EPTHere's the first game I played after patch 1.3.3, against a straight phoenix build from a diamond P: http://drop.sc/10493
I defended the phoenix play horridly, lost tons of probes and still won for a few reasons: pure phoenix builds aren't very good, my opponent didn't save enough phoenix energy, and s/he expanded without enough of an advantage to defend it. This is an example why gate/stargate armies are somewhat weak (though with saving phoenix energy pretty sure my opponent would've roasted me nonetheless).
Here's the second game I played after 1.3.3 and the only replay I've got of this 2/1/1 style, against blink play from another diamond P: http://drop.sc/10492
It's not a great game, I knew what I wanted to do but winged the b/o on the fly because I haven't attempted this strat since I got roasted by it a month or so ago, then gave up on it after doing it poorly against 4g rushes. A lot of things went wrong in both of our play which also influenced the outcome. I got supply blocked a bunch, floated minerals and chrono, controlled my phoenix harass poorly, and still completely dominated a reasonably sized army of +1/+1 blink stalkers, killing something like 50 food while losing 15. My opponent seemed like s/he wasn't aggressive enough, made a stargate and didn't use it (to counter expected robo play?), got a dark shrine and didn't really use it at all, laid down too many cannons in response to minor probe harass, floated chrono, and expanded without enough of an advantage to defend.
My rough thoughts about how the build works are as follows:
- Open 3 stalker robo, use your stalkers to deny any warpgate rush.
As mentioned above, straight phoenix builds are terrible, the yonghwa style stalker rush allows a safer early game up to robo production without sacrificing econ or tech.
If you fail to deny the rush or if they push anyways: chrono your production, make sentries and stalkers out of your 2 gates, constant immortals out of the robo, clench your buttcheeks, and try use splitting ff's to whittle their army without dying.
- Once pressure is off or if they've gone for a tech build, throw down a stargate and start chrono'd phoenix production.
Stop probe production at 3 on each gas and 16-20 or so on minerals. Only make more if your opponent is also going phoenix and harassing your econ. This is standard for basically all PvP builds as far as I can tell since you aren't expected to take a quick expansion.
If they go colo or archon, stop immortal production at 2ish since they'll have mostly zealots, make stalkers out of your gates + phoenix.
If they go heavy blink make 3-5 immortals (only stopping for an obs to protect against dts basically), make mostly zealots out of your gates, stalkers when you push out or as gas allows (but you won't have much extra gas unless your mechanics are sloppy like mine), and keep making phoenix.
If they go phoenix as well, stop immortal production at 2ish, make stalkers out of your gates, continue phoenix production, and macro/micro better than them.
Use your phoenix to harass some and scout scout scout a lot, but don't go wild killing probes. You want to save at the very least 1 gravaton on each phoenix for if/when the opponent attacks to pick up their units. This is Extremely Important. If they attack your front and you don't have the energy to gravaton, you just wasted 150/100 times however many phoenix you made and you're going to get rolled unless you're a FF gosu (see first replay above).
- Once you've got like 6+ phoenix with a good amount of energy and however many gate/robo units you could muster assuming the rough composition guidelines above you can push or expand.
If its a small ramp map I think expanding is probably the better choice as FFs will prove problematic to any aggression on your part (though you can gravaton sentries as you engage if you choose to do so). Big ramp maps either aggression or expanding seem equally valid. In my experience expanding in PvP forces 1 of 2 things: 1. That your opponent also expand (in which case they will have to move down their ramp, at which point you can just go kill them with your [theoretically] superior composition) or 2. That your opponent attack you. Obviously, if they sit on one base too long without attacking you just win convincingly (as long as you didn't rush for saturation at your 2nd).
If they attack and went colo, use phoenix to lift only immortals, rest of phoenix on colo. Engage a little early if possible so you can kite around zealots as best you can.
If they attack and went archon, pick up all their zealots, snipe the archons with your ground army, then pick up all their everything else.
If they attack and went blink, use all your phoenix to pick up stalkers and stutter step everything else toward their standing army. The reason I think 2/1/1 works against blink is because blink is extremely fragile in regards to the numbers game: If blink builds can pick off 2-3 units every engagement without losing stalkers, after a period of time they just have a big enough army to win. If you trade numbers with a blink build, eventually you have a tech enough army (read: immortals/colo) to win. Using your phoenix to pick up stalkers ensures that you at least trade in the early game, and things get gross in the midgame when you pick off 4+ stalkers at a time losing only a zealot or two because they can't engage your immortal heavy ball.
If they expand as well or in response to the phoenixes, wait for their army to be down their ramp (think xel'naga/metalopolis style maps) before you engage, make sure you scouted the map for any proxy pylons with your phoenix before you push out, and either start an expansion or add 1-2 reinforcing gates just before you push. Fresh phoenix can reinforce a push, but immortals can't. Bring a probe for a proxy pylon and reinforce your attack from 3-4 gates.
Again, I've only had the chance to try this once since the patch so I don't really know what specific timings or play this is weak against, but with the warp timing nerf it seems really strong against most standard play to me.
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-208618.jpg)
