October 27, 2019

Interview with Suzaku – "I learned the most from watching my own replays"

If you looked at the top of the ladder in the recent 6 months, you would often have found Suzaku on the top spot. He’s not just known for his strong performance in the ladder, but also for inventing and popularizing aggressive playstyles and decks that became part of the meta more than once.

Suzaku bears his nickname for 15 years already – and his real name Robbert for 31 years. He hails from Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Two awesome views from Amsterdam

Q: Hey Suzaku! Thanks for taking the time for this interview. First, tell us what brought you to Rivals?

Suzaku: I grew up playing a lot of video games with my little brother, since we are both really competitive we preferred playing games against each other and later on together against other players.

The first online games I played actively were C&C Generals and Warcraft 3 custom maps, mostly footmen wars. After that i mostly played MMORPGs. I played Final Fantasy 11 for some years and after that World of Warcraft for some years. I started playing with the release of the first expansion and got in the top 10 guild Pacifism and was the #1 ranked warrior in 2v2 arena (PvP) in one of the hardest battlegroups (collection of servers for PvP) at one point, mostly thanks to my partner "Onishi" who had a lot of experience in PvP and taught me the tricks of the trade since i was relatively new to PvP (or even the game) compared to others.

After WoW, I switched to League of Legends for quite some years, hitting gold in season 1, platinum in season 2 and diamond the following seasons. I switched to being a one-trick pony Zyra player in the later seasons. I played her top-jungle/sup-mid (in that order).

After that, I didn’t play many multiplayer games until my brother pointed out Rivals.


Q: For a couple of seasons, you’re well known in the community for always occupying one of the top ladder slots, and winning seasons. What did your journey to this look like? When did you start to play Rivals, and how did you improve your game play over time?

Suzaku: I started playing Rivals 2 days after release. I mainly played GDI the first weeks and getting hard stuck in masters playing a terrible tech deck and got really annoyed by obelisk and basilisks xD. When i decided to give Nod more of a go, I played an aggressive deck not too different from the aggro decks played the last seasons with the exception of using Tick Tanks. Apparently burrowing Tick Tanks near harvesters worked really well in the tech heavy master meta back then.

After reaching Tiberium league, I changed up my style of playing to improve instead of "wanting to play those units” (like the horrible GDI tech deck). I watched a lot of replays (mainly Magni’s) and checked decks of top players.

I think I learned the most watching my own replays, especially against double harv decks, I sometimes had trouble figuring out their economy. Whenever I would lose to that, I would watch the replay and see when they made the second harvester and look for ways to improve. I ended the season in the Top 100 as one of only 3 players below level 60. The rest of the Top 100 was filled with (pre) alpha / beta players.


Q: You invented the “Suzaku APC deck” (Rifle, Missile - Pitbull, APC - Drones-Orca) some months ago that has been a key meta deck in high Tiberium for the past two seasons. Can you describe your thought process behind it? Idea, refinement, testing etc.

Suzaku: It mostly started with being sick of playing dogs, MLRS/Predator, which was the GDI meta for a long time around that time. I dislike dogs so wanted to do something different. I talked with some people (mainly 13lade) about what could be viable for GDI and that i would really like to play APC, as I really liked the idea of the unit. 13lade told me he played some games with an APC deck quite similar to the one I ended up with, but with talons and mohawk. I liked the idea but really preferred Orca instead (which 13lade at the time said was a terrible unit :p). Around the time I was thinking up the deck, Droneswarm got a major buff and I instantly liked them for the deck. Around that time shock/flames were still played a lot and for that reason I went with Strongarm, to have some extra power against them and Pitbull / Bikes who will go after my air. Another big reason for Orca and Drones was that Stealth Tanks were heavily featured in the meta, often combined with Avatar. Mohawks and talons got destroyed by stanks and Orca / Drone fared a lot better.


The quintessential "Suzaku APC" deck


Q: Thanks, interesting to hear this background. I still remember when you tested the deck with a smurf account, and I instantly stole it to play it myself!   In your view, what were the strongest decks against this APC deck?

Suzaku: Without any flying anti-air the deck is weak to Orca Bomber (“Borca”), but because the Borca pretty much needs a full volley to kill an APC and it’s passengers, it loses quite some hp while firing, especially if you can force the bombs out before it reaches the APC. Fanatic aggro can be tough aswell, although levels play a role in that observation as well: Level 15 Scorpion Tanks are a lot more common than high level APC/Orca. Fortress is strong as well – against it, the deck relies heavily on air and thus slingshot can be a real pain. Lately Midnight.Nation has been playing a Tick Tank / Phantom deck which is really tough for this deck as well, although levels might also have played a role in those games.


Q: After Orca and Drones got nerfed two months ago, the deck went out of fashion. Orca got a slight buff again, and it’s back in use. How much of an impact does this 1 second of reload time make for the Orca?

Suzaku: I think the 1 second is really big when dealing with Pitbulls / Bikes and Stealth Tanks. Especially around the time the missiles fires, the extra second meant your orca could die from a freshly built Bike squad, Stealth Tank or Pitbull before it could fire back. Especially against Bikes, the second meant a lot because it’s quite easy to keep pumping out unit that costs only 30 Tiberium.


Q: There’s variants of this deck with Talon for Drones, Mohawk for Orca, and Liang for Strongarm. I don’t personally feel Mohawk is a good option, but that Talon (for additional anti-air after Pitbull nerf) and Liang (general strength) are very arguable. What’s your point of view on this? As it’s meta and map dependent, how do you think about these options with regards to the new Tiberium map pool?

Suzaku: I think each has their pros and cons, Talon is really good to secure the first missile against Militant-Venom decks which were quite prevalent for a while. If you force your opponent into venom after winning the initial militant war, you could counter both the air tower and barracks with talon giving you a lot of advantage for the first missile. Talon however deals less damage than Drones, costs more, and dies to Stealth Tank and Phantom in a single volley, whereas the Droneswarm survives with a single Drone and can hold a pad or path while the Stealth Tank or Phantom has to recharge.

Mohawk is really strong vs Pitbull and Bikes and can really punish decks without Missile or Laser troops but loses to Stealth Tanks and doesn’t have the burst to quickly protect your infantry from a chuggy, or your APC from a tank, or to quickly win a missile.

Liang is currently really strong, especially at capturing pads to take a missile, which needs a balance change in my opinion. I do however still prefer Strongarm. The current maps have some good turret spots. I haven’t tested liang much though.

Suzaku's scary Nod track record in the October season

Q: With Nod, you play the meta Jade deck (Miliant, Laser, Chem Warrior - Bike - Drones, Phantom). What’s your view of it’s strengths and weaknesses? Do you agree that a key benefit of Militant over Wheels in this deck is option value for first nuke, i.e. being able to skip factory and opt for drones?

Suzaku: I started playing it for a couple months in events in different alterations before my break (because i didn’t have the levels for ladder). My memory is a bit hazy on what exactly I ended up with but I think it was the same. I played against it once, but can’t remember who it was sadly.  [Note from the editor: ckm111 is commonly credited for being the first to play it regularly in Tiberium league]  I thought that it looked really fun and had a good way to use spare Tiberium (since I do go for harvester quite often :p) on either Chem Troopers or Jade Missiles.

Besides the base kill, the way you can spend extra tib in this deck without tier 2 units like borca or inferno is one of the strengths of the deck in my opinion.

When I came back after my semi-forced break (which had been due to family issues), I wanted to have some fun without the rank 1 “pressure” that I had put on myself the previous seasons and played the Jade deck on ladder and really liked it, although killing bases with level 11/12 Chems, Jade, Laser Drones and Phantom was tough at times.

Speaking of base kill and the community rage surrounding it, I do think it needs to be changed so that base killing requires clouds. This “double harv after first missile and just spam stuff at opponent’s base with ‘empty’ catalyst missiles” is neither fun nor healthy and not a tactic I like to use unless playing against the even more broken Liang drone :p. All kidding aside, I think base killing with clouds is a fine mechanic, but base killing without clouds shouldn’t be so easy.

As for Wheels, it feels like the deck gets a bit more expensive when you need chem warriors to kill Lasers / Missiles instead of sending militants to handle them. It does make the deck a bit weaker to snipers, but since they are often covered by missiles/pitbulls they are hard to catch for wheels as well. Also, playing militants allows you to open laser drones if you are expecting a wheels opener. Because if they have lasers, you can quickly switch to militants.


Q: Sounds like you’d also support Omeleet’s suggestion to nerf base damage for the catalyst missile (but not the clouds). Let’s see if the devs make that change.

Before you had a bit of a break, your main Nod decks have been first the Wheel-Militant 2-3-1 Aggro deck, and then the Militant-Venom 2-2-2 Aggro deck. It’s clear that the 2-2-2 has been nerfed recently. As for the 2-3-1 Aggro, how do you feel it would perform right now? Which part of the current meta makes it vulnerable?

Suzaku: I feel that at the moment the Fanatic deck is just better than standard 2-2-2 or 2-3-1 Nod decks. I really enjoyed playing those decks. At the same time, in a way I was forced to play them because I had high levels only on those units. After the break, I could start fresh, try some new decks, found out I still really enjoy the game and because of that found the jade deck worthwhile to invest in (~€100 since i came back to those wondering) since i had the cards to get most units to 13/14 already from the months playing and cloning chems with free chambers.


Q: What’s your view on the state of balance currently? What balance issues do you see now post-patch?

Suzaku: Apart from a few units/commanders, there is a very differentiated meta which is a lot of fun.

There are a couple broken units and one broken interaction (sorry srpss and pontiki :p), which is known as “dancing”. It's a way to push a unit out of the tile its moving to and then backing up before it can shoot at you, pushing it out when it moves and repeat. This way a laser squad can stop a unit like chemical warriors from entering the tile(often a pad) or even killing the unit for a long time.   [Note from the editor: Here is an example, with the Pitbull doing what Suzaku describes on the left pad against the Sandstorm]

The balance issues I see are:
  • Liang – Stealing / holding pads for ages, not sure what to change but perhaps it should last (a lot) shorter if no allied units are around or change the way it can get onto pads.
  • Fanatics – Way too much vehicle damage.
  • Jade – base damage without clouds is too high.


Q: Some seasons ago, you started with a 150-game win series. Not in lower leagues, but basically being #1 in the ladder from day 1. How did that happen? Did you feel extra pressure when you then met strong players during your run?

Suzaku: I really like the start of a new season, fast queues and playing a lot of games on equal levels. A couple hours into a season is often a very competitive time on ladder, most seasons i end up running into Bikerushownz (who also likes to climb fast start of a season) and we destroy each other winrates/streaks :p. I can’t recall how the first hours of the season went that particular season, but apparently, I survived the tough times.

After creating a gap in medals in the start of the season, the matchmaking has trouble matching me with suitable opponents so it starts to get really random. I often played diamond players with some Platinum and Masters mixed in. About 100-120 wins into the win streak, it started to get a lot harder becuase the ladder had “formed” more or less and the opponents were a lot tougher and I started to feel quite some pressure to hit the 150. Eventually, 13lade took me down at 164 wins.


Q: And you’re playing Rivals Team League (RTL), where you’re currently 20-3 in maps.
And you just won the Coliseum monthly finals (Congratulations!), beating Alarak in the qualifiers and then srpss in the grand final. In some of the tournament games, you just played your ladder decks, whereas other players often try to adapt to opponent and maps. What’s your take on playing “your best” deck vs adapting to map & opponent?

Suzaku: Since I came back a couple weeks ago, I was mainly focussed on getting back in the game by grinding ladder and not much preparation for tourneys. I like tourneys, but they are really stressful for me. My anxiety issues (which are the reason I have so much time to grind ladder :p) kick in when I’m in the spotlight and I tend to feel a lot of pressure after taking rank 1 Nod several times.

I often pick my ladder decks to feel a bit more comfortable, which worked out well vs alarak because my Jade deck counters his favourite deck (Fanatic aggro), but during the “tourney super weekend” and the following RTL week, I got punished for that. Because of that, I practiced a lot of different decks and maps last week in preparation for the Coloisseum finals and the RTL play-offs.


Q: Who is your favorite opponent(s) to play against (ladder or tournaments), and why?

Suzaku: My games with 13lade are often very close and a lot of fun to play. We often play decks that match each other quite equally (until I started playing jade vs his Fanatic aggro at least) and we have similar levels.

Playing against Midnight.Nation is often very interesting since he plays a lot of different (mostly tech) decks, which leaves me guessing what tech is coming out. Or he’s busy parking Tick Tanks on the pads.

Bikerushownz and me have done a lot of mind games when it comes to rushes and countering them which was a lot of fun, Bike didn't think it was any fun early on, but we developed a friendly rivalry later on and still constantly rush/counter rush each other.


Q: If you had one wish for the devs, what would it be?

Suzaku: I wish devs could help me battle one of my biggest opponents in the game: The surrender button. Combined with real life issues (which were the biggest reason since i was barely at home); this caused my 2-3 month break from the game. As a mobile player; I often press the surrender button with the palm of my hand next to my thumb. The fact you have to push it twice in a row now helps; but i still accidently surrender sometimes and even pushing it once is really distracting when instead of playing the game: You think “oh shit that was close” for a second and very carefully click a random spot on the map. So please devs, make the surrender button optional!


Q: Thank you Suzaku! Any famous last words?

Suzaku: Shout out to the streamers and tournament organizers who make this community so great!



1 comment:

  1. Great Interview :-)

    Feeling a little proud, I play this NOD Deck since about February and never changed it.

    ReplyDelete