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Update: Well I think I I will not be able to do this in the 31 days because I did not plan for season ladder lock and will not have enough time to get into grandmaster before it. Therefore, I give because of this. I also did not enjoy playing protoss very much (compared to terran). My thoughts from my week 1 update blog still apply though.
Hello fellow TLers, 7 days ago I embarked on a journey to top 50 GM as protoss from terran (goal being 1 month), you can see the blog here: + Show Spoiler +http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=438469
So for the first weekly write-up, what thing could be better to write about than my thoughts on the three protoss matchups after playing protoss for a week? Here is a picture of my winrates, as I will be refering to them in my write-up:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fqpfecc.png)
PvT:
What better matchup to write about first than PvT? Well, considering I came from terran to protoss it only makes sense (to me at least). Out of the build orders I wrote up in my first blog, the only one that had any lasting success was the PvT one (if you're too lazy to go back and read it, it is essentially expo->oracle->2 base templar all in/3rd base w/ macro). Right away I started winning games in this matchup. This is due to me playing terran prior to switching and protoss having an advantage at the highest level of play (its only like 55/45 but w/e). From my terran experience, I especially hated oracle expo builds into templar all ins, I had insane amounts of trouble holding them. Knowing this, I knew this would be the way to go if I were to do a speed run to top 50 GM as protoss. From executing to holding templar all ins, it feels far easier to be the protoss than the terran in that situation (from personal experience at least). After I had stopped losing probes to reapers and messing up on my build orders, I established a dominating winrate in this matchup (if you have watched my stream, you will know what I mean). From a balance standpoint, I feel protoss has a significant advantage in this matchup, it is very hard for the terran to prepare for all the timings protoss can do while there are very few that you must prepare for as protoss. This allows the protoss to be far greedier and therefore most of the time will get an advantage in the mid/late game unless the terran gambles and does a greedy build while the protoss does not punish it, then its an even game usually. If David Kim is reading this, I would recommend weakening Photon Overcharge, as it is unbelievably cost effective at defending and makes it so that there is almost zero risk against any terran opening. Nerfing Photon Overcharge would allow for more aggressive terran openings, while protoss can still be aggressive too but will also have to be weary of terran aggression which is of similar magnitude to the aggression that protoss can put on terran right now. Overall I feel this change would make TvP far less frustrating for terran players and far more entertaining to watch. If Dustin Browder is reading this, add more rocks (joke).
PvP:
When I first decided to switch to protoss, everyone said "Oh you will get smashed in PvP because other protoss players have more experience in the coin flippy matchup". At least to me, this is only very slightly accurate, but not really, I will explain why. At first I died to a few things that I felt were stupid (proxy gates, cannon rushes, dt rushes, other 1 bases, etc.), but after playing a few more games and watching replays of korean protoss PvP, I realized that there is two ways to play PvP: a gambling style or an intelligent style. First off, let me explain the gambling style. Gambling style consists of doing build orders, and hoping you get enough of an advantage to win with minimal amounts of reactions to your opponents strategy. Strategies of the gambling style include, proxy stargate, proxy gateways, 3 gate 1 gas attack, very fast DT openings, an illogically greedy opening, etc.... I think you guys understand what I mean by now. As for playing intelligently, this usually consists of opening stargate, with a few chrono boosted units, a hallucinated phoenix, or an early observer. For this style you scout constantly and try your best to know what your opponent is doing. This allows for you to punish greedy play, defend aggressive play, defend gambling styled play, or play greedier than your opponent (which I do not recommend doing, except at maybe top korean level of play, as you can usually punish greedy play and guarantee a win). I try my best to play the "intelligent style" I described, and therefore end up opening stargate because of it (as it is good at punishing and decent at defending, but the scouting is best part). If I execute my build correctly and scout properly, I never fall so far behind to the point where I can not win a game. It is definitely possible to consistently win PvP.
PvZ:
Well as you can see, I did not adapt as well in this matchup as the other two. This is not an entirely accurate winrate in my opinion though. Maybe a day ago it was, but today I feel that I finally figured out this matchup. The best way to play it (for me) seems to gate/forge fast expand into stargate (in order to scout, I usually will go 5 phoenix or an oracle to do this) into power units and a third base (in order to not fall irrecoverably behind economically, and not die to random attacks/timings). I do not feel as knowledgeable about this matchup as the other two, so I do not have as much to write about so I will cut straight to my thoughts on balance. Overall, it seems to be balanced. Protoss usually has an advantage in the early/early mid game and the early late game while zerg has an advantage in the mid game and late game. All of this is fine with me except that the advantage that zerg has in the late game is very dominant, although it can vary based on maps. The reason I feel that zerg is so dominant late game is because there is no way to effectively deal with large amounts of swarm hosts + static defense + spell casters. Protoss will keep losing things until there is nothing left. Chances are that on most maps if you dealt with their big swarm host army, you probably will not survive the mass muta followup. As for balance changes, probably a nerf to swarm hosts and buffs on other zerg units would fix the matchup and make the late game far less boring and more action packed. This is probably my favorite matchup to play after figuring out how to play a macro game today, but that last point I made about balance would be my only complaint (highest winrate does not always mean favorite matchup).
Well this is my wall of text for week 1. For more often updates and other stuff related to this follow me on:
Twitter: + Show Spoiler +https://twitter.com/SEEDintense
Twitch.tv (I have streamed 99% of my journey thus far so make sure to tune in, I will be streaming alot): + Show Spoiler +http://www.twitch.tv/intensesc
  
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Well if you go stargate the zerg will likely attack with hydra/ling at 10-12 mins (not sure exactly when) so you might wanna get colossus out really quickly, and also zealots, all dah zealots
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PvZ is funny. The fe -> 5+ stargate units -> take a third while teching to colossi at the same time build that caused people to get their shit pushed in by roachspam for months on end, is now the go-to build of PvZ.
Protoss has been the target of Terran animosity here-and-there, but they are the immortal enemy of the Zerg. There is no respect in this matchup, only hate. You are not prepared.
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hm when i was learning protoss i did the same build in pvz, forge fe -> 5 pheonix - > 3rd -> +3 blink stalker + collossi attack. if zerg didn't go roach max or roach hydra i could be near maxed ~14min and win easily with a push.
but i kept getting hammered by timings as my third was going up. how'd you defend it? isn't it hard unless you really really do work with the pheonixes?
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Good stuff Andrew your too cocky but I can't believe I am saying this but I actually think you can do it, glhf
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Nice write-ups. I'm glad to hear that you are figuring out PvP and think you may enjoy PvZ. They are both fun match-ups.
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pvz is soooooooooooo simple, I cant believe ur losing so many games to zerg!!
anyways, with toss the skys the limit looking forward to seeing the end result
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On December 22 2013 12:16 PineapplePizza wrote:
PvZ is funny. The fe -> 5+ stargate units -> take a third while teching to colossi at the same time build that caused people to get their shit pushed in by roachspam for months on end, is now the go-to build of PvZ.
Protoss has been the target of Terran animosity here-and-there, but they are the immortal enemy of the Zerg. There is no respect in this matchup, only hate. You are not prepared.
LOL
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Haven't watched any of your steam but enjoyed this read, Looking forward to the next update, Best of luck this week!
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Enjoying your stram a lot keep it coming please.
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On December 22 2013 12:44 nath wrote:
hm when i was learning protoss i did the same build in pvz, forge fe -> 5 pheonix - > 3rd -> +3 blink stalker + collossi attack. if zerg didn't go roach max or roach hydra i could be near maxed ~14min and win easily with a push.
but i kept getting hammered by timings as my third was going up. how'd you defend it? isn't it hard unless you really really do work with the pheonixes?
I really don't think you can do any timing with that composition. By the time you have 3 colossi your opponent has vipers. Even if you add some hts you can't always prevent vipers from abducting your colossi.
I completely abandoned that style because it feels way too weak in the midgame. You can die to any timing and even if you barely hold it you may find 15 mutas flying in your main base shortly after.
I think that at the moment the best macro style is the fast third base void ray/templar one, although it also has some troubles in the midgame, but it's the way the matchup is shaped.
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Nice write up. I jope I'll be able to catch you streaming one of those days - so far I had no luck. I am especially interested how your PvPs fare since you are approaching it with a fresh perspective. gl for the remaining days of your journey!
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United States4883 Posts
On December 22 2013 19:17 KingAlphard wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2013 12:44 nath wrote:
hm when i was learning protoss i did the same build in pvz, forge fe -> 5 pheonix - > 3rd -> +3 blink stalker + collossi attack. if zerg didn't go roach max or roach hydra i could be near maxed ~14min and win easily with a push.
but i kept getting hammered by timings as my third was going up. how'd you defend it? isn't it hard unless you really really do work with the pheonixes? I really don't think you can do any timing with that composition. By the time you have 3 colossi your opponent has vipers. Even if you add some hts you can't always prevent vipers from abducting your colossi. I completely abandoned that style because it feels way too weak in the midgame. You can die to any timing and even if you barely hold it you may find 15 mutas flying in your main base shortly after. I think that at the moment the best macro style is the fast third base void ray/templar one, although it also has some troubles in the midgame, but it's the way the matchup is shaped.
You can hit a near-maxed timing with colossus/blink stalkers/archons that hits just before vipers, but the margin is really slim. But yeah, phoenix/colossus is really hard to do unless you're mechanically better than your opponent. From what I've seen of Intense's stream, he does a really good job of keeping up the phoenix harass, so I guess that's how he's able to hold timings.
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Great blog, thank you for writing it
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Photon overcharge was not implemented to help P deal with terran, nerfing it would be horrible in PVP and PVZ where it is already mediocre against roaches and in pvp stalkers.
I feel like the mothership core is misplaced as a defensive unit. It should be a unit available at a slightly higher tech used for recalling and timewarping in pushes.
Protoss also shouldnt be limited to one.
Then they should look at the defensive possibilities of P again giving all 3 races agressive options that turn very cost innefective if a protoss has appropriately invested in defense
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from toss to terran... i really do agree with you that terran requires more skilled mechanics with bio. with drops are so fragile and the timings are really difficult in all of the matchups. you also have to face constant aggression with an army that gets smashed vs aoe dmg in 1 second; so i think it requires more focus aswell.
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very fun experiment. interesting to see the difficulty in figuring out pvz. I noticed when you try timing builds you have no real plans in mind. Just copy a build from sOs (phoenix 4gate, 1 gas immortal/zealot warp prism, etc) if you want to go that way. Macro games come down to hallucinated phoenix scouting and are more map dependent.
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On December 23 2013 17:00 weikor wrote:
Photon overcharge was not implemented to help P deal with terran, nerfing it would be horrible in PVP and PVZ where it is already mediocre against roaches and in pvp stalkers.
The mothership core is what made gate expanding viable in PvZ.
PvP the overcharge isn't really good before 2 bases, but in my opinion you absolutely need it in PvT against drops. It's very hard to defend drop without templar tech otherwise.
Not trying to say it's not strong or anything, but you can't just say PvT would be balanced without overcharge.
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United States11393 Posts
On December 26 2013 19:39 Dunedune wrote:Show nested quote +On December 23 2013 17:00 weikor wrote:
Photon overcharge was not implemented to help P deal with terran, nerfing it would be horrible in PVP and PVZ where it is already mediocre against roaches and in pvp stalkers. The mothership core is what made gate expanding viable in PvZ. PvP the overcharge isn't really good before 2 bases, but in my opinion you absolutely need it in PvT against drops. It's very hard to defend drop without templar tech otherwise. Not trying to say it's not strong or anything, but you can't just say PvT would be balanced without overcharge.
Gate expo was already used in WoL though and was definitely viable there.
MsC just made things a lot easier.
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United States4883 Posts
On December 27 2013 08:43 Harem wrote:Show nested quote +On December 26 2013 19:39 Dunedune wrote:On December 23 2013 17:00 weikor wrote:
Photon overcharge was not implemented to help P deal with terran, nerfing it would be horrible in PVP and PVZ where it is already mediocre against roaches and in pvp stalkers. The mothership core is what made gate expanding viable in PvZ. PvP the overcharge isn't really good before 2 bases, but in my opinion you absolutely need it in PvT against drops. It's very hard to defend drop without templar tech otherwise. Not trying to say it's not strong or anything, but you can't just say PvT would be balanced without overcharge. Gate expo was already used in WoL though and was definitely viable there. MsC just made things a lot easier.
Gate expands were viable in WoL because zergs were just rushing BL/Infestor. In those days, Protosses going 1-gate FE would 100% lose to any Zerg going early gas. MSC is a huge improvement for protoss in every way, although I agree that the one downside is that all early terran aggression is easily defendable; the fact that protoss can blindly go MSC expand in PvT and STILL defend a dedicated proxy 11/11 is a little ridiculous. I'm not sure how to fix it though. Photon Overcharge is absolutely necessary in the other matchups in order to just survive the early game.
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EPT
