- Please find the raw data here, incl. a full list of the decks including nicknames
- Average deck level went up by +0.3 to 13.8
- Average deck composition is 2.1 infantry (+/-0), 1.0 vehicles (+/-0), 1.4 air (+0.1) and 0.6 (-0.1) tech units. In the chart below, you can see how often decks have which unit type in the deck. For example, you can see that a quarter of the decks don't play with Vehicles, and a quarter don't play Air.
Now to the main data, the unit frequency table. How to read the table below:
- "Frequency" is the share of Decks that run this unit or commander. First, the frequency in % over last months is shown. Then, a bar chart visualizes the June frequency, and a +/- number shows the change to the previous month. Lastly, 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. Inferno decks had a 6% higher winrate compared to the average)
- "Δ vs average levels" is how the levels of decks utilizing this unit/commander deviate from average (e.g. decks utilizing the Inferno are 0.3 levels higher than the average)
Observations:
- The Rifle / Missile duo has gained even further popularity. 30 of the 50 decks have both.
- As expected, Droneswarm usage is up +50% vs previous month due to the recent buff
- MLRS and APC have both gained in popularity and now stand at 16% / 24% usage respectively. Two decks field both.
- Strongarm is up in popularity, explained by (a) the drone swarm buff making the Suzaku APC deck (Rifle, Missle - Pitbull, APC - Drones, Orca) more viable again (which employs Strongarm). 7 Decks are that archetype, some of them using Talon and/or Mohawk as air options.
- Liang is down after the cost increase from 40 to 50, by more than what Strongarm gained. Jackson gained a couple of points instead. 6 of the 13 Jackson decks use the Tech lab.
- The moderate Mammoth nerf had some effect, but still every fifth deck fields it.
- Titan is used in 10% of the decks, some of them quite successful. Benven2 should be mentioned here, having 96% winrate (on 30 games) with Titan and Zone Troopers. taiga2 gets an hnorable mention for playing a low level (12.2 average) deck with Titan and Sandstorm in the Top 50.
- 72% of decks use one of the "Bombers", i.e. Mohawk, Orca or Orca Bomber. Unsurprisingly, no deck has more than one of these options.
- Comparing with Nod, some "underusage differences" by looking at which units get used by less than 10% of decks:
- Infantry: GDI 1 vs Nod 3 (Shocks vs Scavenger, Scarab, Flames)
- Vehicles: GDI 3 vs Nod 1 (Rhino, Shatterer, MSV vs Tick Tank)
- Air: GDI 1 vs Nod 1 (Hammerhead vs Inferno)
- Tech: GDI 4 vs Nod 9 (Wolverine, Disruptor, Juggernaut, Kodiak vs all)
Levels vs Winrate
Obviously, it's easier to get a high winrate with high levels. The below chart illustrates the two variables. The trend line shows the "average impact" of levels on winrate. The winrate is shown as "X games per 1 loss". Bikerush e.g. has 19 wins per loss.
If we compare this data by faction (see Nod analysis), we get the following picture:
In the Top 50, GDI has an average winrate of 70%. Nod 75%. Only about 1 point of this win rate difference is explained by GDI decks having a bit lower levels on average (13.8 vs 14.0 for Nod).
As expected, this data shows that Nod is stronger. What is maybe not as expected is the different shape of the trendlines. They imply that to get strong GDI winrates, Levels play a higher role. I.e. not just is Nod a stronger overall, but especially for players with lower level decks, this difference is more extreme at the top of Tiberium ladder.
Some hypotheses on this:
- Especially players with lower levels usually play Aggro decks. The extra speed and DPS for Nod units (compared to GDI and on average) means that Aggro decks have an easier time to employ hard counters, compensating for level difference.
- A typical example for this: Nod players have an easier time to keep their Scorpion away from it's counters and use it against opponent's light vehicles than GDI can do that with the Predator. Not just is the Scorpion a bit better than Predator overall, but it's particularly better if you're behind on levels.
- Nod being stronger means that it's preferred by many players. This means they used cloning vats for key Nod units like the Scorpion. You e.g. can see L12 decks with L14 Scorpions, or L13 decks with L15 Scorpions. Not only does this explain a bit the level advantage of Nod on average (in the Top50), but it also means that Nod decks that on average are still relatively low often have key units on higher level. A L13 average deck with a key unit on L15 outperforms an L13 deck with equally distributed levels usually.
Further reading:
Video recommendation
13 minutes of commented high-level play, Alarak against Srpss:
I think your hypothesis on why there is a higher correlation between win rate and levels for GDI than Nod is really accurate. As you noted, the key units for a Nod deck are usually better than those of a GDI deck.
ReplyDeleteI’ll just add one related point. Two of Nod’s key units—scorpion and marauder—are common card and tier 2 units, that is, they are the strongest non-tech lab unit of it’s type. When a player uses their cloning vats to clone common cards and have a higher-than-average level scorpion or marauder, it accentuates the power of the whole deck by a lot. A similarly high level predator or grenadier just doesn’t provide the same impact (although, admittedly, level 15 Mohawks can be very overbearing in an air-mammoth deck).
I’ll further note, even the Nod epic and rare card units are more oppressive than their GDI counterpart with levels (sniper v. chem warrior and chuggy v. shatterer).
Thanks for commenting, good thoughts!
ReplyDeleteChuggy also can be good with underlevel, whereas sniper become iffy.
Agreed! Chuggy is better than sniper both over and underleveled.
ReplyDeleteUnderleveled. I’m not sure how many shots it takes a full sniper squad to kill a rocket/laser or rifle/militant squad that’s one level higher. I think it’s something like 3 shots which is insanely long with the sniper lock-on time. Chuggy, on the other hand, is amazing. Within one level, it just shows up before the missile is about to launch and kills all the infantry on the field in 5 seconds.
Overleveled. It’s reasonable to deal with overleveled snipers because once you kill one squad member, the DPS goes down a lot. A one man sniper squad is a complete liability. In contrast, overleveled chuggy is a real handful.