GDI Top 50 in February 2020: Razorback in every second Deck

Every month, I analyze the decks of the Top 50 Nod and GDI players in Rivals. This is the February 2020 issue for GDI. Find the Nod variant here.

You can find the raw data here, including a full list of the decks including nicknames. The average deck has a level of 14.2, 2.1 infantry units, 1.4 vehicles, 1.7 air units and 0.8 Tech units. The most common "deck pattern" is 2 infantry (usually Rifles, Missiles), a single vehicle (usually Pitbull or Sling), 2 air (often Razorback and Mohawk) and a single Tech unit (Mammoth, Sandstorm, Zones).

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 frequency this month. A trend line illustrates the change over time, and the ppt change compared to previous month is given as a number at the end.
• "Δ vs average winrate" is how the winrate decks utilizing this unit/commander deviates from the average (e.g. Orca Bomber decks had a 7 percentage points 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. Mammoth decks had -0.4 lower levels compared to the average)

More used compared to January

• Mohawk +14 points to 40%. Strong unit, pairs excellently with Razorback. Expect to see this going down a bit going forward due to the recent Razorback nerf and the current popularity of Stealth Tanks
• Razorback +12 points to 48%! Only Talon in March/April 2019 had a higher popularity as a GDI air unit.
• Rifle +14 points to 76%. It's a staple in Razorback decks. And other decks don't want to play Snipers and Shocks as they are bad against, well, Razorback (amongst others). Also, just a generally strong all-round opener. Also benefitted from Shade, as it meant less war factory, hence less War Dogs. I expect some more War Dog usage, and less Rifle, going forward.

Less used compared to January:

• Snipers -12 points to 8%. Tough to play against (pre-nerf) Shade/Venom and tough to play against Razorback. 
• War Dogs -8 points to 20%
• Pitbull -8 points to 56% because pre-nerf shade

Players to check out:

• AgentShadow, the Toblerone Tormentor, 13lade's least favorite tournament opponent. Who last season was #1 with GDI, is again in the Top 3 with an insane 80% winrate with an L12 deck. His ability to win games against higher levels, not rarely with just Missiles and Razorback, is quite impressive.
• dice, the Uzbek Shatterer, the Beast from Central Asia. He plays a uniquely aggressive Fortress variant with Jackson - Shock, Jumpjets - Dogs, Shatterer, Slingshot, MLRS. With just L12.6 (3rd lowest in Top50), he manages 79% winrate.
• heroic farmer, who has 87% winrate with L13.4 and possibly plays the most aggressively pad-charging GDI style around.

Number of Games: I also added data on the total number of GDI wins and the sample size of each deck. That way you can see if people played a single deck, or many different decks in a season. Some simple view on this data: SubstanceGiron and alistair overeem both have more than 700 GDI wins this season!

13lade Tiers: Beyond the data on what the Top 50 play, I also recommend to check out 13lade's video on what he thinks are the strongest units and commanders in Rivals currently. 13lade is something like the Gandalf of Rivals, so it's usually a decent idea to listen to him!

I also applied 13lade's tiers to the Top50 decks by giving each deck a score according to each unit's tier:

• S is 0 points
• A is 1 point
• B is 2 points
• C is 3 points
• D is 4 points

From this, I can give each deck a score. The lower the score, the better the units in the deck according to 13lade. Of course, deck composition and balance are huge, so the lowest number isn't necessarily the best deck. I still thought this would be fun to look at. I chose this score as the default sorting of the raw data (see column A) this time. Some notes:

• wyvern gets the lowest score ("most OP units") with 6: Liang - Rifle - Sling - Razorback, Mohawk - Zones, Mammoth
• The meta Razorback deck with Sandstorm scores 7, 13lade plays it as well. Overall, there's 12 decks with a score of 7, 3 of them in the Top10
• taiga2 fields the "weakest units" deck by this metric with 16. His deck is is Strongarm - Missile, Shocks - Slingshot - Drones, Mohawk - Titan. He also has relatively low levels for Top50 (13.1), so he's an interesting player to follow if you like unorthodox decks.

Lastly, some words on timing: I had usually published this analysis around the 20th of a month. The idea was to give people a chance to react to the meta at the season end. Yet, with fewer balance patches going around, there was good feedback that end-of-season would make the data more meaningful, as the Top50 is most stable then (e.g. previously, some stromg players might tank for the races).