.

After we talked so much about deck, this video just fits: 13lade runs 10 very different decks in a single event, and explains what their idea is

Q: Are there maps you particularly like? What new types of map would you like to see more of?

13lade: I’m a big fan of Lone Spire, Fighting Pit and The Cauldron, and I hate Half and Half, Canal Row and Hidden Gems. I’m quite a defensive player, so I like maps where the fighting is congregated in a central location and micro plays a big role. And I hate maps that have a separate path to the Harvester as those regularly favour higher levels since you can just bully and win 1v1s in two separate lanes.

I’d like to see some more maps that are simply interesting and unique. I really like the new map Castaway for this reason and actually quite like Blindspot as well because it provides a totally different assessment of units, you can’t just play your cookie-cutter ladder build and expect to do well. Having said that, I strongly dislike those types of maps for ranked because you don’t know you’ll be playing on them before you pick your deck.

13lade’s favorite maps

Maps 13lade dislikes

Q: Thanks for giving your next tournament opponents some ideas for map picks … just kidding.

AliciaDestiny recently posted on Reddit with a couple of suggestions to the devs, and a sense of urgency, as she’s concerned about the future of the game, sustainability of player numbers etc. What’s your take on this? What could EA (or the community) do to make Rivals more popular?

13lade: I think people do love to say ‘the end is nigh’ or ‘the game is dead’. I’m not sure why this is so popular but it does seem that naysaying is a favourite pastime.  Having said that, it is clear that Rivals didn’t take off the way we all would’ve liked.  I think the #1 issue with Rivals is that people simply don’t know it exists. 

There are many popular YouTubers who were clearly paid to make one video for Rivals but their lack of passion for, or knowledge about, the game is obvious when you watch and it does not come across well. For many of these popular YouTubers, their random Rivals video is their least watched video.

EA simply needs to give some advertising for Rivals and let people know how great the game can be. What Alicia suggested (having two players who are actually very good at the game face off in a publicised event) I think would be great, but really just any kind of exposure is what the game needs, be that simply advertising or pushing more content. Rivals has progressed a lot since release and people need to know that the game is really good!

As a community I think one of the biggest issues is the lukewarm response community tournaments get. People claim they want a thriving tournament scene but then don’t bother to even sign up the tournaments we do have!  

[Note: If you want to play tournaments, join these discords:

• CNC Battles (also has a website, but it's currently down)
• Rivals Team League (currently first season is running)]

Q: One of the things that could help is tournaments that get exposure beyond the core community of players who are active on YouTube and Discord. As a player and a YouTuber, what type of tournaments or show matches do you think would work both for players, and to reach as many people as possible on YouTube? (e.g. the devs sending an ingame message with links to YouTube videos of tournament finals / show matches etc.)

13lade: Going back to my previous comment, I think one of the bigger issues is that people often don’t even sign up to the tournaments that do exist. Having said that any kind of support from the developers could go a long way to improving the competitive scene. Even something as simple as what you suggest – an in-game message advertising the community tournaments and perhaps linking some streamers and/or YouTubers who will be hosting the event could do a lot to alleviate the feeling that rivals esports is dead and will never rise from the grave. I actually think Redwood could run some in-game tournaments using the champions system. The 15 games events are nice but they’re not a real tournament.


Q: Another concern of many players is that it’s getting ever harder for new players to “catch up”, even if they spend a bit of money. Do you think this is an issue? What could be a tweak that allows especially new players to catch up in unit levels, without reducing the game’s overall monetization potential?

13lade: I think they’ve already done many, many things to push the game in this direction. Back when the infamous Derek arrived on the scene and was the first to run L15 units, he had to spend thousands to get units to 15. And they were often not even very playable units due to the way colossal crates leveled up epics. These days you can spend a few hundred on labs and get a competitive deck quite quickly.

I do believe a better way to gain Diamonds in game for free would be great though, there’s a lot of ways to spend diamonds now but no way to get them outside of spending which adds to the feelings of a paywall. Although honestly I do think it’s a little unrealistic to pick up a game of this nature months after release and expect to ‘catch up’ without significant time or money, games with progression require progression.

13lade playing an infantry only deck with Nod

Q: What would be one thing you’d like to change in the game or app outside of unit balance (e.g. layout, quality of life)?

13lade: A way to always skip crate contents, and a way to turn off the vault animation. Permanent emote muting should also be available. In terms of new features I’d love to see alliance wars and 2v2!


Q: Good ideas! I recently pondered how the devs could implement a Rivals 2v2 mode without huge reworks. Other question: Do you play on PC, on Mobile, or both? Do you think playing on PC is a relevant advantage, or doesn’t it matter much?

13lade: I play on both, I use to use my phone to stream but it was very taxing for my eyes to play long periods of time using the tiny phone screen, also it’s significantly easier to stream from PC so usually I now use PC for streaming. I use the Bluestacks emulator for anyone wondering. In terms of advantage, I think I actually play better overall on my Phone than I do on PC. The game is very, very well designed for touch screen and touch screen wins out over mouse in my opinion. The only tangible advantage emulator gives in my opinion is hotkeys, which is similar to simply using both hands on mobile device.


Q: Last question on Rivals: What is your #1 tipp for newer players who want to improve at Rivals?

13lade: If you’re coming from a strategy background: Don’t try too hard to preserve units! Normally in RTS unit preservation is extremely important but in Rivals, pop cap (the limit the number of units you can build) is a real cost so you need to know when to throw away a unit that isn’t useful anymore (especially cheap ones). For anyone simply new to rivals I’d advise don’t make two harvesters, it’s usually a mistake and it’s a bad habit to get into.


Q: What plans do you have for your streaming and YouTube? E.g. do you have a fixed schedule for streaming? New video formats planned?

13lade: I stream pretty much every weekday from around 3pm my time (GMT or BST) to about 8pm and then again from 11pm on Friday for the Coliseum event which is a lot of fun. As I mentioned earlier I’m planning to stream my new Battle Brothers campaign which I will also be uploading to YouTube. I’m still trying out new video formats but at the moment the event runs are in my opinion the most interesting as those are usually played at equal levels which makes for proper gameplay. I’m also planning some more comedy videos soon and potentially a collaboration with Excoundrel!

13lade also uploads some other videos to his YouTube channel – here's episode 1 of the Battle Brothers campaign he talked about in the interview 

Q: Thanks for taking the time for this interview, 13lade! Any other messages you want to get out to readers?

13lade: Come join our discord communities (13lade Discord, Official Rivals Discord & our Alliance Discord) and keep practicing that micro!

Where you can find more from 13ade

• 13lade's YouTube channel
• 13lade's Twitch channel
• 13lade's Discord channel
• 13lade on Twitter

Read more interviews with Command & Conquer Rivals players and personalities!

A 2v2 mode for Rivals? (and other ideas)

Recently, there were some critical posts on Reddit by very active Rivals players and community contributors. Omeleet announced that he might stop playing Rivals, and AliciaDestiny voiced her worries about the growth of the player base. These are not two random complaints, but they come from people who really understand the game, and contribute a lot to the community (see the interviews with Alicia and Omeleet to learn more about the two).

To paraphrase, their combined worries are:

1. The player base isn't growing, and EA / Redwood seem to do little about it (be it performance marketing, or increasing the buzz about the game with events, tournaments etc.)
2. To many players, the design of events, their rewards and unit levels (like the recent new War Games) seems like milking the existing player base too much for short-term gain.
3. The game might benefit from new content to appeal to certain audiences better; Alicia suggested 2v2.

In this post, I want to comment on these topics, and try to provide some suggestions to Redwood that try to strike a balance between effort, their interests, and the players' interests.

Events & Monetization

First, let's start with what I like about what Redwood recently did:

1. Higher frequency of events. I think two events a week are great, and help both with diversity of play, and also to balance lower rewards for the free run with keeping total rewards for players up.
2. Event diversity. Especially unranked (L6 cap) and the new War Games format.

At the same time, I think there is room for improvement to meet players' criticism whilst maintaining alignment with the interests of Redwood / EA.

1. Lower the Level Cap for War Games. I believe this can even help strengthen monetization of the game, because:
• War Games makes players test new units
• If the level cap is lower (e.g. L8-9 for Masters), a higher share of players can test these units in a fair, competitive situation
• This can make players want to play with these units longer-term, which then can incentivize spend (e.g. by buying the premium track rewards, which could supply exactly these units)
• The lower level cap also means Redwood could bring in newer units, which is in their interest, as they are connected to spending money
2. Make War Games Reruns a bit cheaper. I believe this is win-win, as the likelihood for a player to want to play a unit outside of the event increases if they play them 20 or 30 times rather than just 10.

Even if the devs are not convinced that this will work better for them, I recommend them to try. It would be appreciated by the community, which I think is important at this stage.

F2P Rewards

There are concerns that the free rewards got worse. I personally believe that this criticism is sometimes a bit too harsh, because:

• As a comparison that things got worse, people often use the best events of the past
• Higher frequency of events (partially) compensates for lower free-run rewards
• At least for players who play a lot (~30 games a day), cloning vats and the changes to the credit-for-games mechanics were positive.

At the same time, the criticism is understandable and justified in many areas. Yet, there are some things I'd strongly recommend to Redwood. Most of them are not costing them a cent, as they just require better active communication.

1. Actively communicate that you plan to keep a 2 events / week frequency, and that you plan to keep the majority of them at lower levels. This allows players to consider the frequency of events (= more free runs) when evaluating the overall economy. If there's 2x the amount of events, it is ok if the free rewards are only about half as good.
2. Actively communicate what the plans to bring back more Diamond rewards for free-to-play players are. Redwood announced this in the Reddit AMA, but it's not going to make players happier unless they know what exactly is coming, and when.
3. It's okay to make your monetization and reward structure a bit opaque in the app. But be more straight-forward and open with your core community on Reddit and Discord, they will appreciate it. For example, you could publish tables for card+credit rewards for the free runs of events. Most players will not read this anyways, but your vocal, core community will appreciate a lot if you treat them like adults.

Buzz for YouTube

I do love Alicia's idea to bring top players to E3 to demonstrate how great high-level play in this game is. Yet, I realize that this cannot be done in the short amount of time until then, and there might be more important areas of focus for EA.

That's why I want to recommend a simple thing would help a bit and not cost EA a single dollar:

A weekly community update in the in-game message. You do have a community manager who reads everything on Reddit. She or he or could gather some top videos every week, and turn them into an in-game message. This is win-win-win:

• A win for your casual players, who get links to good YouTube videos for entertainment & learn about the game
• A win for your YouTubers, who get more views and followers. (And it's also a nice way for the devs to say thank you to the YouTubers.)
• A win for EA / Redwood, as ...
• It reduces player churn: Casual players who watch YouTube videos on Rival are more likely to stay with the game
• It can bring new players: More views and likes on good Rivals videos mean they will also reach more other viewers on YouTube. Great YouTube videos are one of the best ways to get 
• It's also a win for the community, as it would show that the developers care about them

The ideal setup would be:

1. An article on the game website every week, embedding the videos. This also shows to website visitors that this is an active game with an active community
2. A post on the Rivals Subreddit with all the videos
3. Tweet the link to article & Reddit post
4. An in-game message with direct links to all videos, and the EA website article

But for starters, the most important thing would be to just link the videos with a short 1-sentence description each directly from the in-game message.

For example, this week, the following videos could be put into the "Rivals Videos of the Week" message:

13lade's Top 10 Replayes

Bikerush's War Games Run

Alicia's LIANG IS SAVAGE video

One of terRor's replays:

CaptainBenzie's updated Droneswarm report:

The total effort for the community manager / social media manager should be less than 1 hour per week for the basic version of this. Hell, this whole blog post here cost me less than 2 hours!

2v2 mode

Another of Alicia's ideas, and various other people also asked for it in the past. The very valid concerns are:

1. Is it even viable? Would you not need larger maps? How should that work on the mobile screen?
2. Isn't it way too much effort for the developers?

I thought about it, and came up with the following idea that could work well for a lot of causal players, and hopefully be not too much effort for the developers.

The general game mechanic is unchanged. Yet, each player's activities are split into two roles:

• Generals (or Strategists) 
• These guys bring the decks (and with it, their unit levels)
• They spend the Tiberium, i.e. ...
• Build harvesters
• Build buildings
• Build units
• Use commander abilities
• Field Commanders (or Tacticians)
• They control the units

On first view, it might feel that the first role is boring. But I don't think so. Even just watching the game is cool for many people. And as the "General", you get to bring the deck, and make a lot of in-game decisions.

I even feel this could work well for certain types of causal players:

• People with weaker micro could prefer the General role. They get to build interesting decks and heavily influence the strategy.
• People with strong micro but low unit levels might be able to get to the top of the 2v2 ladder as Tacticians by playing with other people's units.
• People with high unit levels ("whales") could enjoy utilizing them in a different way.
• In some situations, you might feel you can be the "General", but don't have the focus to be the "Field Commander".

The match making could be relatively simple: 

• You chose 2v2 mode, and then one of the two roles
• As "General", you then chose faction and deck as usual
• For each role, you have a separate medal count for the match making

The implementation could be relatively straight-forward, Yes, it needs rework of the netcode etc., but it's far from the issues with a totally different game mode that would need different maps, different balancing,

What's your take on this? What could EA / Redwood do without huge effort or cost to help Rivals and it's community?

First Rivals "War Games" analysis: Which deck to play?

There's a new type of event coming to Rivals: War Games. The idea is that you need to create a deck for this event from a limited number of cards. I love this idea, as I feel it's important for the developers to try new things and provide a more diverse experience for the players.

Let's look at the available units for the first War Games:

• GDI only
• All commanders
• All infantry
• Just the light vehicles
• And the lighter air

In my view, this selection is a bit odd, as some units nearly rule themselves out:

• There's no heavy vehicles, so why do you need Jumpjets or Mohawks?
• All cheap Mohawk and Jumpjet counters are in the deck (Missile Troopers, Pitbull, Talon for Mohawk; Rifle, Shock, Dogs, Drones, Talon for Jumpjets).

Taking Mohawk / Jumpjet out, we're down to 10 units left. Additional thoughts:

• No one can play tech or tank rushes. This means Aggro decks can possibly afford to prioritize pad charging left.
• No one will play double harvester, so you can't fall behind economically as much. Also, no Bike rushes possible, and Pitbull rushes aren't a thing. But MG likelihood high. This means opening with a scout before harvester seems advisable. With plenty of anti-infantry (and maybe even some Drone openers?), Dog before Harvester seems the right opener.
• Dogs in means you'll also run Pitbull.
• Dogs and no Mohawk probably mean you will play no air, or Drones or Talons. 
• If you play Dogs, would not play Rifles. This means there's just 4 infantry left: Shocks, Snipers, Missiles; MGs
• As Shocks + Snipers are overkill, this leaves 3 infantry.
• Jackson (no expensive strong units to boost) and Solomon seem not like great ideas. Liang at best with MG. So Strongarm seems best.

By exclusion, this leaves the following deck:

• Strongarm (maybe Liang if you love Liang+MG)
• Missile, MG, Shock OR Sniper
• Dogs, Pitbull
• Drones OR Talon

Personally, I'd probably go for Strongarm, Sniper (for some additional option against set-up MGs) and Talon (vs MG Drones are also great, but Talon are more versatile vs the Drones that will be plentiful, and maybe the odd Mohawk).

On the other hand... maybe we should play Rhino?

• The decks will be cheap, but most likely you'll still run a harvester. With this deck, you will have surplus money that is better spent on Rhino than on Wardogs (this can also be a (weak) argument for Mohawk, as Tiberium sink)
• Rhino is a decent counter vs both light air, all the infantry and even set-up MGs (not great, but better than many other options)
• So flipping out Wardogs for Rhino might be an idea. The downside is: What's your opener then against a potential MG rush? You'd possibly need to take Rifles back in and open Rifle first.

The surplus money argument can also speak for Jumpjets over Missiles. Yes, there's just really Pitbulls, but you might want to be able to chase them down. And there are not too many units where you absolutely need Missiles (except if you plan to open with an MG/Missile rush).

Anyways, whilst the choice of viable decks might seem a bit limited, there's still some interesting consideration that show how fun this type of event can be. And at least the games will be interesting even in mirror matches, as it's pretty micro-intensive units. I for one look forward to the event!