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The dangers of being a "standard" Protoss player in sc2.
 

I've always strived to be the best player I could possibly be, and by doing so I pidgeon holed myself into doing one build in every matchup and desperately attempting to "perfect" it.

Watching Proleague has opened my eyes. Especially from a Protoss perspective. The goal of being a professional Starcraft player is not to be the "best player you can be", it's actually much simpler: to win. Proleague players seem to understand this more than anyone else I've ever seen in Starcraft 2's short history. I think this is also emphasized by the fact that the matches are all best of 1s.

Is it better to have a plethora of build orders up your sleeve? Or is it better to perfect one build order and be so great at it that nobody can touch you? I've been thinking about this a lot lately. The answer seems to be in my case that the former is correct, more specifically, for Protoss players.

Players like Flash can do the same thing every game and still have massive win records, but is this possible for any Protoss counterparts? The only player I can think of who can do this is Rain, but that's only for the PvT matchup. His PvZ has recently taking a beating as zerg players are figuring out how to destroy his standard phoenix macro play. He recently resorted to using an immortal all in on Neo Planet.

I've personally made it my goal to diversify my strategies as much as possible, to become as unpredictable as i can, and by doing so, I think i will become a smarter player. I feel that mechanics as a Protoss player can only get you so far, and a greater focus needs to be placed on strategies and build orders. Recently when playing Petraeus on ladder I said I didn't want to reveal my build orders against him, and that I was confident in my PvZ at the moment thanks to the new builds I've created/stolen. What was his response? "I wouldn't rely on build orders in tournament play". Followed by "Oh wait, you play Protoss".

I think this shows that Zerg players in particular are more fearful of Protoss who have a plethora of builds up their sleeves rather than ones that try to perfect specific styles. When I'm playing at an ACL, my PvZ starts off fine. I'm doing well, even. However, as the tournament progresses, and Zergs learn the builds that I am using, they start to become VERY ineffective.

What are your opinions on predictability in Starcraft 2? I personally feel like Protoss is the race that benefits the most from meta-builds and also suffers the most from perfecting one style. This means that Protoss players have to be constantly thinking of new ways to adapt to the metagame in order to survive, but in doing so, we can show great results (think SoS).