The Great "Tankers vs Builders" Myth

If you listen to semi-nubenators such as OldPro, you will believe that styles of Red Alert players are defined by 2 distinct categories: builders or tankers. I would like to destroy this myth once and for all and demonstrate that there are in fact far more sub-categories of players. If you can only build or only tank, you will be a weak player. If you can only play big gem maps or unlimited ore maps and need 10 cy before being able to play you are a bad player. This is why OldPro always has to make excuses and loses most of the  games he plays. Hopefully one day  he will stop being stubborn and listen to what everyone has been telling him for years: that he ironically has potential to be a very good player.

OldPro should look at Kickn as an example. For years Kickn was simply known as a straight p4 cyer and did nothing else. He was a semi-nubenator and was easy to beat for anyone with half a brain. During recent years he studied the tanking aspect of the game and figured out optimal game settings for his mouse (eg scroll rate) and has dramatically improved. In fact I would call him one of the current top 5 best active players which was unthinkable a few years ago. Kickn now excels in all aspects of the game: building, GQ tanking, defending. If he learned to play standard maps to a higher standard he could probably become even better and be one of the very best. The difference between a player like Kickn and Oldpro is that Kickn can now do everything to a good standard, he has many options and isn't predictable for his opponents. He won't complain about having to play someone on a map like 4c or Path Beyond whereas you will frequently hear Oldpro talk nonsense about how he is extra pro on HJK. It just isn't good enough to be able to only play a handful of map for 1v1s. We don't want to hear it. We're not interested. Can you imagine a soccer playing saying they only want to play a game where you take free kicks because they have a good skill at shooting? Or an NBA player only wanting to play a 3-point shooting contest? You need to be able to play all aspects of the game. I don't want to ever hear anyone again commenting how they would beat X player on Y map. I will ignore such nonsense in future. I intentionally don't reject any of the ladder maps (I think I'm the only player like this apart from fellow clan members Blank and Jacob) because I'd rather play the maps I'm not good at and hopefully get better than selectively harvest points. This is pro attitude.

Take a player like myself. I definitely have my weaknesses but I am at least competent in all areas. For example I can play soviet 10-cying reasonably well (though not extra pro I will admit). I can tank if I need to. I can rush. I've learned and adapted to play all styles of the game and there is not a complete dramatic drop off if I switch it up. Whereas OldPro can literally only do 1 thing. He has to bunker and make 10 cy. This is his only option. Sorry If it seems I'm picking on OldPro but it's not to criticise him, it's just he is the best example of this. Hopefully he learns from this and this blog post gives him a wakeup call and in a few months OldPro will be the new Kickn.

You could actually describe NastyNate as the opposite version of this. He's extremely well known for his tanking ability but everyone knows there is a drop off in his skill level in long games. This is why he often loses to players like Muadib in long games even though he is a much better player than Muadib. His 10-cy game just isn't anywhere near as good as his tanking. That's why I consider Bea5ty and Ford to be better players than NastyNate because you know that any type of game they will still be the same 5 star player, whereas Nate goes from a 5 star to a 3.5 star if the game ends up in a stamina contest. 

There's also different types of tankers under the "Tankers" bracket. You have your GQ players such as Diaz, Kickn, Hezb, Uchicha, Milo who specialise in 6 wars GQ spam. You get players like me, RC, Croboy, Lordy who like to Rush and/or split groups and have "indirect" fighting (not direct head to head combat). Jacob is a classic tank spam producer. McLovin and Robskate are players who like a good old fashioned Q battle with a small group of tanks. You can see it is ludicrous to just classify everyone as a "tanker". Robskate and Diaz play literal opposite types of game. There is probably more similarity between OldPro's style of play and Diaz's than there is between Diaz and Robskate. Diaz has super good GQ spam. OldPro goes for Tesla spam. Both are macro-management play styles whereas Robskate generally goes for a Micro-management play style and win the game early. This is why Robskate excels on maps such as Path Beyond and NXNW because the tank numbers tend to be smaller.

People also make the mistake of thinking "Building" is exclusively a soviet phenomenon. This could not be more false. It's extremely useful to be able to build well as Allies on maps such as Ribbon, HJK, P4. Bay of Pigs is the best example of Allies building because just straight tanking will generally make you lose. Knowing how to turret quickly and efficiently, Heli, Chrono etc is an important skill. On HJK6 if you aren't prepared to get out 4 cy and turret smother as allies you will generally lose to any good soviet player. Allied building is a thing,  people. We need to change this mindset that building is soviet only. 

Very often you will see people combine the tanking and building elements of the game. This is known as "hybrid" building. This is especially useful on money maps. Players like Rushyboo [HERM] and Sol3man are renowned for this. They use good timing and experience to bring the best of both worlds. They prove that being able to tank and/or build both to a high standard will give you a higher success rate than just doing 1 or the other. This is why Rushyboo is a much better player than Katsh. He has more strings to his bow, even though Katsh is a respected master of the game. 

In short. Quit the complaining. If you are an OldPro type player or if you are someone who can only Q-tank, learn to improve your skills. You can be the next Kickn. A leopard can change its spots. If you ever see anyone in future mentioning how they would dominate someone in a specific game type, refer them to this article. It's going to be very useful. We should all - myself included as I'm far from the perfect player - work on our weaknesses. The goal should be that we feel the same level of confidence regardless of the game situation or map. You should be able to play the same level on Keep off the Grass or Liquid as you would on a P4 4-hour game or a Ribbon Isle boat game. If you can't then you're doing something wrong and instead of complaining: focus on getting better.

Thanks for reading. Don't forget to FOLLOW at the side and you are welcome to suggest more topic content in the comments!