Deck Spotlight: Jade Chem Warrior Laser Drones

Since about 6 weeks, the following deck has gotten a lot of popularity:

• Commander: Jade
• Infantry: Militants, Laser Troopers, Chem Warriors
• Vehicles: Nod Bikes
• Air: Laser Drones, Phantom

What's the idea of the deck?

The core threat of the deck is that it has a lot of power to win the first nuke, and then close the game with nuking the opponent base with Chem Warrior + Jade Catalyst Missile.

Read the interview with #1 player Suzaku, where this deck also is mentioned

Phase 1: 

• Open with Militants, before or after harvester. Both viable, and opponent / map dependent. On maps with a "choke pad" in the middle (i.e. a pad where it's not easy to move in with superior numbers due to terrain), Militant before harv can be advantageous against Militant/Rifle openers.
• If there's a Militant/Rifle war, win it with clever positioning and micro. If you cannot, there's always the option to bring in a Chem Trooper. But if you do it too early against a deck that has Venom, Talon etc might mean that you cannot immediately counter the deck. So it can make some sense to stay on Militants until you have a bit of Tiberium left after building your chem.
• If the opponent is Nod, Laser Drones are very strong on the first nuke. Defensively, they can beat Bikes (except if the opponent has Alicia-like micro), and in a Chem-vs-Chem mirror, they can hold pads.
• If the opponent is GDI, more often than not you will need Bikes as second type of unit, to counter dogs, Talons, Droneswarms and Pitbull.

Phase 2: Once you on the nuke, you can either continue to play straight up, or nuke the opponent base. For that, there's two options:

• If you can get through to the opponent base with Chem Troopers, you can devastate it by making the Catalyst missile blow up on a base hex that has a Chem Cloud on it. If you get a total of 5 explosions (Clouds or Chem Troopers), a single Catalyst can take out the full half health of the base at equal levels.
• If you can't do that, you can still shoot the base with normal Catalyst missiles and your air units. It's hard to defend against it, but of course costs some time and money due to the cooldowns. That's why some players opt to build a second harvester after winning first nuke, to be able to always pay for Phantoms (good base damage and fast) and Catalyst missiles.

If you play straight up, you still have an answer against most opponent's units. Against large clumps of enemy units, or expensive Tech units, you still have the out of your Catalyst missile as a superweapon, especially if you use a Gas Cloud or Tiberium patch for a bigger explosion in the right spot at the right time.

Chem Troopers in position and a ready Catalyst missile grant defensive options even if the opponent gets their tech out. (Also see the article on how to play against Tech.)

What's good against this deck?

• On maps where snipers are viable, Sniper and Pitbull alone can win against this deck. Pitbulls can hold their own against Laser Drones, and in the course of the game also often against Bike. Stricly speaking, Bikes beat Pitbulls for cost. But in the late game, cost is not as big of an issue, and if you can stack multiple Pitbulls, their raider ability becomes stronger.
• Talons are good early game, as they beat Nod Drones and Militant/Chem. But it will be a micro battle, as they are weak against Bikes.
• An early Banshee can be strong, as it beats the Laser Drones and can hold a while against Bikes. But you need something in addition to clean up the Chem Troopers.
• Chem Buggy can win against this deck, but it's a micro war of trying to keep the enemy Laser Drones from killing your Chem Buggy before it does enough damage against Chem Troopers. I would say with most players' micro, it's easier to play this matchup against Chem Buggy than with it.
• With good timing Borca decks can win. It will of course then depend on the Phantom-vs-Borca battle.
• Inferno decks can win, but it will depend on the Phantom-vs-Phantom battles.
• GDI Fortress decks can be ok vs this, but they need to win first nuke -- which is far from easy.
• Confessors can be good against the deck. But as Confessors are generally not great, this is not too relevant in practice. If you want to play Confessors, I recommend this deck.

Watch the Deck in Action in these videos from Nukin and 13lade:

History of the deck

ckm111 was likely the first high-level player to regularly play this deck on ladder. He started using it after a hefty buff to the Laser Drones that since has been partly reverted. In the recent six weeks, strong players like the current #1 Suzaku have adopted this deck.

The reason why it's gotten popular only recently is probably a mix of ...

1. It's strength against Tech decks, which have become more popular at the higher end of the ladder since the July balance patch. Why is it good against Tech? It can win first nuke and then create the double threat of either winning second nuke, or nuking the base.
2. Nod overall is stronger than GDI, and this deck is particularly strong against Nod, as Laser Drones only really get countered by Laser Troopers (slow + killable with Chems/Militants)
3. Players started to think more about the early game and how to win first nuke. Some months ago, many people would have said that "wheels instead of militants" is far better in this deck (me included). But the option of being able to skip factory for the first nuke, mostly against Nod, is reason enough to skip Cyber Wheels.
4. The Chem Buggy nerf in September meantt hat (a) people looked for an alternative as hard-hitting anti-infantry and (b) it meant that Chem Buggies got especially worse against Chem Troopers, as they are immune to the Cloud Damage.

If you liked this article, maybe you want to check out these articles:

• Deck Spotlight: Confessor / Basilisk
• Which units and decks should I play as a beginner?
• How to play and win against Tech decks / dual harvester decks