If you're an ambitious player, what decks should you play? The criteria by which I select my recommendations are:
- Strength: You want strong decks so that you have success.
- Long-term value: You want decks with units that are relevant also later down the road when you unlock more units. Because you want to level up the units you play, but not spend too nany credits (in-game currency) to level up units that you might not play later. I'm assuming here that you either spend no money on the game, or want to use the money you spend most efficiently. This means that if you upgrade too many units in parallel, you will be credit starved due to how much it costs to level up units.
- Learning curve: You want decks that help you have a strong learning curve, i.e. that help you practice the skills that are relevant to become better at Rivals.
The best beginner deck for GDI
- The deck components:
- Commander: Strongarm
- Infantry: Riflemen, Missile Troopers, Shock Troopers
- Vehicles: Pitbull, Predator Tank
- Air: Orca
- Rough Game plan:
- Build a harvester and a Barracks for Infantry.
- Build a Rifleman to scout and start charging the pads.
- React to what your opponents are doing.
- Get Riflemen against Missile Troopers or Laser Troopers
- Get Shock Troopers for Missile Troopers, Laser Troopers, Cyborgs, Zone Troopers
- Get Missle Troopers against Orca, Banshee, Nod Bikes, Pitbulls, Predator Tanks, Scorpion Tanks, MLRS, Titan, Sandstorm
- Get Pitbull for Rhino, Buggy, Chem Buggy, Cyber Wheels, War Dogs, Talon, Venom, Wolverine, Widowmaker (and if you get 2 Pitbulls, you can use them against Orca and Banshee)
- Get Predator for Pitbulls, Nod Bikes, Wolverines, Widowmakers (and Harvesters)
- Get Orca for Giga Cannon, MLRS, Scorpion Tanks, Predator Tanks. Rock Worm, Titan (and Harvesters)
- Your goal is to beat tech by making the game so fast that the opponent's Tech units don't play a role. To learn how to do this, here is a separate guide on beating Tech decks.
- Use your commander ability (Strongarm Turret) to block the path to a key pad, and/or give you some additional damage in a key fight. Rule of thumb: Using the commander ability shortly before a Nuke goes off is often ideal, especially if you can use it to block an important path to a pad.
- Variants:
- You can switch out the Shock Troopers for Talon. This makes your anti-infantry options more versatile, but more expensive, as you first need to build the air building. The Talon gives you more options against air units such as the Orca. But you might struggle against Zone Troopers and Cyborgs without Shock Troopers.
- Another option is to replace the Predator Tank with Talon. That gives you more anti-infantry power. The role of Predator can usually be taken by Pitbull or Orca, but against enemy superior numbers in Pitbulls or Bikes, you might need Missile Troopers.
- Which units to level up: Every day, you can use a cloning chamber to get more cards for a certain unit. For this deck, I would recommend to focus on Riflemen and Pitbulls. Having them on high levels can help you especially in the early game, and the units are very relevant even for top players who play since a year. Missile Troopers are also a decent choice.
The best beginner deck for Nod
- The deck components:
- Commander: Seth
- Infantry: Militants, Laser Troopers
- Vehicles: Bikes, Scorpion Tank
- Air: Venom, Banshee (unlocked at level 10 and 11, before you can replace with Flame Troopers and Buggy)
- Rough Game plan:
- Build a single harvester and a Barracks for Infantry.
- Build a Militant to scout and start charging the pads.
- React to what your opponents are doing.
- Get Militants against Missile Troopers and Laser Troopers
- Get Laser Troopers against Orca, Banshee, Nod Bikes, Pitbulls, Predator Tanks, Scorpion Tanks, MLRS, Titan, Sandstorm
- Get Bikes against Rhino, Buggy, Chem Buggy, Cyber Wheels, War Dogs, Talon, Wolverine, Widowmaker
- Get Scorpion Tank for Pitbulls, Nod Bikes, Wolverines, Widowmakers (and Harvesters)
- Get Talon for Flame Troopers, Shock Troopers
- Get Banshee for Giga Cannon, MLRS, Scorpion Tanks, Predator Tanks, Rock Worm, Titan
- Your goal is to beat tech by making the game so fast that the opponent's Tech units don't play a role. To learn how to do this, here is a separate guide on beating Tech decks.
- Use your commander ability (Seth Drill Pod) to get additional anti-infantry power where/when needed, or use it shortly before a nuke goes off to quickly get on a pad that you might otherwise not reach/control/contest.
- Variants: Instead of the Venom, you can play Flame Troopers or the Buggy. Venom tends to be better, but needs micro.
- Which units to level up: Every day, you can use a cloning chamber to get more cards for a certain unit. For this deck, I would recommend to focus on Militants, Bikes and Scorpion Tank.
Once you're a bit more experienced, you can play around and tweak the deck based on your unlocked units and experiences. Here's a guide that explains how to think about building a Rivals deck.
Why no Tech units?
Criteria #2 and #3 (see above) mean that you want to minimize playing Tech units (expensive units from the "GDI Tech Lab" and "Temple of Nod" buildings. This might seem surprising, as more than 90% of players in lower leagues do play Tech units, usually even 2-3 different ones in the same deck.
So why do I recommend not to play Tech? Let's go along the above criteria.
- Strength: Because most Tech decks actually are not strong, at least when you meet capable opponents. Especially as a new player, you will often meet opponents with higher-levelled units. Your best chance to beat them is to always have hard counters and to make the game fast.
- Long-term value: Later on, as a more experienced player, you will play in Masters league and against many capable opponents. You likely will not play much Tech, then. So if you spend your limited credits on levelling up Tech units now, you will have too few credits to level up your other units.
- Learning curve: If you play with a range of hard counters from different buildings, and if your goal is to make the game fast, you are practicing key skills at Rivals:
- Tactical decisions: Chosing the right unit at the right time.
- Scouting: Being able to identify what your opponent does / builds to identify the right response
- Micro: Moving your units around in such a way that their strenghts and weaknesses are applied in the best way against the opponent's unit.
- Timings: By making the game fast (to beat tech), you learn to pace the game, charge the pads, and have an eye for the timer/clock.
But you will meet a lot of Tech decks in lower leagues. So it's key to understand how to play against Tech decks.
Other useful beginner resources:
Video recommendation: After all this theory, let's enjoy 13lade meeting ThxForMMR in the semi-finals of the recent Crazy Pimpin' Tournament:
thx
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