A Story about Pylons

If I had to describe my endless fascination for Brood War to an outsider with one single word, I would probably pick versatility. It is not the amount of mechanics needed to maximize the damage output of your army, or the many interesting stories of the elite class. It is not even the rather outdated look, which makes the game so easy to understand, or the devotion of its fans over the years. It is not all that, it is that the game never gets stale. It is the constant evolution of strategies that keeps me watching. Interestingly enough, it is not the changes in what people refer to as "meta game“ which make up the biggest part of this evolution. It is, as so often, the small things you learn to appreciate, like Pylons.

Yes, Pylons. I do associate so many things with Pylons, for instance some memorable quote by some random German in the 'general' forums of broodwar.de. He answered the question, "is there a general Build Order I can always pick as Protoss?“ with, "yeah, build your Pylon at 8 Supply somewhere in your base.“ Well, even that was a lie, which he even admitted later. You might want to build a Pylon sooner. Ever since this anitclimatic example, it has been my personal favourite to show a beginner that there is no such thing as a fixed or universal Build Order.

Obviously, the first Pylon is crucial to the Protoss strategy. If you build it at eight supply, you can do it within your base, indicating you will either opt for a rush or a tech. You will either go standard against Terran and Protoss, or you will go for an outdated idea against Zerg. A Pylon in your natural expansion indicates the now popular "Fast Expansion,“ the building block of ANY mid game transition.

It is hard to explain how stunned I was after watching the first First Person VOD around 2002 or 2003 featuring a Nal_rA version of the Fast Expansion on Lost Temple. I remember clearly that I thought, "this won't end well." Back then, every Zerg would just build a dozen Zerglings or so and run over two Photon Cannons, hence: idiotic idea. However, Nal_rA did what feels natural today, he build the first Pylon exactly in a place which would allow a "wall-in“. It felt a little like being present when the alphabet was first explained. Seems like an idea anyone could come up with, when it really is not. It might explain why I was not nearly as mind blown when Bisu fumbled around with some mid-game timings later. It was not nearly as fundamental to me. But that is just me.

Back to the point. The "first Pylon of Men“ might also indicate some fancy Proxy Gate strategy. These can turn out rather funny. It shows where you can hide your Gateways from the get-go, to really fuck over any opponent, regardless of what their race. Most memorable: the Kingdom Pylon in the "KingDumb“ Game.



It does not end here. The Pylon story continues to grow on you, once you see what an impact they can have. There is more than just one game or one strategy tied to the use of the Pylon. It is magic, since you can place that building anyhwere and anytime. Following early Brood War history, Drone/Eriador's move has to come up next. Theoretically speaking, he is the guy who invented the Pylon Prison. At this point I am forced to add a {{Citation Needed}}, because I can not source this statement. Be that as it may... He went for a one base opening on Lost Temple in the Protoss mirror, spotted the opponent doing a one Gate Build – indicating a fast Dragoon switch – and the rest is history.



There are dozens of variations of the Pylon Prison and even more related strategies. The Pylon Prison itself was even temporarily tagged as "Protoss Build Order“, even though it is not really one. To keep it short, we also have the "Manner Pylon“ related to the "Pylon Prison.“ This means you build a Pylon next to a gap in the mineral patches to deny enemy workers from accessing them. Everyone knows this, even though nobody understands why this is a "Manner“ Pylon. There was no player called "Manner“, but whatever. The idea itself is another example of creativity. But it goes futher.

Against Terrans you can block add-ons from being constructed, most importantly a Machine Shop when doing a Dragoon heavy pressure build. Investing in a Pylon might delay the Siege Mode upgrade long enough to break a wall-in, or to deny the Wall-In in the first place. This can really be a game deciding move. Just sit back and enjoy.



Do you know this shit joke where a mathematician "constructs“ a trap by drawing a circle, stepping inside of it and then saying "I define the inside as outside“? Yes you do, you are nerds like me. This logic applied to Prisons can be used in several ways. The most boring example would be the Pylon Wall-ins used to deny access to freshly built expansion against Dragoon attacks or Vulture raids. It is so common we should not waste much space here.

However, since we are still in the oldest days of Brood War, the cannon rush should not be neglected. Back in 2004, a relatively unknown Austrian called TiQ.Dany qualified for the World Cyber Games. On broodwar.de he was dicussed in terms of "yeah, he's one of us, even better than almost all of us, but he stands no chance against the really big names in his group like Strafe." Turns out, all Dany needed to do was to define the inside as outside and completely overwhelm Strafe. You know where this leads, do you not? On the silly map of Korhal of Ceres the main mineral line is exactly one Pylon gap apart from the map's borders. So, just build two Pylons there and one cannon et voilá – you have a cannon rush that cannot be stopped. Today it is rather easy to block such a rush, but back then Strafe really did not know how to react and lost. Dany did not advance, but he easily made it into the best moves of the entire tournament, a tournament featuring the international elite.





Over the years it was figured out how to completely hard counter such a rush, we just mentioned that. One method, a rather complicated one, involves a mix of Manner Pylon and a glitch – you build a Pylon near Minerals and spam the move command behind the minerals shortly after warping in the Pylon. This is a rather common trick to bypass Minerals on maps like Outsider or Heartbreak Ridge. Obviously, it is easier to just gather two workers on the same mineral patch and spam the stop command to have one of the workers glitch over the obstacle. However, the logic of abusing the collision of Brood War's AI in combination with Brood War leads to yet another entry in the book of the Pylon: the Pylon Prison 2.0.

Some really unknown player either staged or bashed a newby on Lost Temple with this trick. He build so many buildings at the low level near his opponent's starting position, that the freshly trained Dragoon was spawned on top of the cliff and inside his opponent's base. Shieeeeet.



I could probably rant on a lot longer about the many other Pylons and Pylon related tricks. We totally left out the "Artosis Pylon," because that one really does not matter. Actually, it does, a little. Did you know it is one of the most idiotic bugs effected by the Pylon? In the very old days, it was very possible that your first or second Pylon warped in (or any other for that matter) gave you supply, but did not power up. This happened when you selected it a lot during the warp-in phase. In the end, it popped up, but you could not build anything, as the blue radius just did not work. I lost a lot of games due to this. It should be fixed by now.

I hope you got my point and were entertained for a bit. Next time remember the Napoleon effect: A small thing can have a large influence.