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