Nod & GDI Top 50 in October 2020 -- praised be ORO99

Thanks to ORO99, representing England and Hellz Connection, we have this analysis again. He was so kind to do the heavy lifting: Checking 100 player accounts in Rivals and writing down their decks. Thank you, buddy! You're the hero we needed, but didn't deserve.  Did you btw know that ORO99 went 9-0 in matches, 27-2 in maps in the last RTL season? That's the best map winrate in RTL for players that played more than a few games.

It's been a while since we did this. We had a balance patch, and quite some meta shifts. So let's have a look at what the ladder top 50 played for GDI and Nod, respectively.

Nod Top 50 data (deck list)

• Catalyst Gunship is up from 4% in June to a whopping 35%. It's an incredibly strong anti-infantry unit and one of the strongest units in the game right now.
• Militant is up +41ppt to an all-time high of +73%. This shows the meta shift, that at least partially is triggered by the Catalyst Gunship:
• With Nod air decks, you want to start infantry rather than wheels, because the option to play without Factory for the first nuke is valuable. Opening barracks makes Militants a better choice than Fanatics.
• With Nod air, you want to save money to get it out early.
• Also against Catalyst gunships, militants are a good choice. They allow you to cheaply force out enemy anti-infantry whilst still being a counter to laser troopers.
• Fanatic usage is down -32ppt to 12%. It's still a good unit, but much more balanced. 
• Wheels consequently are down -33ppt to 27%. They are still very viable, and the meta revolving around militant / rifle openings makes it a good opening, still.
• Phantom is up +15ppt to 47%, also an all-time high. Maybe not surprising in an air meta.
• Stealth Tank lost these -15ppt. Still a good option for Nod, also in decks with Catalyst Gunships. I assume that Nods trust their air power enough against vehicles right now that they feel they don't need the versatility of the Stealth tank as much.
• Laser Trooper usage is down from the all-time high of 92% to 76%, nearly an all-time low. Decks without them mostly have either Marauders or Scavengers, or trust the power of the Shade.
• Marauders are up +8ppt to 20%, which is close to their all-time high. Possibly a bit surprising in the Catalyst Gunship meta.
• Chem Troopers unsurprisingly are down -8ppt to 12%, as they really suffer when meeting a Cata deck.
• Seth is up +7ppt, Jade down -6ppt. Kane lives at 6%.
• Rock Worm is the most viable Tech Unit at 6%. There's also 3 decks with Confessors
• Some may be surprised that Banshee are still reasonably widespread with 24%, even up compared to June. Whilst they are not great against Phantom and Stealth Tank, If you are interested in high-level Banshee play, check out paflagon 2 and Maximus.

GDI Top 50 data (deck list)

• Pitbull +23ppt to 88%, an all-time high. Understandable, as it's one of the best units again the Shade/Catalyst Gunship combo. And Tanks are not that common right now. Also, Slingshot isn't good against Shade and also had been nerfed prior -- and for a while, Slingshot usage was what was keeping Pitbull a bit from being a "must have" unit.  Unsurprisingly, nearly all decks without Pitbulls don't use the war factory at all (Infantry-Air-Tech or Infantry-Air). The only war factory deck without Pitbull is dice's Shock-Dog-Shatterer-Sling-MLRS-Talon deck
• Strongarm +22ppt, Jackson +20ppt, Liang -54ppt. Unsuurprsingly, as Liang was nerfed to be nigh-uselessness. Silas is the one hero who still finds use for the Doctor.
• Jumpjet Troopers up to an all-time high of 42%. I feel that besides the meta, it's testament to the development of players skill-wise: In RTS, usually, speed/mobility turns out to be stronger over time as people figure out how to employ it.
• Rifle down from 96% to 72%.  The decks without rifles:
• 5 with Shocks, which are surprisingly widespread at 14%
• 3 with Snipers
• 1 with MG
• 3 without infantry-anti-infantry: AliciaDestiny with her Dog-Razorback-Titan deck, LemonLyman , and the aforementioned dice.
• Missile Troopers down to an 18-month low of 68%.  Enabled usually by a combination of Jumpjets, Pitbull, Talon replacing their roles reaonably affordable.
• Talon, Droneswarm and Orca all up by +16ppt.  This did not surprise me. But I was surprised that only two "r3bb Solomon" decks (Rifle-Jumpjets-Dog-Pitbull-Droneswarm-Talon-Solomon) appeared in the Top 50. I had perceived this deck to be more widespread.
• Razorback, after it's nerf, down by -34ppt to 22%.
• Borca -18ppt to 6%, as it was nerfed significantly. Same for Zone Trooper -14ppt to 10%. 
• Titan's -20ppt to 16% was more probably driven by the Liang and RB nerf than it's own nerf against Infantry damage.
• APC +16ppt to 28% also is expected, as it's a good tiberium-sink unit in this Nod meta, and as half of them appear in the "Suzaku APC" deck (Rifle-Missile-Pitbull-APC-Droneswarm-Orca-Strongarm) that is not just well-established, but pretty strong in the current meta.
• GDI deck average cost is at an all-time low of 46 Tiberium (incl. Commander)