EPTIt's a baller ass build.
Replay Pack: http://www.gosutrolling.com/replays/TvP - Thor Marine.zip
-----------------
So there I was, sitting with my jaw on my desk trying to figure out the madness that was unfolding before me. It’s nine minutes into a game and two thors, with +1 Plating and Strike Cannons, a handful of SCVs to repair the Thors, and several marines were absolutely shitting on every Protoss unit in their way. Moments later we see a gg, and our Terran friend, Janook, wins the game by a very large margin.
The Protoss player went Two-Gate Robo and then expanded. It’s a pretty standard build that effectively deals with marine/marauder pushes that dominate the ladder; you get a decent number of gateway units, a quick observer, and a few immortals. Two-Gate Robo can’t even come close to defending Janook’s build. Immediately after the game all the spectators went into a frenzy. “What beats that? How can you beat that?” We were all filled with some sort of mania and we couldn’t stop talking about what we just saw.
I’m still blown away. Janook has thought up a new TvP build and I think, honestly, it’s unbeatable. I feel like a Protoss might be shit out of luck for quite some time in TvP, if and when this build gets popular.
The Build.
We’ll get into the theorycraft in a second, but let me just give you a quick run down of the build:
10 Depot
12 Barracks
13 Refinery
15 Orbital Command
16 Depot
18 Factory
20 Second Refinery
22 Depot
26 Hellion
27 Armory
28 Tech Lab on Factory
32 Terran Vehicle Plating 1
32/38 Thor (make at 32, will take you to 38 food).
39 Depot
41 250mm Strike-Fucking-Cannon
43 Depot
45/51 Thor (make at 45, will take you to 51 food)
note: I left SCVs and Marines out. This is an economic build. You should be constantly making both.
When that second Thor is done, push with marines, and handful of SCVs for repairing. Drop your expansion as you’re pushing. You’ll be able to keep producing Thors and marines.
Alright, now for the fun part. Let’s talk about the overarching ideas behind this build. First, we have to start with the most noticeable upgrade: Strike-Fucking-Cannon. For those of you that don’t know because you never see it used: Strike-Fucking-Cannon is an attack that is researchable at Factory’s tech lab. Strike-Fucking-Cannon ONE SHOTS Collosi and Immortals and is on a 50 second cool down (per Thor). Strike Cannon also stuns a target when it shoots it, making it unable to move or attack.
The value here is obvious. You can one shot Immortals and Collosi, which are will be the power units of Protoss army you’re running into at 9 minutes.
Now the second upgrade is to vehicle armor, which effects the armor of the Thors. Unlike Strike-Fucking-Cannon which is essential, this choice is more a matter of style than anything else. It seems to be working very well for Janook though, so I’d grab it if I were you. It’s unlike that the Protoss player will have any upgrades, so Thors with upgraded armor will be more likely to stay alive than those without it.
Playing to live.
We made Janook play a grip of games back to back against various Protoss players to see if his build would crack. In each game his opponent knew what build he was doing. Out of eight games in a row, he lost two. Both games he lost were to the same thing and Janook swears that he can make one small change and he’d be fine. We’ll get to what it was that beat him in just a second.
Right now we really need to think about what Protoss can do to live through this.
Two-Gate Robo: Yay or nay? Definitely nay. Way fucking definitely nay. The Thors will one-shot any immortals that might be out and then then the gateway units will get mopped up quickly. Because you only have two gates you won’t be able to reinforce. This build directly counters Two-Gate Robo.
Three-Gate Robo: Yay or nay? Nay. Three-Gate Robo would do a better job holding off Janook’s push than Two-Gate Robo, obviously, but I still think you’d end up losing to his first push. Thors with Strike Cannons just deal with the Immortals so handily. After the immortals get one-shotted you’ll have to deal with Thors who have infinite life because of repair and marines blasting through your gateway units. Three-Gate Robo isn’t the most economic build of all time either. On the off chance you do survive the Terran’s first push (and every time Janook won he won with his first push) the Terran will be up an expansion because you can’t comfortably expand with Three-Gate Robo and be producing out of all the structures.
One-Base Collosi: Yay or nay? Surprisingly, nay. There is a replay in the replay pack at the bottom of this post of Janook playing someone who gets three quick Collosi. Collosi, without range, have the same range as a Thor. Janook one-shot two of the Collosi with his two Thors and then just dealt with the third normally. This was a pretty close game, and one I’d recommend watching. I thought Janook was going to lose, but he didn’t. At one point in time there are a gaggle of gateway units pounding away at a Thor and the SCVs just out-repair their damage.
Four-Gate: Yay or nay? Nay. In the replay pack that will be at the bottom of this post you’ll see Janook get Four-Gated close positions on Metalopolis. He scouts it, throws down a bunker, holds it off easily, and then pushes as usual. The Protoss player who Four-Gates and doesn’t win will be so far behind that he might as well just leave after the failed push. If you scout Four-Gate, don’t get Strike Cannon. The DPS from the normal Thor attack will be higher against gateway units.
Void-Rays: Yay or nay? Nay. Voidrays do well against Thors, but not well against Thors being repaired. In addition the Terran will be constantly producing marines. Groups of marines normally spell disaster for Voidrays.
Quick High Templar: Yay or nay? Nay. No one ever tried it, but it takes quite a bit of teching to get the Templar Archives built. Then, on top of that, you have to research Psi Storm. Storm will be great against the marines and SCVs, but not the Thors. I apologize for not doing the research, but I don’t think this can work.
Dark Templar: Yay or nay? Actually, yayish. As I mentioned early, Janook lost two games. Both the games he lost, his foe went Dark Templar. Now it’s worth keeping in mind that Janook’s opponents knew exactly what he was doing. So the Protoss players, in this example, got to do blind-DT builds without actually being blind. Even then, Janook swears that if he saved up scans he’d be fine. It’s also worth noting that he never walled his ramp. This is stylistic choice, and obviously he’s doing fine without walling as he’s sitting at 2.2K points on the ladder. I think walling with this build might be nice because in the games he lost to DTs, they just got to waltz right in and start eating away at his SCVs. I don’t know, I think Janook can figure out some workarounds and be set. You be the judge for yourself.
The replay pack.
I wholeheartedly recommend you download this replay pack. This build is wild. Click here to download the replay pack.
P.S.
I want to apologize to my friends who play Protoss, for sharing this build. I imagine this build will cause lots of frustration in the upcoming weeks.
