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[SC2] PvX The 15 Nexus Dilemma

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Alejandrisha United States6565 Posts December 02 2011 11:59 GMT #1 Being the HerO fanboy that I am, I have been practicing 15 Nexus builds in both PvT and PvZ. I will typically pull this build out against terran on Antigua Shipyard, but sometimes I will man up and throw it down on Shattered Temple, because sometimes I don't give a fuck. Today I was in the middle of a ladder session and had been using 15 Nexus a lot since no one vetoes Antigua Shipyard and I wasn't hitting many protosses. I had just finished losing to some Zerg because I fucked up my pylon ninja'ing and my zealot pressure timing ran into a brick wall against 3 base roach. I threw a coin and lost, and then couldn't pull it together for the comeback. I quickly queued up for the next game. I didn't recognize his name enough to put a race next to it, and his profile was something ambiguous, the spectre I think. terran or zerg? check its genitals So for some reason I had received enough information through subliminal channels to rule out that his race was indeed Protoss, but not enough so that I knew if he was Terran or Zerg. Some where around 8 food I seemed to have forclosed on the idea that my opponent was indeed Zerg, and I sent a probe to place my first pylon below my ramp looks simple enough Now that I had dropped the pylon there, there was no turning back. On 15, I put up my nexus followed by the all important forge, leaving a space for a gateway and a cannon in good enough positions. I then send my probe to scout counter-clockwise, as this is how Zerg would scout me and I forgot to check for the overlord's arrival to the east of my Nexus. I didn't see the creep at the top right expansion and I was just beginning to proceed up the ramp with my scout when a probe back home met an unexpected visitor. He had just finished placing the 2nd pylon, tucked away to prevent zergling runbys beneath the southern geyser when he found himself standing face-to-face with some zerg mutation + Show Spoiler + Could it be?? He had to get a closer look. He managed to snap this photo with his cell phone. + Show Spoiler + He still was not convinced. He had to TASTE the metal suit of the SCV, he had to FEEL THE COLD STEEL PRESSED UP AGAINST HIM to believe a Terran was on the map. + Show Spoiler + Alas! This was a PvT, but he and his buddy, who fled the natural long ago, were given blueprints from the Nexus for a PvZ opener. Being the intelligent probe that he was, he ordered for the cancellation of the forge and the construction of two additional gateways! Actually the probe didn't make the decision. It was me sitting here thinking to myself, wow fuck this game. But then I remembered that I had practiced this build many times before. The exact build order unfolded behind my eyes as though I had rehearsed it since my first cognizant thought: PvZ->T 15 Nexus Alpha 9 Pylon 15 Nexus 15 Forge (cancel at 99%) 17 Pylon 18 gate 18 gas Make sure you cancel your forge right before it finishes, right after your opponent scouts you (long before you would have scouted him, mind you) and right as you realize you had no idea you were using a PvZ opener against a Terran player. If he doesn't scout you in time, you're doing it wrong. I proceeded to hold the subsequent bunker rush to the best of my abilities. I'm still not sure how I managed to let him get a bunker up so closely to the nexus. I feel like I should have scouted that.. If this looks serene to you, it's because you can't hear the rat tat tat tat rat tat tat tat I ended up losing 5 zealots and 3 probes on the bust, killing 2 bunkers, 6 scvs and 2 marines. We end up being just about even, as his gasless 1 rax fe was on par with my 15 nexus after I had to spend so much money on zealots, not to mention he has 2 OC's worth of mules. Because of the early mishap, I approached the game a bit differently from here on out. I was counting on my opponent playing very conservative after he had showed so much aggression early on, so I decided to go for speed warp prism colossus drop, a style that is very effective against a safe-playing 2 base terran opener. If they rush up to reactor'd port after 2 rax, a pair of early vikings can spoil your fun somewhat. Indeed, my opponent was producing off of 4 barracks before teching up factory, meaning he wanted to hit a pretty strong timing before colossus were out, though without medivacs. Instead, my opponent used the safety of his opening to secure a greedy third instead of hitting a timing. This seems smart, as colossi are much stronger on defense when they pop out in time to hold the racks push than when they walk across the map to try to punish a Terran who takes a quick 3rd and has medivacs by the time you get there. This decision, while smart in its own right, helped my style. It would be much harder for him to defend three bases from the dreaded colossus drop--much harder than two! Not having sniffed out a two base timing, I leave with the colossus and plant a third Nexus. A Speed prism is fast as hell! Before I knew it, I had a colossus in my opponent's mineral line. Do you know what a congo line of scvs looks like when it runs from a colossus that spontaneously appears from a butterfly in the sky? Something like this: + Show Spoiler + Sense: This picture makes none As bad ass as this looks, you rarely get big shots off on scvs. Scvs move pretty fast, and the colossus is pretty clunky and his AOE allows you to only hit one or 2 patches at a time. It does stop their mining, however. I guess that would cancel out mules in a perfect world. lol. So I stop by the nat and stop mining there, and then stop by the fresh third which I didn't know had existed and started rippin shit up over there. apparently you don't even need to drop the damn thing to cause mass panic. Utter chaos ensues. Where the fuck are we going Even though my colossus only got 6 kills, he stopped my terran opponent from ever getting any drop harass of his own off the ground. He was stuck defending something he could not possibly catch! How many stimmed marines does it take to catch a speed prism that has an equal move speed? Most terrans seem to think the answer is "all of them" much in the same way we protoss players approach defending single medivac drops with stalkers. I was managing to keep my macro up while harassing, and then suddenly I was 40 food ahead! Because my tech route had been so funky, My upgrades were quite behind. I was working only working on 1/1 to his soon to be 2/1, but I had 5 colosi out to his 4 vikings, 75 probes to his 63 scvs. HT tech on the way, too :p My opponent had placed enough turrets to where harassing with colossus drops were hard to make cost effective. I proceed to move into build&conquer mode, adding several gates and take a 4 and soon a 5th. This gets boring so I decide to resume dropping colossuses. nothing that shoots in sight. and my colossus is drawn to those red health bars like a rhinoceros in heat At last I land a shot! The Terran pulled his SCVS quick enough as I barely even got that shot. As you can see, it could have been a lot worse for him: this feels so satisfying On a subsequent attempt after the vikings had cleared, I almost lined up a real money shot, but 6 range feels so short when scvs clump up at 7 range caught with his leg in the cookie jar Him not being able to mine all of the timed paired with the fact that his drop harass is nonexistant nets me a very strong lead in the middle game. I can secure my 5th at the gold no problem as he struggles to establish his 4th. His current max is stronger than mine because I need food to make workers lol, but I can trade all day thanks to my 20 warpgates supplying 40 food worth of meat to the field immediately. It's only a matter of time fucking stupid imba protoss deathball The game from here is pretty straight forward with a lot of a-movement. I guess what you should take away from this is that colossus drops are pretty good in pvt. good thing he wasn't protoss '-.- heres the replay if you want. actually all of the replay sites are giving me shit so i guess pm me for it or post a replay site that actually works right now :p

Vod.kaholic United States1052 Posts December 02 2011 12:28 GMT #2 Good read, that was pretty entertaining.

ShatterZer0 United States1843 Posts December 02 2011 12:44 GMT #3 99% Forge Cancel -> Horny Rhinocerous play. This is why Alej is everyone's favorite blue poster :D

Teoita Italy12246 Posts December 02 2011 13:01 GMT #4 Badass opening build right there. Awesome blog man ^^

Mobius_1 United Kingdom2763 Posts December 02 2011 13:14 GMT #5 If I ever get Colossuseseseseseses dropped I will hunt you down and edit this blog into oblivion. But this strategy sounds amazing, 15 Nexus like HerO, not knowing your opponent's race (map spawn location) like Naniwa, not getting Colossus range like HuK. This is the ultimate PvT strategy distilled from some of the bestest Protoss players in the world.

UltimateHurl Ireland591 Posts December 02 2011 13:17 GMT #6 5/5, but why would a Protoss probe have a Grackberry? Everyone knows Protoss prefer the HTC HerO :D

TylerThaCreator United States906 Posts December 02 2011 14:57 GMT #7 click top right and just check race next time

AmericanUmlaut Germany2577 Posts December 02 2011 15:16 GMT #8 Sent from my Grackberry. Classic

Mattchew United States5684 Posts December 02 2011 15:46 GMT #9 This is why I watch your stream.

awwnuts07 United States621 Posts December 02 2011 17:54 GMT #10 Alej, not only do you write awesome guides, but you also write gosu blogs? You contain too much awesome, dood. Did you happen to save this replay? I'd love to watch the entire game.

Alejandrisha United States6565 Posts December 02 2011 19:06 GMT #11 yea i saved it. i wanted to upload it when i did the op but every replay site was giving me error messages or making me sign like 15 forms to set up a free fucking account to upload a 2kb file to a website. workin on it :p i actually have quite a few speed wp colo drop pvt's (one vs tarson which is pretty good haha) like this that i'll prob release in a pack or a guide or i'll just hide them cause im not gosu like hero (yet) edit: lololol you guys are so funny i did get range eventually! but when you do colo drop you gotta get your robo up, then an obs and a wp out asap all cb'd and start your robotics support as soon as your robo is done then as soon as the support bay is done you get dat colo and you get dat speed you really can't get range with it too quickly if you get speed, since range is a long fuckin upgrade and you really have to spend money on units because you're investing so much in frills while hoping you don't die to a push that hits right before your colo is out. i recommend it on shak and antigua where you can defend your nat with the ramp. on a map like shattered temple the terran is better able to just a-move thru you with a 4 racks stim timing off of 2 bases that hits right before your colo is out and it's insanely hard to hold without the terrain advantage since a lot of your gas is tied up in fancy pants dancing colossus gear

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