Nod Top50 in June 2019: Calm before the Scavenger Storm?

Edit: The GDI list for June is out!

It's this time of the month again: What decks do the Top 50 Nod players in the Command & Conquer Rivals Ladder play?

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.

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.

How to read the table:

• "Frequency" is the share of Decks that run this unit or commander.
• The months show the % for the last 4 months
• The bar chart is a visualization of the frequency this month
• "Trend" shows a small trendline for the last 4 months 
• "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) 
• "Tier" shows a tiering assigned by 13lade and StrikerVX in a video about a month ago, order being S, A, B, C, D from top to bottom. As some new units were added, and some balance changes occurred, I assigned some tiers in a second column (purely my opinion, not vetted by 13lade or StrikerVX)

Major Trends:

• Anti Infantry
• Venom made a comeback after it's buff. As it's just at 15%, this buff seemed to have been very balanced
• Wheels were nerfed, and usage went down to a still-strong 66%. Also a good sign, especially 
• Fanatic was introduced and enjoys signifiant popularity at 23%, despite most players not having it at strong levels. It's a strong unit with some map dependence (stronger on maps with connected pads or key choke points, as it benefits from pitched battles with multiple units it can buff when dying
• Overall, a very nice increase in diversity of the anti-infantry play
• Artillery is widely recognized as being very strong now, and there's complaints about it being too strong. Yet, there's just 13% decks with it in the Top 50. It might be partly down to taste or levels, but I'd say that it's the fact that Artillery decks are a bit too hit-or-miss for the taste of many top players. Especially against Borca decks, it's not a great option. And with Borca's prevalence, top Nod players might just prefer more all-round decks. 
• Cyborg sees a bit of a resurgence thanks to Artillery, as some players like to pair these two (albeit the better option seems to have Artillery as the sole Tech unit and to play on single harvester)
• Marauder usage went up to 21% despite the nerf, which is of course also because last month, the Marauder was still pretty new
• Stealth Tank usage is still strong at 40%, but down from the 58% last month after it was nerfed
• Jade usage went up a small notch and is at an all-time high. 
• This includes strong players like CrazyPsychopath and Magni, whose Jade decks are at L12, which illustrates that Jade works reasonably well without level advantage 
• Jade decks are pretty diverse. Of the 7, there's 5 different decks (i.e. just 2 duplicates). 3 Chuggy/Marauder decks, 3 with air 3 without etc.
• Scavenger sees no major play yet, albeit many of the top players tested it. Below, find a great video from 13lade that indicates their strength.

Other Observations:

• Average level of the Top 50 decks increased another 0.4 points month-on-month to 13.4. You would expect this to slow down due to the exponential nature of upgrading cost. My theory why it's still growing fast is that there's a high frequency of events with premium tracks which are comparatively attractive compared to most other paid options. So the players who are willing to pay a certain amount per month can progress faster than in the past.
• The ladder seems a bit bugged: RussoMau is still on #6 even though he didn't play a single game. I also ignored him in the analysis.
• The number of games played by the top 50 decks trended 10k, 8k, 10k, 8k in the last 3 months. As the top value was in May, there's no clear downtrend in my view. Some top players like AliciaDestiny Bikerush certainly play less than in the past, but there's other players "picking up the slack". Another factor is of course deck diversity. My guesstimate would be that there's more players than in the past who play more than one deck a significant amount in a month, which might mean that the share of these 50 decks of the actual total playing volume of the 50 players has decreased.

Highlighted players if you look for new sources for interesting replays:

• Alarak plays a Nod aggro with Phantom, and doesn't even have full L12, yet. The clou: He plays Phantom, which gives him a hard counter against certain decks/units, but sacrifices some flexibility against many widely used decks. For example, without a Banshee, Predators are a menace. Watch his games if you love Scorpion tank micro. Here's a step-by-step analysis of one of his games.
• VictorBansemer is the sole Inferno player in the Top50, and he does it with an L11 deck and at a strong winrate of more than 70%!
• Lopatka is an impressive player, who made Top50 with an L11 Marauder/Chuggy deck. He also plays some other intreresting variants and is another recommendation if you love to see outlevelled underdogs take wins. 
• CrazyPsychopath plays different decks, but this season used a Jade/Chem Warrior/Marauder deck the most. He and Magni are my recommendation for Jade fans!
• HayprO is your go-to-guy if you love the Giga Cannon. With an L12 deck, he racks up a very impressive 79% winrate thanks to his skilled Broodwar / StarCraft 2 pedigree
• There's a Tick Tank deck in the Top 50! See the deck below. Admittedly, the reason why the deck works is not the Tick Tank, but the L15 buggies. This player usually (always?) rushes with Buggy and then follows up with either more Buggies or Bikes, depending on what the opponent builds. If you don't have high enough levels, this can be so tough.