GDI Top 50 – June 2019 – Play Borca, APC or Liang

Yesterday, I already released the Nod list. Now, it's time for the monthly GDI update: What decks do the Top 50 GDI players in the Command & Conquer Rivals Ladder play?

A new feature this month is that I show the frequency of the previous 4 month both in %, and as a small trendline. This should give you a better feeling for how the meta changed over time.

• Please find the raw data here, incl. a full list of the decks including nicknames, if you want to find a player who plays a certain unit or deck.
• Average deck level went up from 12.7 to 13.5, a larger jump than with Nod. But last month's jump was very small, over 2 months the increase is comparable to Nod. 
• There's 4 full L15 decks and only 2 decks below L12 (VictorBansemer and onibank). It seems that it's harder to play GDI without levels than Nod, the 6 lowest decks have at best a 70% winrate, whereas with Nod, there's similarly levelled decks that even have above 80% winrate.
• 2.1 infantry, 1.8 vehicles, 1.3 air and 0.6 tech units make up the average deck. This is nearly identical to last month, the changes are within 0.1 each.

Now to the main data, the unit frequency. How to read the table below:

• "Frequency" is the share of Decks that run this unit or commander. First, the frequency in % over last 4 months is shown. Then, a bar chart visualizes the June frequency. Third, there is a small line chart that shows the trend over the last 4 months.
• "Δ vs average winrate" is how the winrate decks utilizing this unit/commander deviates from the average (e.g. Grenadier Decks having a 5 percentage points lower winrate)
• "Δ vs average levels" is how the levels of decks utilizing this unit/commander deviate from average (e.g. the Grenadiers are on average at L12.9, 0.6 levels below the L13.5 average for all units) 

Observations:

• Commanders
• Liang took the top spot with now 38%, it also stays the most versatile commander, being used in Tank decks, Tech decks, MG decks, but also some others
• 8 of 13 Strongarm users also are APC users
• 9 of 15 Jackson users also are Borca users
• Infantry
• Missile / Rifle is still the go-to infantry duo due to the low cost and versatility, making it a good choice for both aggro, air/Borca and tech decks
• Sniper went up from 10% to 24%, whereas Shocks declined from 27% to 14%. Indeed, in today's meta, there seems to be little upside to play Shocks, whereas Snipers have their unique range.
• Grenadier usage didn't increase much despite the recent buff
• Vehicles
• APC further grew in popularity, and now 26% of decks contain it. 6 of the 10 APC decks are the "Suzaku APC" variant with Rifle-Missile / Pitbull-APC / Drone-Orca. 
• Slingshot now sees 10% usage after it's speed buff.
• Air
• Orca usage decreased, but nearly half of all decks without Borca play it (both together don't really make sense)
• Borca (Orca Bomber) usage grew significantly from 12% to 28%
• Drones also went up a bit to now 38%. 
• Tech
• Sandstorm and Mammoth continue to be the most played Tech units
• As in previous months, all GDI tech units see some usage

Players to watch:

• Borca: Two players have 70% winrate with just L12 decks. Their Borca variants:
• r3bb: Rifle, Jumpjets - Pitbull, Slingshot(!) - Drones, Borca - Jackson (1 harv)
• Hussein Tamvan: Rifle, Missile, MG - Pitbull - Hammerhead, Borca - Liang (2 harv)
• Sniper/Slingshot/Solomon: MavMitchell has an impressive 88% winrate with L12 deck with Rifle, Missile, Sniper - Pitbull, Slingshot, Tank - and Solomon!
• Grenadier/Sniper: Watch Vertigo or LemonLyman
• Tank/Liang: Watch AliciaDestiny with her Tank/Pitbull micro with Liang
• APC: Just watch the original: Suzaku
• Tech: BigBellyMario continues to be the most successful Tech player. He has 77% winrate with just L12.2 and a deck with Missile, Shock - Disruptor, Kodiak, Sandstorm, Mammoth. This is the guy who even played Liang in the Top 50 when it still cost 70 Tiberium!

Note on methodology: I try to pick the most relevant deck of the players, which is ideally the deck that has the largest sample size this month and was recently used in ladder play. I excluded two decks that had a sample size of below 30. You can find the raw data here, including detail on the decks of the Top 50.