With relatively rare balance patches in the recent months, a problem for tournaments had been that certain units and decks were played very often, leading to more predictable, less exciting games.
To counter that, tournament organizers have been toying with modifications, such as to force players to play both factions, or ban specific units and commanders (such as Razorback, Fanatics, Liang).
In one of his latest tournaments, the Game.TV Finals, 13lade introduced an even more sophisticated system that actually worked great: Both players ban some units or commanders that the opponent can't chose. This allows for an interesting metagame, e.g.:
Do I ban the strongest units/commanders, or what I think this opponents likes / needs the most?
If I ban these units, what will the opponent play? How can I counter it?
Can I bait my opponent into playing a certain type of deck by banning a specific unit?
But see for yourself, it's a 2.5h well spent for any Rivals fan:
What I would like to see more in future tournamnets is more pre-determined maps. E.g. that it's clear which 5 maps are played in order for the semi-finals. This could allow players to come up with a game plan stretching the full series vs. just for each map.
Every month, the god of random selects new maps for the Masters and Tiberium league map pools. Let's have a look at what we're going to play in January!
I actually like the new Masters Map pool a lot. A big reason for that is a map that many people dislike: Middle Oasis. It's not my favorite map in a vacuum, but I love how different it is from basically all the other maps because of how the Tiberium is placed.
One nice side effect of this map is that blind double harvester tech decks will have a much harder time. This will both help non-Tech players in Masters a bit, as well as provide Tech players a learning experience on how to adapt their build order / play style or even deck composition.
The other maps are very solid:
Battlefield as a 2-pad map that is well known from the Crate Challenge events. It's pretty good for dual harv.
Stone Wall is interesting as on the one hand, it's relatively good for dual harv, but on the other hand, the pads are distant from each other, which favors fast decks like Nod air.
The Needle and Slot Canyon are all-around solid "standard" 3-pad maps that also are played often in tournaments.
In Tiberium, we have two maps that are identical to Masters: Middle Oasis and Stonewall. A bit suboptimal, but that's what happens when it's random. On the other hand, in the Tiberium map pool, where you have a wide range of map, I also like the salt that Middle Oasis adds to the mix quite a lot. Yes, Nod air (Venom/Shade) might be even more toxic here compared to other maps, as harvesters need to move upfront and light infantry might need to move through Tiberium. But Shade is overpowered anyways, and hopefully gets nerfed soon. So should not be the yardstick by which we judge the map pool.
The other maps:
Two Fuses, a 2-pad map that's good for 2-range like Giga/MLRS but also where it's relatively easy to stall (i.e. good for 2 harv)
Great Divide, possibly the 2-pad map that gets played in tournaments the most and gets complained about the least
The Bullseye, an excellent Strongarm map. We'll of course see mostly Liang in the event, but that's why I like this goodie for the few Strongarm players
Twin Pillars, Tiberium Stripes and Cracked Ice are more 3-pad maps that are pretty different from each other
Video of the day: Wheels & Lasers
Streamers 13lade and Nukin had a fun competition: Who can win more games playing just Wheels and Laser Troopers in a fixed set of events? Nukin won 107-102, and here's a video of Nukin doing a run with it.
The group stage of the 2nd season of the Rivals Team League ("RTL") has concluded. 138 players in 20 teams participated, playing 1,314 games / maps. 8 teams qualfiied for the playoff phase. The Top 3 teams will get a total prize pool of $300. Here's all the info about the group phase, and the upcoming playoffs.
To stay in loop with the playoffs, and for the upcoming Season 3, join the RTL discord. Also, follow the RTL YouTube channel, where you can find a lot of games casted by AwDaSea himself, the mastermind behind RTL.
Playoff Grid
Group Stages Final Table
The teams qualified by # match wins first, # set wins second, and # map wins third. Differences between won/lost didn't play a role to create an incentive to always play all games, instead of stopping at 3-0.
As you can see, the fight for #4 was quite close, with CzechoSlovak Wolfdogs and Kraut Control narrowly missing out on a playoff spot. An honorable mention goes to the German team T2D, who sent two full teams to the competition.
Top RTL Games on Video
AwDaSea casted a ton of games and put them on YouTube. Here's a selection of some of them with top players:
AgentShadow vs srpss -- Ace Match between Ten Minute Queues and Spartan Warriors, deciding the top spot for group B
German player Aelberson going up against Eric from the Top Team Spartan Warriors.
Conrad from the Crazy Russian against Lopatka from the CzechoSlovak Wolfdogs
Star Players
Season 1 had been won by "Team Scrappy", in which AliciaDestiny had been the star player. AliciaDestiny plays season 2 again, this time as part of team "Muuu", who qualified as first for the playoffs in group A.
The top players ranked by "map delta" (maps won minus maps lost) can be seen in the table below. For the full list, see this spreadsheet. If we plot the # maps played against the winrate, we get the following chart with all the RTL S2 players:
And if we plot the winrate of all RTL S2 players against their # of maps played, we get the following picture. As you can see, the frequency of famous names such as Suzaku, srpss and 13lade is quite high. StrikerVX' 18-0 in maps and the good performances of the lesser-known Dice (Uzbekistan), KlarJK (South Korea), RaptorIT (USA) and kennyemmy22 (Hungary) also deserve mentioning.
Map Statistics
We tracked the first map choice throughout the entire group phase. The favorite first map choices were Open Water (22%), Rorschach (18%) followed by a Three Lanes, Tug of War, Fighting Pit with 4% each -- and only 3 maps have not been chosen as first maps by any player. You can see the full breakdown here.
Thank you to AwDaSea for running this event so well! Follow AwDaSea on YouTube. And if you also would like to play RTL next season, start assembling your team today and join the RTL discord!
The Smackdown Tournament sets a new prize pool record for Rivals shortly after the Rivals World Cup. It's a tournament presented by the Bandito Collective, with casting by Nukin and Jeffrey.
When? Starting with the Western Europe Regional Finals on Nov 16, 11am EST (4 pm London, 5 pm Paris/Rome/Berlin)
This is a great video, because 13lade deliberately plays four very different meta decks, and adds insightful commentary on why he does what. Absolute must-watch especially for newer players who want to learn!
GDI Suzaku APC Liang variant: Liang - Riflemen, Missile Troopers - Pitbull, APC - Dronesawarm, Orca (read more about this deck in this interview with Suzaku)
Nod Jade Laser Drone deck ckm111 variant: Jade - Militants, Laser Troopers, Chem Troopers - Bikes - Laser Dromes, Phantom (read more about this deck here)
The Rivals Twitter account has also become active again, so let's support this by following on Twitter and giving the latest posts some love and retweets!
If you play Rivals in the leagues up to Masters, you will see all kinds of Tech decks -- and many of them. So much that I recently wrote an article on how to beat Tech decks.
But if you look at higher Tiberium (e.g. the Nod Top 50), you can see that "up there" basically no one is playing Tech. A notable exception is lessqq with his Confessor-Basilisk deck (currently on rank 14 with Nod).
Starting out with a single harvester, and trying to get a second one out depending on the opponent and how the game goes. Especially against aggro decks, lessqq wants to delay the game, so might sometimes forego the second harvester until the first nuke is decided.
Militants to open the game before or after the single harvester to scout and as a cheap unit to delay the charging of the nuke and fight enemy infantry.
Scavengers as the cheap anti-vehicle / anti-air option. Lasers are an alternative. An upside of scavengers is the opportunity to earn some extra Tiberium (to get Tech out). Also, Scavengers can force the opponent into hard decisions, e.g. between accepting delaying the nuke and gifting lessqq some Tiberium. This can psychologically help delay the nuke compared to lasers.
Chem Buggy as the early-/mid game counter to enemy infantry if & where the Militants don't cut it.
Stealth Tank as the counter to vehicles and air where Scavengers are not strong or fast enough, or are countered (e.g. Venom, Talon).
Confessors as a very strong anti-infantry unit that is also good against most air units. They e.g. can beat Chem Warriors, and against the current "Jade meta" deck, lessqq will try to delay the game so much that he ideally can play Confessors instead of Chem Buggy as a counter to Chem Troopers, as he knows the Jade decks have the Laser Drones against the Chem Buggy.
Basilisk as the option against fortress decks (e.g. Giga, MLRS defended by other units), opponent heavy Tech (like Mammoth) or APCs.
I'd go out on a limb and say that besides the GDI "Air Mammoth" deck (described here), it's one of the more viable Tech decks right now. GDI has some more options e.g. with Sandstorm, but in Nod, you barely see Tech played except for Artillery in tournament games.
Below, find a sample video of how his deck plays (apologies for the mediocre sound quality). Here, lessqq plays against top Rivals player Suzaku, who commands the very deck named after him ("Suzaku APC").
Some notes on the game:
A skilled Rifle vs Militant fight in the centre, that in this case benefits lessqq, as he prefers the game to go on longer.
lessqq probably could have built his harvester one Militant earlier, and at the end of the Militant/Rifle fight got a bit popcapped whilst charging the nuke for Suzaku -- but overall, good start for lessqq, as the first nuke goes off late at 1:45m
The first Orca doesn't get the harvester, but then a bit later gets a ton of damage done afterwards, killing a Stealth Tank and Chem This is trademark Suzaku with this deck, he often gets so much utility out of a single Otca.
This map is great for Strongarm because of the spot of the turret chosen at 2:39m. Yet, in this case, it's so late that lessqq alread has his Confessor/Basilisk late game combo out, against which Strongarm isn't that scary anymore.
The rest of the game is then favored for lessqq thanks to the strong late-game combo, illustrating the general issue of Aggro decks against Tech if they don't make the game fast enough (see this guide on how to play vs Tech).
I chose this game to illustrate that lessqq can go head-to-head even against top opponents playing a strong deck on a map that fits the deck (Strongarm turret is strong on this map). Admittedly, lessqq lost more games against Suzaku than he won in the recent session. I selected this game for this article to show a great win with it. :) Look up lessqq and Suzaku in the app in the Nod top rankings to see more of their games!
After the recent interview with Alarak, I now bring you some videos with games from him. I asked him to upload these games specifically to his YouTube channel (please subscribe to make Alarak upload more great games!).
Why did I like this particular match so much?
Both players are very strong and known for precise control and multitasking
Bikerush has a >90% winrate with decks of a similar structure (dogs, pitbull, grenadier forming the core, MG or sniper being an anti-infantry option, and some other units like here Slingshot and Titan)
Alarak is a strong tournament player and can be regularly found in the Nod Top 10. In this game, he also needs to fight against higher levels on some key units.
The map has three disconnected pads, which encourages multitasking and certain types of micro (esp. switching units around to bring them into favorable positions, blocking access to a pad etc.)
There's cute micro tricks, e.g. shortly after the first Titan in the game above comes out!
Facing decks with much higher levels can be frustrating. Yet, especially newer players will be in this situation quite frequently. Hence it's worth to think about: "How can I still win this game, even though my opponent has much higher levels?"
I came across a game that isn't just an example where a strong player beats a much higher-levelled deck, but that also contains some good examples for concepts you can apply. I hope this will be a useful learning moment especially for newer players.
I recorded the game and uploaded it on YouTube. Apologies for the mediocre sound quality, I'm not a YouTuber & used the first-best app to record video on my smartphone. Below the video, I will comment what I see as the key situations and decisions.
The game starts with wheel scout before harvester against harvester into Missile Squads.
Benedikt sees two Missile Squads, and knows that his L11.0 Cyber Wheels cannot really deal with the L15.3 Missile Troopers, so he knows he has to go into Flames to be able to compete for the first Missile.
Just for context: A L15.3 unit has 37% more hitpoints
37% more damage compared to a L11.0 unit
Critical moment #1 in the game at 0:35 seconds: Benedikt moves his wheels to the bottom for a scout and the option to block the harvester. He might know Gizarius likes to play tech (hence likes dual harvester), or he might just want to get information and option value. Critical concept #1: Get information. To beat higher levels, you need to have the right unit composition. This needs either luck, anticipation, or good scouting.
Either way, it allows him to delay the 2nd harvester while engaging the Missiles with his Flame Squad, thus creating two parallel challenges for the opponent. This is a critical concept, as to beat higher-level decks, you need to bank on making better decisions and force the opponent into mistakes. and multiple parallel challenges are a great way to allow the opponent to react sub-optimally.
Gizarius follows up with Snipers, which is a right decision in my view. He prioritizes further delaying or even winning the first nuke, which gives him more time for his deck that, not just for levels, will be far superior in the late game.
Benedikt simultaneously plays bikes to go after the harvesters. This is an interesting choice. as he cannot expect to kill Harvesters that have so many hitpoints (level difference!) and can be healed by Liang. But there's a lot of value in the bikes:
Further aggression that can keep the opponent occupied and/or spend money (delaying the tech)
Bikes are generally useful against Liang when the Nuke goes off soon, as the Liang player will often try to get pad control with the Liang drone
Bikes also have the option value of being the anticipatory counter for potential Talons or Drones, which are the likely alternatives to Snipers
Even if Benedikt would know that Snipers come, it seems likely that another wheels Wheels would not have been enough to win the first Nuke, as he wouöd have no unit to bear the Liang drone hovering over a bad, and 3 underlevelled Wheel squads would likely not have beaten the Missile/Sniper and possible follow-up unit from Gizarius quick enough to win first Nuke
A rule of thumb is also that you don't want to overbuild one type of unit except there's a clear reason. The first bike gives you more options than the third wheel.
There's a tiny mistake from Benedikt at 0:50, who could have moved his Flames up to the opponent Lasers a bit earlier (also good to engage the Sniper and get a bit more damage on it) earlier, and move the Wheels to the hex where it can engage Snipers but not be shot by Wheels. I mention this to show that there's always room for improvement in Rivals.
The second bike is more interesting from Benedikt. Gizarius, as expected, plays another Missile, as he can be happy with pad control and saving money whilst cheaply defending the bike. But soon we'll see what a good player can do with these bikes!
The bikes can be seen as a diversion to pull units and focus away from the pads shortly before the nuke. It made Gizarius move his new Missiles down instead of up to the pads, so shortly before the Nuke goes off. At 1:06, Benedikt swings both of his bikes up to take pads, being able to sneak between the Missiles as a consequence of the aforementioned "luring the Missiles down to defend".
The right bikes quickly deal with the Liang drone. Gizarius slightly late reaction to make his Snipers attack the new Flamers instead of the Bikes means that the 11.0 Flamers get to the centre pad and contest it just long enough for the nuke to go off.
Note the pattern: Controlling one Nuke, and contesting the other two. Especially against higher-level decks, this is often a much more realistic way to win a Nuke compared to controlling two pads, which ususally needs winning a fight. When you feel you're behind, keep this pattern in mind: Which is the one pad you can control, and how can you contest the other two just in time for the nuke?
Directly after the Nuke, Benedikt adds some chipping damage to the Snipers with his bikes rather than go for the harvesters. This seems pointless at first, but consider this:
First, he needs to quickly abandon the pad with the bikes anyways. Time is still on Gizarius' side, and so Benedikt correctly decides to let the opponent charge the pads
Second, good players have the habit to take small edges. Shortly stopping bikes for one volley before moving on to the harvesters does not cost much time.
Third, he might hope he is able to bring down the snipers to a single unit in the squad in the coming phase of the game. This might make it potentially much easier for him to take the second nuke, as a single-unit Sniper doesn't kill his Flamers as quickly, and, when the time is right, can be taken out much faster.
This shows us a second small potential mistake from Benedikt: He forgets about his single Wheel near Gizarius' base, which pop caps him and has little value outside of scouting. On the other hand, the scouting info is invaluable, and currently the pads are charging. So Benedikt might actually prefer to have more information right now than more units, to create the plan on how to steal the second nuke. Whether intentional or not, this play of thought shows that there's often a trade-off between getting more information vs. having more control of the battlefield. Control of the battlefield is often temporary, especially if you're so behind in levels. But information might help you come up with the one sneaky plan to be ahead just when the time is right.
In the next phase, Gizarius has the upper hand. This is pretty natural, consdering his unit level advantage, dual harvester income, and the sacrifices Benedikt had to make to steal the first nuke. In this phase, Benedikt's key achievement are ..
to prevent his harvester being killed, which could be the nail in his coffin against a tech deck.
to ensure someone charges the pads at all times
The final phase for the second nuke then shows good decision making and timing, and illustrates the power of Cyber Wheels: As a squad unit, the Predator needs four shots, no matter many levels it's higher.
Good game, Gizarius & Benedikt! And thanks to the devs for one of the best features of Rivals: The good replay functionality that allows us all to learn from each other, and be entertained by each other.
Edit Oct 2019: There's a newer version of the Jade deck that is very popular recently. Read about it here.
A month ago, about 10% of the top Nod decks utilized Jade as commander. When I soon re-do this analysis, I would not be surprised if that number has grown a bit. In recent weeks, more players have discovered that the recent buff to Chem Warriors to their vehicle damage made them even more viable.
Chem Warriors are hard to deal with for many decks, as they hold their ground against a variety of anti-Infantry, and can even beat Scorpion Tank in a hypothetical 1on1 (that in practice of course is rare and doesn't really play a role).
For Jade decks, Chem Warrior overall is the superior choice over Chem Buggies for a number of reasons:
For a potential missile on the enemy base, Chem Warriors have a better chance to survive long enough to spray some clouds
For a Jade rocket in a fight, they have the advantage that it's a bit easier to spread the chem clouds in a targeted manner. The Chem Buggies' raider ability is strong, but means that it's often a bit harder to have it attack a particular hex
Also, the high hitpoints of the Chem Warrior mean it can often survive a bit against Tech units to then, with a Jade rocket, destroy one or multiple tech units. The Chem Buggy will often just instantly melt against tech
Still, it's far from easy to successfully utilize a Jade / Chem Warrior deck. Especially as beautifully as you see in the gif below, posted by Silvercruise (I don't know if he also played that game, but he certainly could have, as he is a very strong player who recently ruined 13lade's tournament run by winning the single match that 13lade dropped in his 14-1 run).
Silvercruise in action. He also has a YouTube channel, of which I'm the proud second subscriber. Maybe we can get that up a bit as well to motivate him to do more Rivals videos?
Instead of writing a full-blown Jade guide (which I'm also not the right person for), I wanted to draw your attention to the YouTube channel of teRror. He's a strong player with a love for Jade decks, and regularly uploads videos on YouTube. Whilst they don't have audio commentary, they are nice bite-sized food when you want 5 minutes Rivals, but can't play right now. Some examples:
