Top 50 GDI & Nod Decks: Sept to Oct 2021

Greetings Commanders: it’s been a while since our last update, but therefore we have two datasets to present ranging from September to October, as well as a new statistic we are testing out (diversity).

Since our last analysis we have had a significant meta shift with Catship getting completely dumpstered and of course the massive Tiberium reduction.
If the dev team’s goal was to remove those units from the game without deleting them, they have certainly succeeded. There certainly seems to be a tendency to go overboard with nerfs (e.g. Liang), so here is to hoping that the new team/CM will take note.
Anyway, let's get right into it!

GDI

To start with Infantry, we can see that missiles have really taken off, up 16%.
This comes as no surprise as missiles are a powerful comeback mechanic, and especially since t2 missiles like Zones and other Tech units are less prevalent.
NOD has always relied on the trusty laser trooper, which remains fairly consistent at 80%.
The JumpJet nerf has been effective in reducing it’s play, together with rampant Chuggy use, however it still remains as an extremely strong unit simply because it cannot be blocked.

The War Factory is still pumping out Pitbulls as much as ever, no surprises there. It is one of GDI’s best units after all. And it’s pendant, the Attack Bikes, also remain high.
Meanwhile the overpowered nuisance that is Chem Buggy remains in many decks and it is one of NOD’s best units right now.

Stealth Tank still sees a fair share of play even after it’s significant nerf, which goes to show how good it was and is, being an indispensable anti-air unit especially if you don’t run Phantom.

The Tank uptick from June is still mostly here, with MLRS seeing a some action too.

And last but also least, annoying Giga is still around, but luckily on a downward trend.
Likely because everyone expects it in upper Tib these days, and they are usually running counters like Shade or Inferno. Still, it peaked at 24% in Sept and now remains high at 16%.

 

NOD

The Air is thick with drones! Drones are an effective tool to break the Chuggy-Laser combo, as well as being cheap and spammable. Perhaps some Talon users switched since the speed nerf.
Good old Mohawk has tripled since June, but still not very popular despite the triumphant music they play.

Needless to say, the Banshee has not had the intended effect on the meta, as it sees even less play since it’s rework!
However, with the air cleared of Catship, Bikes are once again capable fighting flying units, there is little reason to tech switch to a Banshee.
Speaking of which, the Catship is down to 0%, now replaced by the much more functional Venom, which is at it’s highest since Jan of 2020.
Phantom is still strong as ever, and remains a finishing touch to Giga and Mutant decks.

Tech is pretty non-existent among both factions. Tech needs to be made cheaper and weaker so that more units see play, and perhaps even a reversal of the Tiberium changes to accomodate it. That will take some balancing of it's own, however, as some tech units are much stronger than others (e.g. Flame Tank, or should I say Speedy-Gon-Flames)

On the Commander front we still see strong Strongarm play. The nerf was significant, 10 tib in the early game can make or break that first missile, but it’s continued usage goes to show how much that little turret can make up for.
With Liang out of the picture (may he rest in peace), Jackson obviously boosted in to replace him.
McNeil remains a moot commander, that also needs of a buff or cost reduction.

Solomon is still around, but less common as the Tiberium nerf hits expensive commander powers especially hard. Kane and Seth are down, with Jade and Oxanna mirroring the difference.

 NOD Diversity

We have a new statistic this time: diversity for NOD!

• 100% = perfect diversity (i.e. each unit is played equally much, whilst taking the average identical -- i.e. if every player plays exactly 1.4 air units, perfect diversity is each of the 7 air units being played with 20% frequency)

• 0% = worst diversity (e.g. if 2 infantry are played on average, this would be reached if it's always exactly laser + militant)

• This shows e.g. that we currently have a relatively low building diversity, the worst since Sep 2019. On the other hand, within the buildings, the diversity is reasonably high:

• Diversity was always relatively low, but has increased since Winter 2020/21

• Vehicle diversity is at an all-time best in Sep and remains high!

• Air diversity was always pretty good but was best in Summer 2020

• Overall blended diversity hasn’t changed much since Summer 2019

• Overall diversity ignores tech, i.e. assumes that tech diversity isn't a good thing :)

Notable players and decks

• Srpss’ unique decks with NOD (Militant, Laser, Bikes, Chuggy, Stank, inferno, Oxanna) & GDI (Riflemen, Missiles, Rhino, Pitbull, Drones, Orca, Solomon)  took the rank 1 spot for a season or two. While he has high win rates and ranks with them, much of his success is owed to his effective dance abuse, much like the late Agent Shadow. He is the only one playing Rhino, but still doesn't mean the unit is very good (hint hint, EA)
  
  
• JustinMKohler, a newcomer to the Top 50. He plays: (Laser, Flame, Wheel, Bikes, Stank, Shade, Seth), a deck that somewhat resembles old Agent Shadow Fanatic Stank. He had the highest win rate in the top 50 in October and maintains a very high rank while playing a low number of games.
  
  
• Paflagon 2 is very high ranked in all data involved in this article. His Nod deck is worth mentioning: Militant, Laser, Bikes, Stank, Shade, Venom, Seth. It’s a deck that has seen some play in the past, but most people dropped it due to its weakness to GDI. Has Paflagon2 found something new that makes it playable despite Stealth tank and Shade nerfs?
  
  
• THXforMMR stood alone in playing fanatics. His deck is: Fanatics, Cyberwheels, Bikes, Scorpion tank, Stealth tank, Shade/
  
  
• 54188’s fortress-y is the only one that uses Liang (next to Predator, Dogs, Shocks, Talon, Borca and Slingshot)

GDI Data:  Link
NOD Data: Link

Written by: Entsorger
Data gathering: Bart
Data preparation: shuukit
Special thanks: kennyemmy

Top 50 Nod & GDI Decks, June 2021

Greetings Commander! We have another analysis for you today thanks to Bart who gathered the data, and to shuukit for preparing it for us! Please note the last data we had gathered for us was back in Dec 2020, so some of the changes may be somewhat dramatic.

GDI

Our good friends over at the Global Defense Initiative have been sending out less core infantry (Rifles & Missiles -8%), likely due to the lack of personnel amidst the pandemic, whereas Shocks seem to be making their long awaited return (up 10%) and Grenadiers are also seeing 5x as much play at 8%. 

 

Dogs, Slingshot and Predator Tank are the stars of the War Factory, up 10%, 8% and a whopping 18%, respectively. Predator tank being the heaviest armor until tech & with tech being even more delayed in this patch and Shade significantly nerfed, this seems to make sense.

 

We're also seeing a Razorcomeback (comeback of the Razorback), which is up 12%, and Hammerheads (+18%)  to deal with all those pesky new Banshees.

Most air is down though, with the exception of Orca Bomber.

 

Tech remains more or less unchanged (with Titan seeing the largest cutback at-8%), which may suggest that the economy nerf was ineffective. However, tech is not played as much in upper tib league anyway.

Following the Strongarm nerf many people are still sticking with her (-8%), yet we are seeing many players move from Solomon (-20%) to Jackson (+18%). McNeil, everyone's favorite CM abuse commander, has also been dropped like a rock (-22%).

NOD

Nod, Brotherhood of and Glory to, has been hit by covid19 even harder than GDI, with less signups for basic volunteer Militants, which are down -14%. It seems NOD infantry are all trying to make for higher careers as Flamers (+10% parallel with GDI). But even the dropout addicts, otherwise known as Fanatics, have seen an increase (+4%) despite being nerfed again.

 

Marauders and chem troopers have only marginally increased (+2%) although their largest predator (Catship, -39%) was completely wiped from most decks (good riddance).

Nod's war factory is working overtime to pump out more wheels (+17%), more bikes (+13%) and more chem buggies (+12%). Stank is also up after a significant nerf (+9%), which shows how incredibly overpowered it was.

With Shade (-13%) receiving it's long overdue nerf Inferno is rising up to replace it (+16%).

Phantom has also been deemed less necessary at -17%.

Tech play on team red is even bleaker than with GDI, only Artillery (+2%) is seeing some play with everything else either completely absent or regressive.
On the commander front Jade remains unchanged even after the base HP increase. Seth is down -13% (apparently his ambition did find some bounds) who has been replaced for Kane (+6%) and Oxanna (+7%) almost evenly.

Player observations:

🇺🇸 Byah, whose core deck of Shocks and Predators has seen him moving up the ladder, and we see even the likes of 🇺🇸 AliciaDesinty & 🇬🇧 13lade playing Flamers again. The meta has not been as kind to other decks however, such as 🇳🇱 Maximus' signature Talon/JJT deck.

🇨🇦  Grape boy is holding on to the notorious Catship while maintaining a 89% win rate,

and 🇭🇰 54188 is doing a new movement by playing the GDI pendant to Artillery (Juggernaut).

Welp, that about wraps our analysis. Thanks for tuning in and keeping Rivals alive!

Written by Entsorger

Special thanks to Bart, shuukit & kennyemmy

Top 50 Deck Analysis November 2020

Thanks to 🇬🇧 ORO99 from Hellz Connection, we have this analysis again. The analysis is published late because of me; Oro had been very punctual and diligent. Apologies!

Nod Top 50 November 2020 (raw data)

Biggest winners:

• Scorpion Tank is up +14 ppt to 41%.  This is great news, as Tank metas are entertaining, and it shows people find ways to make tanks useful despite the Shade
• Laser Troopers up +10 ppt to 86%.  Not much to draw from it outside that fewer people play 🇺🇸 AliciaDestiny style decks that omit lasers (creating a hypothetical weakness esp when behind) for some additional power in mid / late game.
• Catalyst Gunship +8 ppt to 47%.  Function of more players levelling it up, and Catship being (too) strong.
• Militant +8 ppt to 80%, an all-time high.  Makes sense, as you want to pair Catship with it.

Biggest losers:

• Stealth Tank -10 ppt to 31%, the lowest since January.  Surprises me a bit, esp as Phantom is up only +6ppt.  So let's look in the data: There's 9 decks that play with neither Phantom nor Stealth Tank. 8 of them Banshee.  Banshee is of course not bad vs Shade/Catship decks.  The funny thing is that people switching out Stealth Tanks for Banshees could be a self-fulfilling prophecy, as fewer Stealth Tanks make Banshees better.
• Marauders -8 ppt to 12%.  I think this is because the 20% in October were unreasonably high in a catship meta. On the other hand, some people have been playing Marauder pretty successfully, like 🇪🇸 Substancegiron.
• Bikes -8 ppt to 71%, the lowest since April 2019. Of the 14 decks without bikes, 8 use Buggy. only 3 Stealth Tank, and 7 Scorpion. One reason for this is that the Buggy/Scorp or Scorp/Stealth tanks with Catship/Phantom or Catship/Banshee seem pretty solid with strong players such as 🇬🇧 13lade or 🇺🇸🇩🇪 Entsorger playing them.  Just 2 people played no-warfactory decks in this set, 🇺🇸 AliciaDestiny with her Rockworm / Air deck, and 🇪🇸🇩🇪 Fortis with his long-established 3/3 Marauder/Inferno deck.

GDI Top 50 November 2020 (raw data)

Biggest winners:

• Droneswarm +18 ppt to 46%, an all-time high.  14 of 20 APC decks employ them, and they are also core to the "Solomon r3bb deck", of which we have 6 in the set.
• Orca +12 ppt to 48%, another all-time high, also core to the Suzaku APC deck.
• APC +12%, see above.  Let me say that I don't think that this deck is fundamentally overpowered. It rather has been the quintessential "allround deck" for GDI since 18 months. In the current meta, it's a great choice as it's one of the few options GDI has to keep up with Nod, esp Catship/Shade.

Biggest losers:

• Jackson -16 ppt to 24%. No unhealthy level, and the 16 points went to Strongarm (38%) and Solomon (36%) in equal parts. Solomon hit an all-time high with this.
• Razorback -12 ppt to 10%.

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)

GDI and Nod Top 25 -- June 2020 -- Titan domination

Due to lack of time, I only looked at the Top 25 this month. If you need help to understand the structure of the table below, please refer to the previous article.

I gathered the data around noon on the last day of the June season, and I'll combine both factions in this post.

GDI Top 25 / Data

GDI Notes:

• 36% Titan is huge. That's more than any tech unit ever since Apr 2020 (Mar 2020 saw 42% Avatar for Nod). Only one Titan deck didn't use the Razorback. Most of them followed the standard pattern of Rifle, Missile - Pitbull - Razorback, Hammerhead - Titan - Liang. If you want to complain about this deck, the inventor is likely Bulgarian Rivals prodigy srpss.
• Razorback / Hammerhead growth correlates with the growing popularity of the above specific deck.
• Zone Trooper at 24% is also an all-time high. Previus Zone high was 16% in November 2019.
• Liang is up another 12%. But if we look at the April 2020 Top 25 (not Top 50), the value actually was 52% already back then. This shows that Top 25 and Top 50 is actually not a like-with-like comparison. If the goal is to derive unit strength from these frequencies, I think looking at the Top 25 is actually even better. As it's not enough to "just" have L15 to easily get into the Top25 at season-end.
• All the units less played are not that remarkable if we remove the effect of the growth in popularity of this Titan deck. Means: Talon and Jumpjets are now not actually bad suddenly, just that even more people flocked to the Razorback decks, especially the Titan variant.

Nod Top 25 / Data

Nod Notes:

• Biggest increase is in Lasers, which are now at 96%. 
• Fanatics, Wheels and Stealth Tank are up +10 / +11 / +11 points respectively, with Fanatics and Stealth Tank reaching clear all-time highs of 44% and 56% respectively.
• Chem Trooper usage is up +9 points
• This points us towards the two decks that seem most viable at high Tiberium:
• Fanatic, Lasers - Wheel, Bike, Stealth Tank - X (X most commonly being Shade, also +9 -- but Scorpion is an option) which has possibly the best Nod play against Razorback decks
• Militant, Lasers, Chem Trooper - Bike, Stealth Laser Drone, which has decent play against Razorback and very good play against Fanatic (due to Chems) and Nod in general (due to Laser Drones)
• The new Catalyst Gunship was only played by a single deck. And, as I am this player, I did it just to play around with it. It's not that great, as it's hard to build a really good deck with it. It combos well with Chem Trooper and Chuggy, but this is an expensive combo that also takes up slots in the deck, which usually means that you end up with some glaring early- or late-game hole in your overall lineup.
• Overall though, Nod has some reasonable unit and deck diversity left.
• Commander diversity is at an all-time high with 36% each for Seth and Oxanna, 20% for Jade and 8% for Kane. Many Nod decks allow to chose 2-3 different commanders with reasonable argument. And there's ok-ish decks where Kane is a good choice, as it plugs a certain weakness (e.g. certain Infantry/Air decks vs Pitbull spam, which is why I played the Cata Gunship deck with Kane)
• All air units see play, and with the exception of the Cata Gunship, at least with 12%. The least played air unit after the Gunship interestingly is Laser Drones, despite the common complaints that they are OP against Nod

GDI Top 50 in April 2020

Since more than a year, I regularly analyze the decks of the Top 50 Nod and GDI players in Rivals. This is the April 2020 issue for GDI. Please 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 14.5, 2.2 infantry units, 1.6 vehicles, 1.7 air units and 0.5 Tech units. 30 of the top 50 decks employ exactly 2 infantry, and also 30 decks employ exactly 2 air units.

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. Shock Trooper decks have a 6 ppt lower winrate compared to the average)
• "Δ vs average levels" is how the levels of decks utilizing this unit/commander deviate from average (e.g. Orca Bomber decks had 0.3 levels lower compared to the average)

More used compared to February

• War Dogs +12 points to 32%, not far off their all-time high of 38%
• Orca +12 points to 26%, often swapped in for Mohawks;  they also have some play against Stealth Tanks due to their burst
• Jumpjet Troopers +10% to 38%, an all-time high;  quite remarkable for a unit that recently was unchanged and a lot of people called bad only a few months ago
• A number of units with +8 point increase: Pitbull (for Slingshot), APC, Hammerhead, Orca Bomber

Less used compared to February

• Mohawk a whopping -34 points down to 6%. Whilst they of course supremely suffer from the Stealth Tank meta, they feel over-nerfed: They were only really oppressive in combination with Razorback, and the nerf seems to have made them pretty useless
• Sandstorm -18 points after it's recent significant hitpoint nerf
• Missile Troopers -18 points, with many players wanting Jumpjets but no 3rd infantry unit. Back in the shade days, this was impossible, but now it's more viable if you e.g. have Pitbull/Talon as an anti-air combination

Players to watch:

• AgentShadow again rank 1 with even lower levels (L12.7) than with his Nod deck. His deck around Missile, Razorback and Borca allows him to leverage his incredible control along with the Borca that can overcome some key opponent units even at a level disadvantage
• AliciaDestiny for her crazy 96% winrate
• paflagon 2, for competing in the top50 with an L12.3 deck and 2 tech units

AgentShadow's popcapping prowess

Game number statistics:

• Alejandrito has racked up 1,432 games so far this season with his GDI
• He, and 3 other players ahve moe than 800 GDI wins this season
• taiga2 and renardin switch decks so often that their most-played GDI decks just represent 12%/13% of their wins
• heroic farmer and blitz played 100% of their GDI games with the same deck

13lade Tiers: If you're interested not just in this quantitative analysis of unit frequency, but also a qualitative assessment of unit strength, I highly recommend this video:

Top 50 Nod – April 2020

Since more than a year, I regularly analyze the decks of the Top 50 Nod and GDI players in Rivals. This is the April 2020 issue for Nod. Please find the GDI 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 14.5, 2.1 infantry units, 2.3 vehicles (+0.4 vs February!), 1.6 air units and 0.1 Tech units. 38 of the top 50 decks employ exactly 2 infantry, whereas the diversity of vehicle and air numbers from 1-3 is significantly larger.

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. Fanatic decks had a 3% 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. Fanatic decks had 0.2 higher levels compared to the average)

More used compared to January

• Fanatic usage is up +12 points to 36%, an all-time high
• Stealth Tank usage is up +12 points to 44%, the highest since September 2019
• Scorpion Tank +12 points to 30%, the highest since October 2019
• Inferno +12 points to 22%, an all-time high

Less used compared to January:

• Phantom -16 points to 34%, as more players opt for the Stealth Tank.
• Shade -14 points to 20%; the last issue was just shortly after the patch, so it makes sense that the nerf effect intensified
• Avatar -14 points to 0
• Venom -10 points to 20%;

Other observations:

• Air diversity is now very high, with the air unit frequencies being at 20%, 20%, 20%, 22%, 26% and 34%
• Tech usage has went down, mostly driven from Avatar and Cyborg. It doesn't feel like it though, with many of the top players playing at least some Rock Worm or other tech decks throughout the season. It's just that it's rarely the most-played deck. I.e. if we had a more complete picture of all decks used (vs the most frequent decks of each player), I think we'd see Rock Worm and Confessors more frequently than in the past.
• Commander diversity is decently high, with even Kane at 10% and Oxanna and Seth both at 36%

Players to watch:

• AgentShadow again rank 1, and now getting scarier with his L13 deck (2 months ago, it was L12.1). See a video of his Nod play below.
• Fortis with his 3 infantry, 3 air deck around Marauders and Inferno, who has the lowest deck in the Top50 at L12.9
• srpss with an impressive 88% winrate at L13.9 with his Marauder / Chuggy deck

AgentShadow vs 13lade

Game number statistics:

• Noid Hex and LukoZade both racked up more than 700 Nod wins this seaso
• samsthedog and taiga2 rotate decks so much that their most frequently played Nod decks represent just 12% / 13% of their Nod wins
• blitz, paflagon 2 and Elmoi sticking to their guns with 98%+ of their Nod wins with a single deck

13lade Tiers: If you're interested not just in this quantitative analysis of unit frequency, but also a qualitative assessment of unit strength, I highly recommend this video:

Top 50 Nod Decks: Buggies up! -- February 2020

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

You can find the raw data here, including a full list of the decks including nicknames. The average deck has a level of 14.4, 2.0 infantry units, 1.9 vehicles, 1.7 air units and 0.4 Tech units. 35 of the top 50 decks employ exactly 2 infantry, whereas the diversity of vehicle and air numbers from 1-3 is significantly larger.

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. Fanatic decks had a 3% 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. Fanatic decks had 0.1 lower levels compared to the average)

More used compared to January

• Cyber Wheels +14 points to 42%.
• Buggy +8% to 20%.There's a wide range of decks employing the Buggy: 3 Inferno decks (possibly inspired by VictorBansemer), 3 Avatar decks, a Tick Tank deck, 3 Shade decks. It's attractive to some players as there's relatively few Tanks around, as it can be quite strong for the first missile in general, and as it provides a good option against Missiles when there's a Razorback hovering over them. 
• Oxanna +8% to 38%. Tech decks, Inferno decks, Marauder decks and some Fanatic Aggro decks employ this commander.

Less used compared to January:

• Shade -8 points to 34%. This might look odd, as the majority of the February season was pre-nerf.  And indeed, I'm pretty sure that 2-3 weeks into the season, there were much more Shade decks in top Tiberium. One explanation is that especially Shade users enjoyed these weeks before the nerf, and it was some lower level Shade users who used the opportunity to climb into the Top 50 for once. Near the end of the season, with more people in Tiberium, their lower levels would not carry them as far. And then, the Shade nerf made things worse. 
• Venom -8 points to 30%. The Shade/Venom combo isn't as dominant anymore, and with lots of Strealth Tanks around, Venoms aren't that attractive.
• Chem Trooper -8 points to 12%. I believe the Chem Trooper is still strong in the current meta: Chem/Stealth Tank/Laser Drone has good play against Razorback, and very good play against Fanatic Aggro. Shade was nerfed. So I think this is a mix of "fashion" (in Sep-Nov, the Chem Trooper deck was all the rage) and the connoisseurs of Base destruction style could switch to Shade/Seth or Solomon.

Players to watch:

• AgentShadow got rank 1 with a L12.1, which is just insane. He employs a Fanatic Aggro deck with Stealth Tank and Shade. If yo want to understand why Fanatics are good, watch him win games against L13-L15 with building lots of L11 Fanatics.
• VictorBansemer, if you like seeing a top-tier player utilize Infernos. He also streams regularly.
• lessqq, if you like seeing a really strong player utilize Confessor/Basilisk for the late game. Streams as well, but not that often Rials.

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: ckm111 isn't just an innovator, he also is a grinder: 747 Nod wins for him in February! He's followed by the 4 Horsemen of the Shadoalypse nickcool, LukoZade, CrazyPsychopath and dukeofearl, who racked up 530-650 wins each.

Deck Switchers: ckm111 had 164 games with his "main" Tick Tank deck, but this was just 12% of his total Nod wins. taiga2, dukeofearl, and Nukin also had no single deck that racked up more than 20% of their Nod wins.

Single-Deck Players: blitz, Noid Hex, shuukit, AgentShadow and GGGG all played more than 90% of their wins with their main deck. 4 of these went into the Top100. Mastering one deck might help if you want to grind a lot in a 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.

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:

• nickcool's Fanatic - Wheel, Bikes, Stealth Tank - Shade, Phantom - Seth is the peak agglomeration of strong units with a 13lade score of 6 (one S, rest A)
• CrazyPsychopath's Shade/Seth base buster scored 7.0, Lasers as the single B.
• AgentShadow's Oxanna variant pulled him "down" to 7.5
• Just as with GDI, taiga2 also has the "weakest powered" unit selection for Nod with Kane - Lasers, Maraders - Buggy, Stealth Tank - Venom, Banshee and scores 16.5. 
• Good meta decks range up to 11 (Fanatic Aggro, Jade Chem)

Here's the GDI analysis for February

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).

Nod Top 50: Shades of Seth

Every month (exception December 2019), I analyze the decks of the Top 50 Nod and GDI players in Rivals. This is the January 2020 issue for Nod. You can find the GDI variant here.

You can find the raw data here, including a full list of the decks including nicknames. The Average deck level stayed constant at 14.2.

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. the single Confessor deck had a 12 points higher winrate than the average)
• "Δ vs average levels" is how the levels of decks utilizing this unit/commander deviate from average (e.g. the single Giga deck had 2.9 levels lower than the average)

Units seeing more play:

• A whopping 42% of decks employ the Shade. Crazy stats for a new unit that usually is still heavily underlevelled, and further evidence of it's overpowered strength. Plus, it has to be said that a number of good players don't play Shade because it's too strong. 
• Seth usage climbed from 28% to 46%, as it harmonizes well with Shade decks and some of the other decks that people play around with to counter Razorback/Shade without playing these units themselves.
• Venoms up from 22% to 38% because --guess what-- they harmonize well with Shade. This combo allows air tower opener especially against Nod.
• Stealth Tank up by 12 percentage points to 28%, as it's a core answer to Razorback/Mohawk. We can for example see a variant of the "classic" Fanatic Aggro which switches in Stealth Tank for Scorpion Tank. This also allows for Banshee over Phantom, which can help as Banshee is earlier available against the OP Razorback and Shade, whilst also being less specialized than Phantom. Four strong players (13lade, GGGG, r3bb and TheCopyCatTV) play this Laser, Fanatic - WHeel, Bike, Stealth - Banshee - Seth deck
• Phantom +12 points to 52%! Phantom has been core to some of the best Nod decks before Razorback and Shade were introduced, and the current air meta unsurprisingly makes them even more attractive.

Units seeing less play:

• Attack Bikes -22 points down to "just" 72%. They were hit by a slight nerf, and by the popularity of both Shade and to a bit lesser degree Razorback/Mohawk decks.
• Laser Drones from 30% down to 10%. Why play them if you have Shade levelled up?
• Giga Cannons, from 16% to 2%, have vanished. They don't fare well against Shades...
• Chem Buggy -12%, guess why?
• Oxanna -12%. Shade has such a low reload time, it doesn't really need it. Oxanna still sees 30% play as it's versatile and useful in the three left Marauder decks, Tech decks and some Inferno decks.

Further observations:

• All-time low reached by Scorpion Tanks at just 22%. A bit sad for such a great, action-packed and micro-intensive unit.
• Shade decks have just 1% higher winrate compared to the average. Yet, this is explained by (a) many Shades still being underlevelled, (b) many of the top players declining to play Shade, (c) some players entering the Top 50 just because of Shade (i.e. they don't have the skill+level strength to be Top50 without Shade, so their winrate doesn't show the full Shade potential.
• The most active Nod players in the Top50 are exem (776 wins so far in the January season), ShadowFenix (556), one of the Koreans, and eva42 (506). 
• ShadowFenix among them is worth a mention as he has the lowest levels (11.3!) and is the single Giga player, and still has a great winrate of 72%. Possibly the winrate is pushed up as this also might be an event deck for ShadowFenix.
• As with GDI, AgentShadow also has low levels (L11.9) and still manages Top10 and a pretty good winrate of 61% for these levels.
• High deck diversity: Midnight.Nation, Bikerush and Nukin all played their most common Nod decks rare enough that it contributed less than 20% of their Nod wins. 
• KlarJK and car1286 only played one single deck.
• There's 9 decks with full L15s. The honorable mention here goes to AliciaDestiny, who reached a 98% winrate on 154 games with her "classic" Inferno deck.

Jump to the GDI analysis here.

GDI Top 50 in January 2020: Razorback at "just" 36%

Every month (exception December 2019), I analyze the decks of the Top 50 Nod and GDI players in Rivals. This is the January 2020 issue for GDI. You can find the Nod variant here.

You can find the raw data here, including a full list of the decks including nicknames. The Average deck level went down by -0.1 to 13.8, possibly related to the new unit (Razorback) and more Tech units.

In the chart above, you can see how deck composition by unit type changed from October through November to January. For examp,e we see that the nmber of decks that just use a single vehicle more than doubled (growth of orange segment in the vehicle column). We also see that Tech decks became more widespread over time, with now 44% of all decks containing at least one Tech unit.

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 November:

• Razorback made an unsurprising jump by +22 ppt to 36%. It's a great unit, widely considered overpowered and (partly for that reason) sees use in a broad range of decks. The "meta" combination with Mohawk makes up 10 of the 18 Razorback decks.
• Jumpjet Troopers usage went up from 16% to 28%. It was buffed a bit, and in decks that otherwise are heavy on infantry and air finds use as a fast counter to Bikes, Slingshots and Pitbulls.
• Solomon is at a record-high 20%, up from 8%. It's cost decrease means that the base-kill strategy has become even more popular.
• Pitbull usage went up by 12 points and hit a record high since the nerf in July 2019. In 12 decks it's the sole vehicle unit.
• Sandstorm has found more friends, doubling from 10% to 20%. 

Less used compared to November:

• Strongarm went down by -12%. On the one hand, Liang users might have seen less reason to switch to Solomon. On the other hand, Strongarm doesn't feel great against Shade and Razorback/Mohawk decks (whereas Liang can at least block).
• War Dogs usage went down from 38% to 28%. More decks want to open infantry as they want to go into Air early. 
• MG, MLRS, Sniper, Orca Bomber and APC usage all went down by 8 percentage points. With MLRS, I find it a bit surprising, considering how strong the Razorback deck with MLRS is (Noid Hex had immense success with it in December). Sniper and MG are the least surprising, mostly due to Razorback (but also Nod playing more air, incl. Venom). Orca Bomber decline is also a bit surprising considering it's strength, demonstrated by top players.

Other observations:

• Curiously, Talon usage didn't go up, even though it's considered to be one of the best options in the Shade / Razorback meta
• Orca Bomber and Sniper seem to be favored especially by high-skill players with lower level decks that appreciate these units' ability to take out higher levelled stuff as hard counters.
• It's surprising to me that Slingshot even went down a bit. Yes, it's no clear solution to shade, but combined with Missiles still gives you decent play against Shade/Venom. And it's a staple in many Razorback meta decks. Plus, generally useful in an air meta, especially as Orca Bomber even went down.
• Only 4 decks utilize the "sniper deck" core of Missile, Sniper, Dog, Pitbull. To these, according to 13lade, you can add nearly any 2 additional units. And as we'll see next, such decks are very viable.
• It might be surprising that the Razorback, widely considered as overpowered, is played in "just" 36% of decks. On the one hand, it's not as overpowered compared to the Nod Shade. On the other hand, it's still a relatively new unit, so many players don't have it at a high level, yet. 

Standout players

• AgentShadow climbed to #1 with the by far lowest level deck, averaging at 11.9 (the next lowest decks field 12.9). His deck choice is built around the "sniper deck" core (see above), to which he adds Hammerhead and Orca Bomber, giving him hard-hitting, hard-countering outs when being outlevelled.
• VictorBansemer has the second lowest deck and combines it with an impressive 75% winrate. His choice is a low-cost Solomon deck with Rifle, Missile, Jumpjets, Pitbull, Talon and Orca.
• Silas and srpss show strong winrates with their L13.1 decks. Silas with a classic Razorback deck and srpss also chosing the Orca Bomber.
• Bikerush, AliciaDestiny and Benven2 deserve mentioning for their winrates above 90%.

Playing Volume and Deck Diversity

• The Korean player ??ECH and Silas have the highest playing volume this month so far, with each having more than 700 GDI wins
• On average, the Top 50 players had 277 GDI wins so far in the January season
• 15 players played basically just one GDI deck (88%-99% of their GDI wins being with the "primary" deck with most games, which is the decks we look at in this analysis)
• 14 players had less than a third of their GDI wins with their "primary" deck, i.e. switch around a lot. Most extreme is Substancegiron, who played just 17% of his GDI wins with the "primary" deck.

Jump to the Nod variant here.

Nod Top 50 November -- Dutch players have seen enough Bikes for a lifetime

Every month, I analyze the decks of the Top 50 Nod and GDI players in Rivals. This is the November 2019 issue for Nod. You can find the GDI variant here.

• Please find the raw data here, incl. a full list of the decks including nicknames
• Average deck level went up by +0.1 to 14.2
• Average deck composition and it's change since October can be seen in the chart below. How to read this: E.g. the big grey area in "Tech" shows that the vast majority of units had no Tech units in Oct/Nov. The Orange and Yellow areas in "Air" show that most decks have 1 or 2 air units. The small green sliver on top shows that some decks have 3 air units, which in October wasn't the case (hence the left "Oct" column has no green). 

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 June frequency, and a +/- number shows the change to the previous month. Lastly, there is a small line chart that shows the trend over the last 4 months.
• "Δ vs average winrate" is how the winrate decks utilizing this unit/commander deviates from the average (e.g. Fanatic decks had a 3% 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. decks utilizing the Marauders are 0.3 levels lower than the average)

Units with most usage gain:

• Giga Cannon +10 percentage points
• Inferno +8
• Phantom +6
• Chem Buggy +6
• Oxanna +6

Units with most usage drop:

• Marauders -8
• Stealth Tank -8
• Fanatic -6
• Seth -6

Observations

• The 3 players not playing Bikes are all Dutch (NaturalSky, Midnight.Nation and Suzaku). According to NaturalSky, this is because "Dutch players have seen enough bikes for a lifetime"
• The change in frequencies was smaller than with GDI, which makes sense as GDI had a new unit
• Despite so many people voicing concerns with "Jade ckm deck is overpowered", usage of this deck didn't grow. This might be driven by multiple factors: First, Razorback decks are strong against it. Second, people adjusted their decks and became better at playing against Jade. Third, even successful Jade players want a change (e.g. I switched to playing more Inferno for this reason). Still, there's 9 decks of this type in the top 50.
• Inferno/Phantom became more popular, 6 players now play it.
• Seth's -6 points shift to Oxanna reflects that fewer people play classic Aggro decks (there's only one classic 2-2-2 with Venom/Banshee left). Giga and Inferno are more often played with Oxanna.
• Marauder decks becoming less popular might be driven by a general growth in T2 anti-infantry in the recent months. First Snipers and Chems becoming more widespread, now Razorback. 
• Chem Buggy previously was mostly played in Marauder decks, now 6 of the 10 Chem Buggy decks don't have marauders. They are e.g. part of 3 Giga decks, and 2 Tech decks.
• Overall, the deck diversity seems very high. "Oldschool" 2-3-1 Aggro, 2-2-2 Aggro are still present with good winrates. Jade ckm, Marauder/Chuggy, Inferno/Phantom all represent popular options. Commander diversity is high. Some Tech decks are around. The Nod aggro has many variants with Fanatics vs Militants, Wheels vs Chem Buggy vs Venom. Air play is viable. Suzaku shows even Kane and no Bikes are viable.

Player highlights

• AliciaDestiny continues to be the standout Nod player with a 97% winrate on 210 games -- read our latest interview with her
• Cbpowerhouse sports an impressive 76% winrate on a L12.4 deck. He plays Fanatic Aggro (Oxanna - Laser, Fanatic  Wheel, Bike, Tank - Banshee)
• Bikerushownz shows his skill and the viability of Alicia's "Infernom" (Oxanna - Fanatic - Wheels, Bikes, Scorpion Tank - Phantom, Inferno) deck with a 89% winrate with L12.9.
• LiquidTiberium has a 81% winrate on 166 games with just L13.1. He plays Seth - Militant, Laser - Bike, Chuggy, Stealth Tank - Banshee
• paflagon 2, the best player from Turkey has "just" 50% winrate, but is on #18 with an L12.1 deck. Anyone who played him can testify that he's a standout player. Techniques he applies to beat decks with much higher levels include pop capping and base kills with Seth and Marauders. I can highly recommend to watch his replays in the app.
• KlarJK isn't just a standout player in RTL, but also in ranked/ladder. He shows that the good old Nod 2-3-1 aggro (Seth - Militant, Laser - Wheel, Bike, Scorpion Tank - Banshee) stays viable.

Thoughts on Bikes

• Bike usage dropped minimally from 98% to 94%. But they are still ubiquitous
• They also beat Pitbulls and Tanks for cost in the right circumstances
• That's why many say Bikes are overpowered and should be nerfed
• I disagree! I think Bikes are so ubiquitous more because of their versatility and necessity than being "overpowered"
• It's very hard to play without Bikes due to units such as Talon, Venom and Droneswarm, as Nod doesn't have good cheap anti air outside of Laser Troopers (slow) and Bikes
• Another aspect is that nerfing Bikes would make Tech even stronger, as Tech decks often rely on light air plus cheap infantry to stall for time
• Also, I think that claims that Bikes beat Pitbulls and Tanks are overstated. Yes, in very capable hands and with enough space, they do. But it's far from easy, and capable Tank and Pitbull players, making use of terrain, raider and blocking, can often beat Bikes for cost. Once 2 Pitbulls are stacked, it's hard for Bikes to be efficient if they don't get the perfect angle and timing. This observation might be subjective as I'm not one of the very top players in terms of skill.

Go to the Nod Top 50 analysis for November 2019

GDI Top 50 November -- Talon, Zones and Razorback grow in popularity

Every month, I analyze the decks of the Top 50 Nod and GDI players in Rivals. This is the November 2019 issue for GDI. Please find the Nod version here.

You can find the raw data here, including a full list of the decks including nicknames. The Average deck level went down by -0.1 to 13.8, possibly related to the new unit (Razorback) and more Tech units.

In the chart above, you can see how deck composition by unit type changed from October to November. You can e.g. see that there's now some 5-vehicle decks again. Also, we can see that last month, while about a third of decks had exactly one Tech unit in, only very few had more. This month, there's now 9 decks with two Tech units.

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 June frequency, and a +/- number shows the change to the previous month. Lastly, there is a small line chart that shows the trend over the last months.
• "Δ vs average winrate" is how the winrate decks utilizing this unit/commander deviates from the average (e.g. Hammerhead 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. Jackson decks had -0.6 lower levels compared to the average)

Units with most usage gain:

• Razorback +14 percentage points
• Talon +14
• Zone Trooper +10
• Slingshot +10

Units with most usage drop:

• Droneswarm -18 percentage points
• Pitbull -16
• APC -14

Observations:

• Zone Trooper / Titan is a surprisingly popular combination, with 3 of the Top 10 players fielding this combo (namely BIKERUSHOWNZ, Benven2 and BobbyBouche)
• Mammoth Tanks are still popular at 16% and either come alone or paired with Zone Troopers. They don't have a great win rate in the Top 50, but I still feel that for the sake of lower leagues, they and Tech in general probably should be nerfed.
• Razorback has made a strong entry with 14% usage in the first month. The Razorback also performed very well in recent tournaments, especially in the competent hands of srpss. Below, find a good video from 13lade showcasing Razorback play.
• What's interesting is that while War Factory usage overall increased, two of the units widely considered as very strong dropped in usage: Pitbull and APC. This combination, along with the decline of the usage of Droneswarms, hints at a specific deck having fallen a bit out of favor: The quintessential Suzaku APC deck (Suzaku talks about the deck in this interview). Now, there's just 4 of them in the Top 50, or 6 if we count Mohawk and Razorback variants. Last month, it was 11!
• Pitbull usage is at an all-time low, and the decks that chose to do without it come in all forms. Of the 24 decks, 13 "replace" it's anti-air role with Slingshot. This leaves 11 decks with neither Slingshot nor Pitbull. Most of them do without war factory altogether, usually Tech or Orca Bomber decks. But there's also two decks with War Factory but neither Pitbull nor Slingshot: LemonLyman's Missile/Sniper-Dog/Shatterer-Hammerhead/Borca deck and Tommy's Rifle/Missile-Tank/APC-Talon/Mohawk deck.
• Less Suzaku APC also means less Strongarm. The 6 percentage points decline in Strongarm didn't go to Liang, but Jackson. Unsurprisingly, 8 of the 10 Jackson decks are Tech Decks (How to beat Tech decks).

Player highlights:

• VictorBansemer from Brazil and dice from Uzbekistan have the lowest levels with 11.8 each. VictorBansemer plays a standard bomber deck with Liang - Missile, Sniper - War Dogs, Pitbull - Hammerhead, Borca on 66% winrate and dice plays a crazy Jackson - Jumpjets - Dogs, Shatterer, Slingshot, MLRS - Talon deck
• GGGG is also in the top 5 lowest-level decks, and annoys a ton of people with his Air Mammoth deck, winning 63% of the games that he's usually under-levelled
• TizzleJizzle had a crazy 82% winrate with L12.6 and Liang - Missile, MG, JJ - Slingshot, Talon, Borca
• Magni delivers an incredible 90% winrate on L14.2 with an "oldschool" deck: Missile, Shock(!) - Dogs, Pitbull, Predator Tank - Talon
• jordan has a 79% winrate on a L13 3-0-3 deck with Jackson - Rifle, Missile, MG - Talon, Hammerhead, Orca Bomber
• 13lade shows that the Suzaku APC is still viable, with 89% winrate on L13.8.
• Unsurprisingly, AliciaDestiny and BIKERUSHOWNZ are the two players with winrates of more than 95%

Click here for the Nod Top 50 Analysis November 2019