EPTIt all started about an hour ago. Just another day on the EU ladder, nothing for it but to click the 1v1 ladder button. A few seconds of bnet searching and an opponent is found, and I see a screen looking something like this: (Note: quick and dirty artist's impression using an image editor, I'm not in the habit of printscreening my ladder game intro screens).
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/54VJx.jpg)
Oh, looky here, a mirror matchup, Protoss versus Protoss. Also, the very same bnet icon? It's like this guy is a mirror image of my very own self.
Well okay, lets get ingame and start the greetings. Set the probies mining, set the nexus nexin, give out the glhfs, all the usual junk.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/UCpn2.jpg)
So far so standard. Note that at this moment in time our options are still open. We can still pick between the myriad post 1.4 PvP strategies and navigate the complex interplay between them. After the 4gate fest of yore, this is a world of difficult decisions. Should I cannon rush, proxy 2gate, 4gate, proxy stargate, DT rush, void ray rush, warp prism harass, 3gate robo, blink stalker push, phoenix harass, colossus rush, fast expand (yeah, right!). I could even rush to build something called a carrier, whatever that is.
But my little bit of nonroutine opening banter seems to have set my very similar-looking enemy off kilter, a little. Maybe he was going to say just the same thing I was going to say:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/DzpG9.jpg)
Wait ... this gives me an idea. Can we avoid all this needless conflict? All this warfare, and death, and killing? Must my fellow probe-icon doppleganger and I fight it out to the death, or is there another way? We could be twin brothers, me and my icon-buddy. We could almost be the same person.
I feel inspired, to reach out across the internet, and tell him how similar we truly are. To save ourselves from this bloodshed. To cut the whole gordian knot of conflict, as it were, and also to communicate to my antagonist how we are really just one, underneath the skin.
So I type this:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/vTaYV.jpg)
My opponent does the only honourable thing in these circumstances. You'd do the same too, wouldn't you? Mankind's future is at stake, and you'd trust this guy, after all. If you can't trust you from the future, who CAN you trust?
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/LBGwN.jpg)
The end result:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/DGIVI.jpg)
The bonds of Protoss probe-icon user brotherhood were strengthened. Conflict was averted. Mankind was saved. Ladder points were gained. Truly, an awesome day to be playing on the battlenet 1v1 ladder.
There you have it, ladies and gentleprobes. Enjoy using this tactic on the ladder, next time you meet someone with the same race and icon loadout (and hopefully the same name) as you!
5/5
