Today we are proud to introduce IrisAnother to our coaching roster as an official TGM coach.
Another also known as Jamie has played protoss since the beginning of beta, consistently placing at the top of Masters on NA, and Grand Masters on SEA. He recently won the NZ Cup #2 and Auckland eSports NZ Lan. He was one of the founders of Team Iris, and is regarded as one of the best New Zealand players. Outside of gaming, he is quite the sports enthusiast - he used to play Canole Polo and represented his region, winning 3 gold medals at national age group Canoe Polo competitions. He also loves watching American football and going cycling.
Another is a strong macro player and can help you defend all in's, and get ahead in the mid game to have an advantage in the late game. This relies on a few key aspects that he can help you with. Scouting and reading what your opponent is doing, and reacting accurately. You build order - In order to defend various all ins, you need a solid build order that can also take you into the late game. Another will also teach you to analyze your own games so you can improve on your own too.
Jamie will be contributing some fresh content to the Protoss section and today he shares with us a macro orientated PvT style. As usual we will share a preview which can be seen below which would give you an idea on the type of material we have in our Starcraft 2 Guide. Want to get coaching from Jamie? PM IrisAnother here! Interested in the popular guide + 1 hour coaching package? Check out our coaches below!
A macro orientated PvT build order which allows you to harass aggressively with stalkers as you can simply blink away. This mobile build allows you to complete shut down early drop play and is a nice alternative opening to collosi first openers. You will usually transition quickly into templar tech before switching into collosi later on, kinda like the reverse order of the current PvT builds. It is a strong build with a lot of flexibility and was inspired by MC's play.
The Build Order:
Food Supply
What to Build
9
Pylon
10
Chrono probes
13
Gate (scout) (chrono probes
14
Gas
15
Pylon (chrono probes)
17
Cyber
18
Zealot
22
Warpgate research
22
Stalker (chrono)
24
Pylon
26
Stalker (chrono)
30
Cut probes
30
Nexus
30
Poke with zealot/stalker/stalker to scout - if you see an expansion, keep the stalkers outside his natural (if youre confident with your minimap awareness, if you arent, move them to the Xel'Naga tower.
30
Gate
30
Gate
30
restart probe production
32
Pylon
32
Robotics Facility
Early Game Notes:
The most important part of the early game is to determine if he is doing a one base play or expanding. You should have been able to figure out with your zealot/stalker/stalker poke and if you aren't sure, play safe! Your observer scout should confirm exactly what he is doing and do not continue with the twilight play if your opponent is on one base. Your would need to cut probes and focus churning out units from 6 gates. Check out the anti-cheese section to find out how to deal with 1/1/1 play.
Mid Game:
If your opponent has expanded and is playing a macro game like most normal terrans, this is when you can safely use this early twilight style of play. Add your twilight when your robo is at 50%, and take the double gases at your natural. Research blink and be aggressive and control the map with your stalkers. With blink, you can be very aggressive without the threat of losing the stalkers, as you can simply blink away from concussive shells and aggressive stims. This mobility allows you to know exactly when your opponent moves out, should give you great scouting and shut down any drop play. If you have good observer positioning you can snipe fully loaded drop ships easily. Sometimes if your opponent over commits with a premature attack you can even win the game right there, as he units will not be able to retreat because of your blink upgrade.
With good harass you can even pick off units or force stims while losing nothing.
The mid games is also where the key fork in the build is and your play will be very reactionary depending on what your opponent is doing. It is crucial to scout with your first observer to look out for ebays/CCs to determine if he is doing a fast 2 base timing or a fast third CC in his main. With this build your early mid game composition should be around 3 sentry and 10 stalkers before adding a templar archives. Research charge as gas allows and throw down 2 more gateways to take your gateway count to 5.
How to react in the various scenarios
Scenario 1: - You scout your opponent playing heavy macro, a fast third CC and heavy upgrades are good indications of this.
In this scenario, you need to play greedier yourself, you basically have 2 options, you can take a fast third and go up to 8-10 gateways and add 2 forges later on and play catch up with upgrades, or you can double forge immediately, and expand later. Start storm immediately, and build as many HT and zealots as possible. You should save your HT for storm in both scenarios, including a couple of archon in your army is ideal, but saving HT for storm is much more important. You should only build archons when you have at least 4 HT saved for storms.
Scenario 2: - You scout your opponent being or preparing to be aggressive off of 2 bases.
In this scenario you need to morph your HT into archons as he will probably hit at an early timing then cut probe production at 44 probes (22 on each base) and add 2 more gates to take you to 7, and make as many archons and zealots as possible. Once your opponent is on the map, move your stalkers into your main in case of a drop. If you are dropped, you can clean it up with stalkers and zealot warp ins, if you get hit at the front, blink your stalkers over and with archon/zealot and solid macro you should be able to hold 2 base pushes. Blink gives you the ability to deal very cleanly with the common 2 base multi prong aggression from terrans. Once you have dealt with the initial push, add 1 forge and start saving HT for storms.
Other recent TGM updates include a complete rewrite of the PvP section and another build by IrisAnother along with replays and miscellaneous touch ups here and there. The TvP and PvZ sections will also be updated with the newest builds shortly.
Awesome! Protoss coaches were definitely lacking after Roz has stopped playing so actively. Great to see a player like Another here. That storm in the second picture looks beautiful too! Congratulations!
Even the smallest donations help keep sc2sea running! All donations go towards helping our site run including our monthly server hosting fees and sc2sea sponsored community tournaments we host. Find out more here.