[G] Thaniri Standard TvP

       The early game, as stated before is completely defensive for the Terran player. When Terran is scouting, he is looking for four pieces of information, Zealot, gas, buildings and expansion.

       If Terran scouts a Zealot, he must send the first Marine to the watch tower and make a Bunker at the natural. He wants to use the Marine at the watch tower to run circles around the Zealot until the Bunker finishes. After Zealot and Stalker pressure has been deflected by use of the Bunker, it is a good idea for Terran to try and get an SCV out to scout for a natural expansion, if the original scout has been killed.
       If Terran scouts double gas, he must begin to scout the map for proxies at around 5:30, also scouting his natural by 6:00. It is a good idea to patrol a single Marine near the main cliff edge to scout for proxy pylons. If Protoss has two very fast gas geysers, and a half done natural at 6:30, this is a DT build, and Terran should have an Engineering Bay finished. A fast double gas with two probes in each geiser can be indicative of a 4 Gate Blink Obs, this is not a guarantee, but the alternative is a fairly quick expansion so it is easy to determine which strategy it will be. If Terran continues to be blind, 7:00-7:30 is typically a good time to scan. This scan timing is pretty old, however it can still be useful it Terran really needs to know what Protoss is doing.
       Expansions are different, if Protoss has a Nexus first with no Pylon in front of the Nexus, Terran can choose to bunker rush it. However, it is not recommended to bunker rush against any Gate Expands because the Marines would be in close quarters with VERY strong Zealots. It is best to simply take the expansion in stride and play normally. With the presence of Chronoboost, Terran can be punished very hard for trying to be too aggressive.
       Before your SCV leaves the base, Protoss should have 3 Pylons in his main base, or else he is supply blocked. If the third pylon is not present, and there is a fast double gas, the Terran player must be aware of the possibility of a proxy. The Nexus energy can also give away if a cheese is coming. If there is 75 energy piled up on the Nexus, and one gas, it is probably a 4 Gate, if there is two gas, be wary of high tech cheese.

Various Cheeses:

• 4 Gate. Go up to two bunkers, pre-pull 5 SCVs and make a Marauder quickly. If all scouting has been denied, a scan at 6:00 will reveal whether or not Warpgate Technology has finished, however by this time Terran is usually dead if ill prepared.
  
  
• 3/4 Gate Void Ray. make two bunkers near your command center at the natural, then one near the production facilities in the main. All Terran has to do is survive until there is a large bioball. SCVs can die, but the units can, not, die. The only way to defeat the Protoss army is with a huge Marine stim, so it is paramount that the Marines cower behind bunkers until there is a large force of them. Oftentimes additional Barracks are added to make sure there is an overwhelming force of Marines.
  Another small timing is that if the second gas has mined 50 gas at the time that the Cybernetics Core finishes, it lines up perfectly for a Void Ray build. This is not a guarantee, just something to keep in mind.
  
  
• DT Rush. Calmly make Turrets, and take a third base. A simple strategy once seen on Jinro’s stream is to forgo the third base in order to mass up Barracks then do a mass Marine and SCV attack, using the SCVs to make Bunkers and Turrets. Another small timing is that the second gas is created when the Cybernetics Core is roughly 25% done.
         After two base, DTs are given the role to keep the Terran in his base. This can be done with a Warp Prism, the best way to deal with it is to make a single Viking and simply patrol it near a path the Warp Prism would take.
  
  
• 3/4 Gate Immortals. There are two different things that people do in this situation. The first strategy against Immortals would be to make piles of Bunkers at the natural expansion. The second strategy is to use stim and SCVs away from the natural expansion to try and trade units. Both options are valid, but the mass Bunker strategy is more popular.
  
  
• Mass gateways off of two base. 3 bunkers and 8 pre-pulled SCVs will stave off all pressure. The Bunkers should be used to focus down the Protoss Sentries, while the Marines behind the bunkers will automatically target the Zealots.
  
  
• 4 Gate Blink Obs. Here I will write informally because I do not know the answer: I get 2 bunkers at my front, 1 at my production facilities, 1 at my main mineral line. I put 2 marines in each bunker and surround them by 3 SCVs. With my double techlab I am getting stim and concussive shells at the cost of delaying my starport. I normally just die, so good fucking luck with this shit. >.>
  

      Forge Expands. These are a bit strange, in the context of a standard game Terran can not really punish it because cannons maul marines, and it is also now within context to be rushing for a fast Stim drop. Against this, it is important to scan at 7 minutes or so to see what the Forge is doing, and how many Gates there are, because a common strategy is to do a mass Gate timing with a single Forge upgrading. This strategy also lends itself to High Templar play later on, so it is good to be mentally prepared for it, however do not assume that it is High Templar from the get go, rather if you can not figure out what tech Protoss has by 11:30 choose to blind counter Templar as opposed to Colossus.
      As a response to a Forge expand, Terran can choose to continue with safe play, taking into account that a gateway timing can occur, or choose to take a small risk and grab a quick third before gas. When Terran takes a fast third expansion, it is obviously going to be vulnerable for a while against a timing attack, however it allows you to get more production facilities quicker, and pays for itself after only two MULE cycles.
      The double Medivac Marine drop with Stim is possible, however it tends only to be good if the Protoss is caught unawares, and standard play is not about trying to trick anyone. However, if you do wish to do it, just remember Bomber’s very old strategy of 3 Barracks into fast double Refinery to get very quick Medivacs.

      As for scan timings, the main one is at 7:30. It is at this point that Protoss really begins to dedicate to a certain strategy, and as a result a common scan timing. I personally don’t see the point, however inKorean TvP games, this is the main scan timing.

      The midgame is where Terran takes control of the game. in TvP, Terran has an interesting role where they are both the aggressor, and the reactionary race. Protoss defines how the game will be played by their tech choices, as opposed to Terran. During the early stages of the midgame, Terran should have 5 Barracks, 1-2 Starports, and two Engineering Bays as his infrastructure. After 2-2 starts near the end of the midgame, Terran can go up to 7-8 Barracks.

       Just as Terran moves out with the double Medivac, it is prudent to scan above the main army to take out an Observer. From this point on, in order to continue to kill Observers, there should always be at least one scan available. The initial two Medivacs are used to determine what tech the Protoss has gone for. There are three main possibilities. Colossus, Templar, Double Forged Gateways, from which they are divided up into several sub categories.

       First, Colossus. Upon scouting that Colossus tech is on the field, it is important to get a second Starport out in order to be able to make 3 Vikings at a time. While the Starport begins construction, a single Marine should be stimmed to scout for a third base. Two scenarios will come of this, either there is a third, or there isn’t.
In the case that Terran sees a third, and the Protoss units are even slightly out of position to defend it, the Terran can often snipe it by stimming everything and retreating very quickly. This strategy becomes much more effective if Observers and other forms of scouting are being consistently denied. If the Protoss units are in fact in position to defend the third base, the Terran can try to shake him out of position by continuously scanning for Observers, and denying towers, pylons, and any form of vision Protoss may have. Then, as Protoss is blinded, Terran can poke anywhere he wants to do minor damage in order to try and find a window to do major damage. On a map such as Cloud Kingdom or Daybreak, the Vikings can shoot the Colossus as they move between the third and the natural expansions, and if no Colossus are present during a fight, the Terran can win engagements head on with ease. If Protoss appears to be completely resilient to all offensive moves, Terran ought to keep moving about on the Protoss side to deny Pylons, Warp Prisms, and always threaten a counter attack should Protoss decide to move out. Using this huge map control, Terran can gain an advantage by grabbing a quick third base. If Protoss is playing completely passive, with few Stalkers eating into his gas income, it is important for Terran to have access to Ghost technology to counter potential High Templars as early as 15 minutes in. Another tell-tale clue for a tech switch to Templar is that the Colossus count never increases above 3.
      If there is no third expansion present for Protoss, it is crucial to know his composition, and/or his building infrastructure. The things that Terran should look for are Stalker counts, and Gateway counts. If there are a large number of Stalker being fielded by the Protoss player, or a large number of Gateways, it is usually indicative of a two base Colossus all-in incoming. The best sign is that there are two Colossus already completed when you arrive at his base. The correct response to this is to load up a drop full of Marines near his main base for later, and making Bunkers with Marauders inside of them at home. Due to this sharp increase in mineral spending, often the Terran needs to cut Marine production to be able to afford the Bunkers. The reason that Marauders should go into the bunkers is that they will have a range advantage over the Stalkers, thus enabling the Vikings to shoot at the Colossus and ultimately win the battle. During all this, Terran can force the reinforcements of Protoss to be warped in at home with the dropship, and eventually he will have the bigger army at his own base and roll over the Protoss. Against a Stalker Colossus composition, a Marauder heavy composition from Terran will do very well.

      High Templar. There are usually two cases in which Terran discovers Templar. The first, is on two base the Protoss will try to take his third with Storm. This can be treated almost exactly the same way as the mirror case with Colossus trying to take a third, with the obvious difference being the Ghosts. In this case, Terran can again try to deny the third with bio forces, buying time for Ghost reinforcements to arrive.
       The second is that Protoss rushed a third base and can already defend it with Storm. This is a very difficult thing to deal with, however Protoss will naturally have a smaller army. As with the first case, it is important to try to get Ghost technology as quick as possible, however because Protoss has such a large area to defend, and with so few units due to the fast third, Terran can begin to employ drops to try and batter down Protoss’ forces for the Ghosts. The goal behind the drop play, is to make sure there is no/will not be a Zealot wall protecting the Templar from being attacked. When the forces of Protoss are so spread thin, it is easier to sidestep the Zealots in order to pick off a Templar, or failing that, the Zealot forces will be reduced which will enable the Ghosts later. If the Terran Ghost micro is good enough to not only Snipe the Templar, but also to EMP the Sentries, there is almost no reason why he should not be able to deny the third base. Against a Templar, the composition that Terran wants is essentially Marine, Medivac, Ghost, with only a few marauders. This is due to the fact that Templar are so gas heavy and minera light, that all the excess funds will go into Zealots, which do extremely well versus Marauders, so it is better to make Marines almost exclusively. The same as the mirror situation with Colossus where you absolutely can not deny the third base, continue to just deny the fourth, while taking a quick one of your own due to your advantage through map control. This is the same advantage Protoss takes advantage of in the first 8 minutes of the game before stim.
      There are also random 8 gate Storm all-ins that do occur, however these can be dealt easily with, by making large amounts of bunkers.

      Against double Forge mass gateway play, Terran will win the VAST majority of his games using 4-6 Medivacs and a large bio force crashing directly against the Protoss army. If the Protoss is forcefielding his ramp to buy time, Terran can load up a single medivac and fly it over them to try and force a Zealot attack and to try and snipe Sentries. If the Protoss engages, it is simple to lift the dropship and to use the forcefields against the Protoss player. The reason this tactic works, is because the presence of Medivacs threaten a drop in the main base of Protoss, therefore the Stalkers, the anti air, have to be there or else Protoss just dies. Ghosts are great versus plain Gateway units, and the most common followup from mass Gateways is High Templar, so they are almost always a good choice.
      There will be times where the Protoss army is just too strong to be broken. However, with the use of dropships, Terran can pull the Protoss every which way to eventually find a whole. If Protoss has impeccable defence, Terran can still be greedy behind this aggression because Protoss can not attack for fear of a much faster counter attack.

      In TvP, it is simple to determine who is ahead or behind in the midgame. This is mostly defined by upgrades, third bases, and tech advantages. Upgrades and third bases are roughly equal in terms of strategic importance, however tech advantages are much more important and dangerous. If Terran is unprepared for strategy X, he is often put into a defensive position while he is scrambling to come up with an answer for it, then once Terran is prepared for X, Protoss reveals XY, and Z. This is called the snowball effect, where once a player falls behind in the army composition, that player will fall quicker and quicker behind. Thus, he must find other advantages while dealing with his tech. However that is difficult because the tech itself gives other advantages to the Protoss players.

      Terran will win a lot with the 4 Medivac timing. However, there are still three ways Terran enters the lategame. Ahead, even, Behind. At the end of the Midgame section I outlined a simple way to determine whether you are ahead, even or behind, as it is important to how you will enter the lategame.

       Entering the lategame is about Protoss' fourth base more than Terran's. Protoss is defined by gas, four bases of gas income means that they can create any army composition they want, and five bases of gas income means that they have an infinite amount of whatever they want.

       As such, determining whether a player is ahead or behind in the midgame, determines how the lategame should be set up in the best possible way for him.

       If Protoss comes out of the midgame ahead, he will often take a faster fourth. Having a fourth base means that the area to defend is much larger, and as such the response from Terran is to do drops and various attacks to pull apart the Protoss in the hopes of finding something important undefended. A very complicated strategy here is to do a double drop to snipe tech or workers, while keeping his main army chasing about half of Terran’s bio force, and the other half of the bio force tries to snipe the fourth when it can. The main rule is to try not to actually engage the Protoss army, and to try and get the perfect composition with which to secure a fifth.

       If the game is even, Terran is goading Protoss to attack head on, and all of the conflict revolves around securing a fourth base for both players. Drops are more sporadic than if Protoss was ahead, because Terran wants as large of a single force as possible. The game is defined by one player attempting to deny the other’s fourth while securing his own. If Protoss’ fourth is insanely defended, accept it as an invitation to do damage elsewhere.

       If Terran comes out ahead, It is a good idea to start adding many macro orbitals, and fighting HARD to deny the Protoss a fourth. It does not matter if Terran begins to trade inefficiently, with the macro advantage as leverage, the Protoss player will eventually starve after rebuilding his forces for the umpteenth time.

      When setting up the lategame, 12 Orbitals should be the point at which Terran begins to suicide SCVs. At 9 Orbitals, MULEs provide the equivalent mineral income of 3 bases, so going up to 12 provides a lot of energy for scanning.

      The lategame is defined by expansions and map territory. It is important to understand what parts of the map a player effectively ‘owns’ and how to launch attacks or create defences from that information. It is also important to know what the ultimate composition is, and how to partition it to gain yourself strategic advantages. By far, the best map to learn these principles is Tal’darim Altar.

      The ultimate Terran composition is roughly 10 Marauders, 6-10 Medivacs, 6-8 Ghosts, 16 Vikings and the rest of the supply being in Marines, with roughly 20 scvs on the map. This composition is designed to be a sledgehammer that can clear through any Protoss army with ease, however, unless it is impossible for Protoss to avoid an engagement, the composition has to change to be more mobile. This is done by adding more Marauders, up to 20, and more Medivacs, up to 16. Having a weaker army on paper, a frontal engagement is much less appealing, however, with the increased mobility of infinitely being allowed to stim, flying around in the dropships, and the simple increased amount of HP and anti-building DPS, it opens up other strategic choices.

      In the lategame, there must be eyes on every expansion that is available on the map. This can be a Marine behind a mineral line to spot the Nexus, or a Supply Depot, or whatever the player chooses. Because of the Warpgate mechanic, it is important to destroy Nexii before they can become fortified, or else a large warpin round will thwart every attempt to attack an expansion, bar the main army. However, it is a poor decision to use the main army to destroy expansions because it is much easier to be caught out of position and because of the glass cannon quality of the Terran army, a very risky move. The main army should rather be positioned in front of the main source of income, and there must be a wide range of vision provided with either marines at watch towers, or Sensor Towers to quickly respond to any offensives. Then after being able to establish his own income, the Terran player needs to begin to deny the Protoss income by use of dropships and nukes. Protoss can defend these expansions with his main army, so it is important to be able to keep that out of the way as you kill a Nexus. There are several strategies to try and get economic damage in. The first, is to do many drops simultaneously, this is to directly challenge the Protoss player to multi task better than the Terran or else Terran will do significant damage to Protoss. The second, is for Terran to use his main army to grab the Protoss’ attention, however it becomes complicated with the way Terran must move his army. Imagine as an army is moving away from a base, that there is a rope behind held from the base to the army. This rope is infinitely long and represents the line of territory that a player ‘owns.’ The player moving his army away from his income using this rope must not let the rope be severed by anything, as this will cut off retreat paths and reinforcements, and opening up the income bases to attack, and committing the main army so heavily that harassment becomes too risky. When doing this move, it is also important to understand that the harassment you attempt to do, is on the opposite side of the moveout, or else it defeats the purpose of trying to pull the Protoss army in any direction. The third option is with nukes. Nukes are the best mineral dump Terran could ever hope for. Terran really only needs 3 bases of gas income to have his super army, and the fourth base of gas income can be used to constantly be dropping nukes upon the Protoss, destroying his economy, or manipulating his army movement with ‘don’t come’ or ‘move here’ nukes. Nukes are also incredible at forcing engagements by cutting off retreat paths. For example, If Terran is attacking Protoss’ fourth on Cloud Kingdom and he retreats to his third, Terran will nuke the ramp between the two.

       Protoss can also harass the Terran. As bases become so spread out, it becomes difficult to defend everything at once, and Protoss can abuse this by use of Warp Prisms, DT's, and Storm warpins. In the lategame, each base 5+ should be a Planetary Fortress. This alone should keep it safe from even large Zealot warpins. There must also be a Turret in the mineral line of every Planetary Fortress to prevent DT harass. Periodically, something should be used to scan for proxy Pylons near your expansions, because a common strategy is to warp in a High Templar and wait for the energy to storm your SCVs. There is no real way to stop this strategy, other than to prevent it from starting.

       The most dangerous thing to watch out for is a huge warpin at the production facilities. This calls for a huge amount of the main Terran force to come back to defend it. This move opens up a lot of room for Protoss to begin to make advances upon fringe expansions, and for that reason it is very difficult to deal with. If Terran is surprised by a mass warpin near his Barracks, he must go to defend it, but then accept that he will take damage somewhere. The best move in this situation, is to begin to load up dropships to do damage back to the Protoss at the same time, in the hopes to keep him from moving out and destroying a Planetary Fortress, and if he does move out regardless Terran can begin to work on Protosses expansions.

      Midgame versus Collosus. As the Terran engages the Protoss army, the Vikings must pick off the Collosus individually. Once the Vikings are on target fire, the bio can stim forward, just as the bio reaches Collosus range, double click the Marines and pull them back, this way the Marauders are taking as much damage as possible, allowing the superior DPS of the Marines to last as long as possible. In engagements where upgrades are even, Terran should win most engagements, except due to poor position. The positions that Terran wants to take are where large arcs can be established, or where a Marauder Viking flank can snipe some Colossus.

      Midgame versus Templar. These fights tend to be drawn out for very long periods of time, because of how mana regenerates. There are three very simple stages of a battle, Sentries + Templar, Templar, No Casters. By order, Terrans want to eliminate the Sentries first, then the Templar, until they can roll the Protoss army. At first, try to use small bio forces to bait forcefields and to also try to snipe sentries, the logic behind this is to remove the big walls that protect the Templar. Once Sentries are largely eliminated as threats, then Terran should begin to stim large portions of the bio force to bait engagements. If the bait is taken, simply retreat the bio and hit the Ghost hotkey and start sniping away at Templar, if the bait is not taken, keep trying to get him out of position. Throughout all of this, is is incredibly important to scan to find hiding Templar, and to find Observers. If you get surprised by a storm, it will typically cost you the game.

      Lategame versus Collosus Templar. When a storm is brewing between the two players, begin to scan in search of Observers to snipe with your Vikings. If Terran destroys all detection that Protoss has, he can cloak every Ghost and carpet bomb with EMPs. However, if this huge advantage can’t be obtained, start to focus down the Colossus with the Vikings and stimming forward the bio. When Protoss decides to attack, retreat with the bio in order for the Ghosts to get into EMP range. Protoss area of effect damage is so powerful, that you want to mitigate as much of it as possible before being forced to engage. If ever a bio force is in danger of being stormed, that section should be pulled away and a Ghost should move forward to dispatch the Templar.

Drop Rotation:

      Drop rotation is a very simple method in which the Terran is moving the Protoss army in circles with drops. As soon as Protoss is prepared to defend one spot, another is attacked, then when defence is gathered at that spot, another one is attacked, and the cycle continues until Terran gains a huge advantage from the amount of damage he has dealt, or Protoss finally ousts the dropships. While macroing effectively, a large force can be gathered to snipe a base while Protoss is busy hiding behind his walls.

This part will be informal, because I’m tired now.

       The Watchtower. I almost always take 5 or so Marines to try and seize the watch tower from the Stalker. Most times this will not succeed, but if you are unsure of what Protoss is doing, it is an important move to buy time for an SCV to slip out of your base and scout. If you are deadset on killing the Stalker, I only recommend in on a map where it is kind of hard for the Stalker to escape, or it is impossible for the Stalker to attack back. For example on Cloud Kingdom, the Stalker is against the wall and requires a reaction time of 3 seconds or less to escape, which I think you can justify chasing it if they have such a small window to run away. Daybreak is an excellent map also, because the tower is surrounded by smoke, you can take over the tower and the Stalker can not attack back without getting in very close.

       There is this small cute move you can make, if the Protoss player goes for a gate expand and you choose to make a bunker. You can take 2-3 of your Marines and 2 SCV around the vision of the watch tower (where is Stalker and/or Zealot are) and just attack his natural. You can get a sentry or two, and a bunch of probes. I don't really do this because I think the Protoss can discover this cutesy move too easily