TLOs Amazing and Unconventional TvP [MLG spoilers]

The match starts off on scrap station; right away this makes me assume some two bases vs. two bases play, possibly heavy drop harassment by TLO or early attacks due to the large ramp size. Tyler goes for his characteristic zealot sentry zealot out of his first gateway over zealot stalker sentry as is more common. Meanwhile TLO is doing a 1-1-1, but with one gas! He is building a hellion out of the factory and just keeps adding on hellions, still on one base. Tyler is doing his normal 3 gate robo expand, which if you watched his stream tends to be his standard vs. Terran.

TLO begins a medevac, abusing the fact the tyler’s early game relies on “cutsie defense” that is sentry heavy. Marines are dropped in Tyler's mineral line as hellions drive up the ramp and get a perfect angle on Tyler’s sentries. TLO also brought in an SCV to begin a bunker in Tyler’s base and Tyler simply doesn’t have enough to hold the pressure without forcefields. The medevac heals the SCV repairing the bunker allowing just two marines to survive a ridiculously long time. TLO is now up nearly 10 probes and is preparing for another push. In the meantime TLO has added on 3 more barracks, expanded, and grabbed his second gas. TLO gets two reactors – interestingly preparing to go marine heavy as Tyler feels too far behind and begins a poke at the front. But in the meantime TLO hits with a huge counter hellion drop roasting nearly all of Tyler’s probes! Now that TLO has killed his opponents entire economy, he can pull all of his SCVs to easily crush Tyler’s counter push and force the gg from Tyler.

Tyler’s cyber core positioning seems dubious and I wouldn’t generally recommend it due to how easily it can be picked off by drops. I’m really surprised that Tyler puts it there, he is the kind of player that analyzes where every building will be put, and I can’t see the benefit of putting it there. Maybe it is to make it less vulnerable to early stim timings up the big ramp, but I am unsure. TLO’s hellion scout is becoming more and more popular in TvP because it generally allows you to see Protoss’ chosen tech path, If you open 1-1-1 against protoss you should get a hellion to scout, but TLO is doing something much more interesting.

I am not sure if this would have worked against a Protoss other than Tyler and seems to be a build order type of loss. Tyler cuts corners with his 3 gate robo expand, using sentries as his crutch. As experience from watching some of his stream shows me, his build is extremely calculated down to the last forcefield (down to the point where the lag to Korea was enough to make his build fail occasionally). This is the risk of pushing your build to the limit, that you can get hit with something unexpected at the tournament stage. TLO brilliantly abused that Tyler goes so sentry heavy early game and I wouldn’t be surprised if Tyler has to change his whole opening to get around this drop that TLO has timed out.

Now I’m not entirely sure how TLO’s build does against non sentry heavy openings, as some protoss’ prefer going Zealot stalker heavy, but if you scout a fast double gas you might want to save energy on your orbital and scan at 6:10 to see if your opponent is focusing heavy sentry before you do the attack. Nonetheless, this is a convincing 1-1-1 opening against protoss that you might want to try out because of how much toss is loving sentries these days. What is so important to note is that he stays on one gas the whole time as 90% of 1-1-1 get a second gas.

Terran: A creative 1-1-1 variation to punish Protoss relying on sentries
Protoss: if this becomes more popular why not to rely on sentry heavy openings v T

This one is very difficult to decipher in terms of how Tyler could have won as his whole build relies on getting the most for his money and holding with as few units (read sentries) as possible. With better forcefields, it is possible that Tyler may have held this, but it is very difficult to be sure, it was just a very smart build by TLO.

Tyler again grabs both of his gases while TLO again 1-1-1’s with one gas. At this point both players seem to be doing the same builds as last game, but due to the map (xel'naga caverns) it will be much harder for TLO to drop successfully. TLO opts for fast siege tanks and a reactor barracks. Tyler opts for an immortal before colossus, indicating either possible aggression or a reaction to the siege tanks of TLO. TLO is getting a good mix of hellions and tanks, constantly making marines, a raven, and a fast 3rd. TLO adds on two starports and begins banshee production. Tyler takes some huge damage from blue flame hellions, but is not too far behind in probes. The hellion drop combined with spotting TLO's 3rd prompts Tyler to attack. TLO is going for 4 port banshee, using tanks to turtle. The stalker try to blink on the tanks but end up taking huge damage, as the banshees continue to rain down on the immortals, forcing a gg from Tyler.

Both of these games are absolutely insane because TLO straight up kills Tyler, not using any gimmicks, and with Tyler only doing standard build responses. The raven forces Tyler not to be able to scout the 4 port banshees or the fast 3rd base, and I can’t help but feel like this build from TLO crushes Protoss robo play easily. Maybe the secret that was missing from TvP mech style was the banshee. This is another great build for you to try out from TLO. I have no idea how it works on other builds besides Tyler's, but Tyler was doing the typical response to mech and got rolled by it.

Terran – another creative build that seems to crush robo play from Tyler
Protoss – the danger of robo builds against a potential meching terran style.

I’m thinking that stargate might be the best possible response to terran mech play rather than immortal stalker zealot. Phoenixes would have been fantastic in the battle, but it is completely understandable that this would not be Tyler’s normal reaction just to give him credit. Tyler also didn’t spot the fast third and so was kind of forced to all in, the raven does such a nice job denying scouting that it puts Tyler in a weird position, as you generally want to use mobility to out expand the mech player, but that is difficult when scouting is denied..