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:

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).

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.

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

Razorback -- new GDI Air unit

EA today announced a new unit for GDI, the Razorback. It costs 60 Tiberium and is an anti-Infantry specialist with the "Raider" ability. Raider means it shoots while moving. It has decent hitpoints, e.g. it survives two bike volleys and a full phantom salvo. It has a range of 1, and if it's exactly above the opponent's unit (i.e. at "range 0"), it does not shoot.

To get an idea about how the unit works and feels like, here's two videos. The first is from 13lade and shows some decks in action in full games. The second is part of CaptainBenzie's "new unit" video series that he does since many months.

GDI Top 50 -- Suzaku APC and very diverse Air Play

Every month, I analyze the decks of the Top 50 Nod and GDI players in Rivals. This is the October 2019 issue for GDI. You can find the Nod 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 13.9
• Deck composition see in the graphics below. For each unit type, the bar shows the distribution of number of units per deck.

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. Jumpjet decks had a 4% higher winrate)
• "Δ vs average levels" is how the levels of decks utilizing this unit/commander deviate from average (e.g. decks utilizing the Hammerhead are 0.6 levels lower than the average)

Observations:

• The Suzaku APC deck (Strongarm, Rifle, Missile, Pitbull, APC, Drones, Orca) is the most common deck. If we include the variations Liang vs Strongarm, Talon vs Drones and Mohawk vs Orca, 11 of the the top 50 decks follow this pattern.
• As APC also appears in two MLRS decks, two Predator Tank decks and an MG deck, there's 16 decks with APCs, an increase from 24% to 32%.
• Pitbull usage increased by 10 ppt to 68%, driven partly by the Suzaku APC deck popularity.
• Slingshot usage went down in parallel by 8 points -- which makes sense, as having both Pitbull and Slingshot feels inefficient in most cases.
• Jumpjet usage increased from 16% to 24%, and the JJ decks have a 4 points higher winrate compared to the average. They appear in a pretty diverse range of decks: 4 Orca Bomber decks, 2 MLRS decks, 3 decks with Orca, and a couple others. They are often the choice of high-skill players with relatively low levels such as srpss, r3bb and Maximus
• Sniper usage went up from 18% to 24%, which might partly be a reaction to the popularity of Chem Troopers (see Nod analysis). To see how good Snipers can be in the hands of a skilled players, watch the AliciaDestiny vs ThxForMMR finals from last Friday's Crazy Pimpin' tournament:

• It's nice to see that all GDI air units see significant, but not dominant play. All of the 6 units range between 14% (Hammerhead) and 34% (Droneswarm) frequency.
• Hammerhead usage went up by 8 points. It is either pared with Orca Bomber or Mammoth Tank as part of the "Air Mammoth" deck.
• Jackson lost 12 points of usage to Liang and also to Solomon. 
• Strongarm is seen in 15 decks, 10 of which are Suzaku APC and it's variants.

Player highlights:

• srpss has a strong 80% winrate with L12.9. He fields Rifle, Missile, Jumpjets, Pitbull, Talon, Orca Bomber and Liang.
• KlarJK stands out for 84% winrate on "just" L13.4. He plays a Talon, Mohawk variant of Suzaku APC.
• r3bb and Maximus have 72% / 73% winrates with L13.1 and Jumpjet Troopers.
• Bikerush, AliciaDestiny and Benven2 form a league of their own with winrates in the 90ies. 

Thoughts on balance: I believe people are often too quick to judge balance based on their personal experience or even on reports such like this. Balance heavily depends on maps (which map and whether you know it before the game), levels and skill:

• In tournaments, people play at equal level, which means that Epic units are not underleveled (e.g. you might not be able to play Snipers on ladder because they are underlevel). You often know the map before the game and can adjust your deck, which can, depending on the map, favor specific playstyles such as Tech, Fortress, Snipers etc., which would be hard to play on a random map. 
• If we'd now buff a certain unit to make it more viable on ladder, it might become even stronger on certain specific maps.
• Whilst on ladder, Nod is stronger than GDI, GDI was still seeing a lot of play in the recent tournaments. Reasons for this can include being able to pick a very specific deck for a specific map, or to surprise your opponent. Alarak's main theory is that Nod Laser Drones are so good against Nod, that their prevalence alone made GDI more attractive.
• At the absolute top of ladder, e.g. Top20, certain decent decks become less viable. For example, 13lade recently said he doesn't play Air Mammoth on ladder, as ladder opponents in very high Tiberium know how to deal with it, so his winrate is lower compared to other decks.
• Does this mean that Mammoth is too weak? No, because it's very hard to deal with for most players -- and is still even used in tournaments by the very best players.
• Tech or Scarabs might not be that viable in the Top 100. But buffing them so they see "equal play" in the Top100 would mean that for 95% of the player population, they would become even stronger. In lower leagues, you see 95% Tech -- so in my view, there's even a case to be made to nerf Tech rather than buff it (because it's not critical to have viable Tech for top players, but it can be critical to not have 95% Tech for newer players).
• Even Bikes that see 98% usage in the last Nod analysis are not necessarily broken. They might just be a necessary staple for Nod. In most RTS, there are some units that are built nearly every game. I don't want to say that Bikes are weak (they are certainly strong), just that 98% usage does not imply we're in a horrible state of balance.

I'm not making a specific case for certain buffs or nerfs here. My message is: (a) Balance is delicate, and optimizing for just one of these scenarios (such as Top Tiberium or Tournaments) can have adverse effects overall. (b) I personally find the current balance and diversity of play pretty decent right now.

See the Nod variant of this analysis

Everybody's got some Bomber -- The GDI Top 50 in September

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

• Please find the raw data here, incl. a full list of the decks including nicknames
• Average deck level went up by +0.3 to 13.8
• Average deck composition is 2.1 infantry (+/-0), 1.0 vehicles (+/-0), 1.4 air (+0.1) and 0.6 (-0.1) tech units. In the chart below, you can see how often decks have which unit type in the deck. For example, you can see that a quarter of the decks don't play with Vehicles, and a quarter don't play Air.

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. Inferno decks had a 6% 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 Inferno are 0.3 levels higher than the average)

Observations:

• The Rifle / Missile duo has gained even further popularity. 30 of the 50 decks have both.
• As expected, Droneswarm usage is up +50% vs previous month due to the recent buff
• MLRS and APC have both gained in popularity and now stand at 16% / 24% usage respectively. Two decks field both.
• Strongarm is up in popularity, explained by (a) the drone swarm buff making the Suzaku APC deck (Rifle, Missle - Pitbull, APC - Drones, Orca) more viable again (which employs Strongarm). 7 Decks are that archetype, some of them using Talon and/or Mohawk as air options.
• Liang is down after the cost increase from 40 to 50, by more than what Strongarm gained. Jackson gained a couple of points instead. 6 of the 13 Jackson decks use the Tech lab.
• The moderate Mammoth nerf had some effect, but still every fifth deck fields it.
• Titan is used in 10% of the decks, some of them quite successful. Benven2 should be mentioned here, having 96% winrate (on 30 games) with Titan and Zone Troopers. taiga2 gets an hnorable mention for playing a low level (12.2 average) deck with Titan and Sandstorm in the Top 50.
• 72% of decks use one of the "Bombers", i.e. Mohawk, Orca or Orca Bomber. Unsurprisingly, no deck has more than one of these options.
• Comparing with Nod, some "underusage differences" by looking at which units get used by less than 10% of decks:
• Infantry: GDI 1 vs Nod 3 (Shocks vs Scavenger, Scarab, Flames)
• Vehicles: GDI 3 vs Nod 1 (Rhino, Shatterer, MSV vs Tick Tank)
• Air: GDI 1 vs Nod 1 (Hammerhead vs Inferno)
• Tech: GDI 4 vs Nod 9 (Wolverine, Disruptor, Juggernaut, Kodiak vs all)

Levels vs Winrate

Obviously, it's easier to get a high winrate with high levels. The below chart illustrates the two variables. The trend line shows the "average impact" of levels on winrate. The winrate is shown as "X games per 1 loss". Bikerush e.g. has 19 wins per loss. 

If we compare this data by faction (see Nod analysis), we get the following picture:

In the Top 50, GDI has an average winrate of 70%. Nod 75%. Only about 1 point of this win rate difference is explained by GDI decks having a bit lower levels on average (13.8 vs 14.0 for Nod). 

As expected, this data shows that Nod is stronger. What is maybe not as expected is the different shape of the trendlines. They imply that to get strong GDI winrates, Levels play a higher role. I.e. not just is Nod a stronger overall, but especially for players with lower level decks, this difference is more extreme at the top of Tiberium ladder.

Some hypotheses on this:

• Especially players with lower levels usually play Aggro decks. The extra speed and DPS for Nod units (compared to GDI and on average) means that Aggro decks have an easier time to employ hard counters, compensating for level difference. 
• A typical example for this: Nod players have an easier time to keep their Scorpion away from it's counters and use it against opponent's light vehicles than GDI can do that with the Predator. Not just is the Scorpion a bit better than Predator overall, but it's particularly better if you're behind on levels.
• Nod being stronger means that it's preferred by many players. This means they used cloning vats for key Nod units like the Scorpion. You e.g. can see L12 decks with L14 Scorpions, or L13 decks with L15 Scorpions. Not only does this explain a bit the level advantage of Nod on average (in the Top50), but it also means that Nod decks that on average are still relatively low often have key units on higher level. A L13 average deck with a key unit on L15 outperforms an L13 deck with equally distributed levels usually.

Further reading:

• Nod variant of this analysis
• Beginner guide: Levelling up your units quickly
• Beginner guide: Deck construction principles for Rivals
• Tiberium income acceleration throughout the game -- how does it work?

Video recommendation

13 minutes of commented high-level play, Alarak against Srpss:

Liang the healer & pad stealer – Top 50 Deck Analysis August 2019

Welcome to the monthly Rivals meta analysis: What units and commanders do the top 50 players in the ladder play? Jump to the Nod version of this analysis.

• Please find the raw data here, incl. a full list of the decks including nicknames, if you want to find a player who plays a certain unit or deck.
• Average deck level was constant at 13.5
• 2.1 infantry (+0.2), 1.9 vehicles (-0.1), 1.3 air (+0.3) and 0.7 (-0.1) tech units make up the average deck (changes to last month in brackets)

Now to the main data, the unit frequency. How to read the table below:

• "Frequency" is the share of Decks that run this unit or commander. First, the frequency in % over last 4 months is shown. Then, a bar chart visualizes the June frequency. Third, 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. Sniper decks had a 7 percentage point higher winrate than the average deck)
• "Δ vs average levels" is how the levels of decks utilizing this unit/commander deviate from average (e.g. decks utilizing the Shatterer are -0.9 levels under the average)

Observations:

• Winners
• Orca usage went up from 14% to 25% and Mohawk from 14% to 23%. This means that now nearly every second deck contains one of them. If you add Orca Bomber's 17%, most GDI decks now contain a bomber.
• Talon usage jumped from 24% to 34%. It's versatility means it appears in a range of different decks as both secondary anti-infantry and anti-air option.
• Rifle usage (52% to 60%) recovered from lat month's dip, and Snipers went from 16% to 24%
• Grenadier usage grew from 14% to 21% despite 13lade putting it just into C-tier
• APCs made a comeback, growing from 14% to 21%
• Liang's spot as the #1 commander choice solidified (42% to 51%), as it's hugely versatile not just as a healer, but also as a pad stealer (Strongarm being basically only used with APC decks is interesting, and illustrates the versatility and strrength of Liang)
• Losers
• Shock Troopers all but disappeared (16% to 8%), which makes sense as it's hard to see when you'd not either prefer Rifle for the cost or Sniper for the ability to dominate infantry. (Yes, Snipers can also be weaker in some spots.)
• Jackson went down, as Liang is an alternative for typical Jackson decks (Predator, Tech units)
• Pitbull went further down from 60% to 53%, driven by both increased Slingshot usage and decreased Factory usage (13 decks with no vehicles at all)
• Nerf victims from the last patch went down: Zone Troopers, MSV and Shatterer
• Jumpjet troopers went down from 22% to 15%, but still seem useful in Borca decks and some other high-micro decks

Balance & Diversity

I believe balance and deck diversity are in a decent spot. There's a number of very different deck archetypes in the Top 50:

• 12 Mammoth decks, 8 of them with Mammoth as the only Tech unit. Most, but not all of them with Infantry + Air for the phase before Mammoths
• 9 Orca Bomber decks, often with MG.
• 8 classic APC decks in some variants for the air units (Drones vs Talon, Orca vs Mohawk). Plus two APC/MLRS decks.
• 11 decks with predators, of which it seems to play a main role in most of them
• 6 MLRS decks seems like a number that illustrates fair balance
• A number of different "high micro" decks are used by players with low level decks, as examples I'd give:
• heroic farmer with Strongarm - JJ, Sniper - Dogs, Slingshot - Talon, Mohawk has a 71% winrate with a L12 deck
• VictorBansemer with an unorthodox Solomon  Rifle, Missile, JJ - Slingshot - Talon, Orca deck , 69% winrate at L11.8

• Slingshot being used in all of these deck archetypes, but nearly none of these use only the Slingshot. Good sign that Slignshot is an option, but neither a must have nor useless.
• Highly microable units like Jumpjets and Snipers being useful, but not dominant.
• Grenadiers seeing good usage despite being seen as weak by a number of top players
• All air units being in a relatively narrow usage range from 13% (Hammerhead) to 34% (Talon)
• There's decks with 0-3 of all unit types, and even some decks with 4 infantry, 4 vehicles and 4 air units. And except for Infantry, it really seems pretty viable to skip any particular of the buildings (which inversely means there's no must-have unit)

So my recommendation to the devs would be to make no significant balance changes but if/where needed, play with small tweaks. 

For example, play with nerf areas that create micro potential such as the Turn Rate.

• Mammoths don't seem statistically that overpowered at top end play, albeit it's noticeable that there's some relatively low-level dekcs with high winrates (i.e. it seems that the average winrate of all Mammoth players is driven partly by weaker players liking Mammoth, and some strong players achieving top winrates with it). I can understand if people feel they dominate and have too little comeback mechanics against them, so a turn rate nerf could make it a bit more viable to use tanks against it with good control (baiting shots with e.g. wheels while the turret turns, and hitting it with tanks in the meantime who move a bit away from the turning turret)
• Slingshot are in a statistically decent place. But if devs feel they are too oppressive against certain unit types, maybe turn rate could help here as well, making it slightly easier to 2v1 or flank the Slingshot.

Beyond that, I'd rather go with small buffs to long-time underused units such as the Rhino. I'd probably go with 3 vision (to make it an at least theoretically viable opener) as a small step. Would not increase Rhino usage much, but make it a bit fairer for the guys who use it.

Which share of decks has 0, 1, 2 .. from a certain unit type?

Another new data point I looked at is the average cost of decks, including commanders. The average is pretty stable (last 6 months: 48, 48, 47, 49, 51, 52). The decline to May was explained by the growing popularity of the very cheap anti-infantry options (Rifle, Militant, Wheel), and the growth in the last months by higher viability of tech and growth in "mid-range decks", i.e. decks that use e.g. Snipers over Rifles.

If you find the APC comeback strange, as the main Suzaku APC variant had been nerfed (Drones, Orca, Pitbull all got tangible nerfs); I can recommend this video to you:

Jump to the Nod version of this analysis.

GDI War factory works overtime – Top 50 Deck Analysis July 2019

Welcome to the monthly Rivals meta analysis: What units and commanders do the top 50 players in the ladder play? This time, I released GDI and Nod data at the same time, you can find the Nod version here.

• Please find the raw data here, incl. a full list of the decks including nicknames, if you want to find a player who plays a certain unit or deck.
• Average deck level was constant at 13.5, which could indicate that players switched units (that are not as levelled-up) or that new players made their way into the top50. The first aspect does play some role, as we see quite some under-levelled Scatterers and even MSVs.
• 1.9 infantry (-0.2), 2.0 vehicles (+0.2), 1.0 air (-0.3) and 0.8 (+0.2) tech units make up the average deck (changes to last month in brackets)

Now to the main data, the unit frequency. How to read the table below:

• "Frequency" is the share of Decks that run this unit or commander. First, the frequency in % over last 4 months is shown. Then, a bar chart visualizes the June frequency. Third, 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. Sniper decks had a 7 percentage point higher winrate than the average deck)
• "Δ vs average levels" is how the levels of decks utilizing this unit/commander deviate from average (e.g. decks utilizing the Shatterer are -0.9 levels under the average)

Observations:

• Winners
• Slingshots tripled in usage to 30%
• Shatterers made a strong w
• War Dogs made a comeback and are now at 38% usage, likely driven by the overall shift to war factory
• MLRS made a small comeback, especially in decks that are very factory-heavy. Maybe this was also inspired by the SHOWDOWN event, where MLRS were a key unit for most GDI builds
• Every fifth deck now contains a Mammoth Tank, the most expensive unit in Rivals
• Titans are now seen in a surprising 10% of the decks
• Mohawks nudged up from 8% to 14%, possibly from players looking for an alternative to Orcas
• Zone Troopers and Wolverines went up to 14% each, showcasing that Tech overall did become more viable with the latest changes
• Losers
• Orca fell from 34% to 14% after it was nerfed
• Droneswarm went from 38% to 16%
• Unsurprisingly, this also means the APC went down, as the meta APC deck relies on support from both Drones and Orcas.
• Pitbulls fell from 80% to 60%, likely more due to the rise of the Slingshot than due to their recent nerf
• Usage of Grenadiers and Snipers went down, yet the decks that still utilize them sport strong winrates

Unit Type Distribution

This chart shows how many decks contain how many units from which building. 

• Few decks do without Infantry, and >50% have exactly 2 Infantry
• There's even decks with 5 or 6 vehicles, thanks to the newest GDI units Slingshot, Shatterer and MSV
• There's only few Air decks left in GDI (i.e. decks with 3+ Air units)
• Tech has gotten more frequent and comes in many different forms

Click here to switch to the Nod analysis

GDI Top 50 – June 2019 – Play Borca, APC or Liang

Yesterday, I already released the Nod list. Now, it's time for the monthly GDI update: What decks do the Top 50 GDI players in the Command & Conquer Rivals Ladder play?

A new feature this month is that I show the frequency of the previous 4 month both in %, and as a small trendline. This should give you a better feeling for how the meta changed over time.

• Please find the raw data here, incl. a full list of the decks including nicknames, if you want to find a player who plays a certain unit or deck.
• Average deck level went up from 12.7 to 13.5, a larger jump than with Nod. But last month's jump was very small, over 2 months the increase is comparable to Nod. 
• There's 4 full L15 decks and only 2 decks below L12 (VictorBansemer and onibank). It seems that it's harder to play GDI without levels than Nod, the 6 lowest decks have at best a 70% winrate, whereas with Nod, there's similarly levelled decks that even have above 80% winrate.
• 2.1 infantry, 1.8 vehicles, 1.3 air and 0.6 tech units make up the average deck. This is nearly identical to last month, the changes are within 0.1 each.

Now to the main data, the unit frequency. How to read the table below:

• "Frequency" is the share of Decks that run this unit or commander. First, the frequency in % over last 4 months is shown. Then, a bar chart visualizes the June frequency. Third, 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. Grenadier Decks having a 5 percentage points lower winrate)
• "Δ vs average levels" is how the levels of decks utilizing this unit/commander deviate from average (e.g. the Grenadiers are on average at L12.9, 0.6 levels below the L13.5 average for all units) 

Observations:

• Commanders
• Liang took the top spot with now 38%, it also stays the most versatile commander, being used in Tank decks, Tech decks, MG decks, but also some others
• 8 of 13 Strongarm users also are APC users
• 9 of 15 Jackson users also are Borca users
• Infantry
• Missile / Rifle is still the go-to infantry duo due to the low cost and versatility, making it a good choice for both aggro, air/Borca and tech decks
• Sniper went up from 10% to 24%, whereas Shocks declined from 27% to 14%. Indeed, in today's meta, there seems to be little upside to play Shocks, whereas Snipers have their unique range.
• Grenadier usage didn't increase much despite the recent buff
• Vehicles
• APC further grew in popularity, and now 26% of decks contain it. 6 of the 10 APC decks are the "Suzaku APC" variant with Rifle-Missile / Pitbull-APC / Drone-Orca. 
• Slingshot now sees 10% usage after it's speed buff.
• Air
• Orca usage decreased, but nearly half of all decks without Borca play it (both together don't really make sense)
• Borca (Orca Bomber) usage grew significantly from 12% to 28%
• Drones also went up a bit to now 38%. 
• Tech
• Sandstorm and Mammoth continue to be the most played Tech units
• As in previous months, all GDI tech units see some usage

Players to watch:

• Borca: Two players have 70% winrate with just L12 decks. Their Borca variants:
• r3bb: Rifle, Jumpjets - Pitbull, Slingshot(!) - Drones, Borca - Jackson (1 harv)
• Hussein Tamvan: Rifle, Missile, MG - Pitbull - Hammerhead, Borca - Liang (2 harv)
• Sniper/Slingshot/Solomon: MavMitchell has an impressive 88% winrate with L12 deck with Rifle, Missile, Sniper - Pitbull, Slingshot, Tank - and Solomon!
• Grenadier/Sniper: Watch Vertigo or LemonLyman
• Tank/Liang: Watch AliciaDestiny with her Tank/Pitbull micro with Liang
• APC: Just watch the original: Suzaku
• Tech: BigBellyMario continues to be the most successful Tech player. He has 77% winrate with just L12.2 and a deck with Missile, Shock - Disruptor, Kodiak, Sandstorm, Mammoth. This is the guy who even played Liang in the Top 50 when it still cost 70 Tiberium!

Note on methodology: I try to pick the most relevant deck of the players, which is ideally the deck that has the largest sample size this month and was recently used in ladder play. I excluded two decks that had a sample size of below 30. You can find the raw data here, including detail on the decks of the Top 50.