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MC's STARGATE PVT
Hey everyone!
This is the first guide I’ve ever made for starcraft, so go easy on me.
It seems to me that MC’s stargate play this past weekend has the potential to revolutionize PvT. As an avid stargater in PvZ and PvP, I had to get on this as soon as possible.
There will of course be MLG spoilers past this point, so if you haven't watched it, turn back now. You have been warned.
In this guide I will detail the build orders MC used against Bomber, MVP, and Innovation in the MLG Winter Championship 2013, and speculate as to the advantages and disadvantages of them.
I'll be watching the vods here and detailing the opening build order, and general strategy as far as I can make it out.
Update
After reviewing a few games, it seems this is MC's opener as long as the terran takes at least one gas. If the terran is going for a gasless expand see MC vs Bomber Game 3.
The Opener
+ Show Spoiler +
9 Pylon
11 Chrono Probes
13 Chrono Probes
13 Gateway
15 Gas
15 (just before 16) 2nd Gas
16 Pylon
17 chrono probes
18 Cybercore
19 Zealot starts.
22 Pylon
--at this point, it appears MC cancels that zealot. My guess is he doesn’t need it as no marines arive.--
21 Warpgate (chrono?)
21 Stalker
23 Mothership Core, rally gateway to opponent’s base for stalker to scout.
25 Stalker (scout with first stalker)
28 Pylon
28 (just before 29) Stargate, begin poking out with mothership core looking for auxiliary supply depots.
31 Sentry
34 Cut Probes, Nexus
34 Oracle, resume probes
39 Pylon
Then produce phoenixes until you have 6 of them.
MC vs MVP, MLG Round of 16
Coming Soon!
MC vs Bomber, MLG Round of 8
Game One: Newkirk District
+ Show Spoiler +
Build Order:
9 Pylon
11 Chrono Probes
13 Chrono Probes
13 Gateway
15 Gas
15 (just before 16) 2nd Gas
16 Pylon
17 chrono probes
18 Cybercore
19 Zealot starts.
22 Pylon
--at this point, it appears MC cancels that zealot. My guess is he doesn’t need it as no marines arive.--
21 Warpgate (chrono?)
21 Stalker
23 Mothership Core, rally gateway to opponent’s base for stalker to scout.
25 Stalker (scout with first stalker)
28 Pylon
28 (just before 29) Stargate, begin poking out with mothership core looking for auxiliary supply depots.
31 Sentry
34 Cut Probes, Nexus
34 Oracle, resume probes
39 Pylon
39 (soon as oracle is finished)(reacting to a drop from bomber) phoenix (chronoed)
42 Second phoenix (drop is in retreat at this point being shut down well by the oracle, phoenix, and MSC)
45 3rd Phoenix
48 Gateway x 2, probes are now being produced from both Nexuses (Nexi?)
49 Pylon
51 4th Phoenix (chronoed)
55 Sentry
57 Gas at expo
58 2nd gas at expo
59 5th Phoenix rallied to other phoenix, poke with first 4 phoenix and oracle, use oracle for envision to detect widow mines.
63 Pylon x 2
65 Robo facility
70 Zealots x 3 (at home)
From here the game is in full swing and I’d rather recap it than detail the build order as it seems to be mostly reactive.
MC picks off three widow mines with his phoenix, and then pulls back and intercepts the terran force moving against him and forces the medivacs back some with his phoenix. Once the robo bay is complete the robo facility comes down almost immediately and MC continues to produce phoenixes. It’s interesting to me that there are so few gateways and gateway units at this point if the attack moved in though bomber most likely would lose the medivacs, and MC’s forcefields and photon overcharge would repel the attack.
At 88 supply the first observer is produced as MC’s phoenixes buzz around the medivacs in the center of the map.
At 93 supply we finally see the expected swell of gateways as 3 come down. These seem to be more offensive than defensive in purpose.
Around 100 supply the colossi come out and thermal lance is researched. Again, slightly counterintuitive as the terran would likely react to the phoenixes with vikings one would think. But with MC’s air dominance the first few vikings would indeed have been vulnerable to MC’s phoenix so I guess it makes sense.
Around 140 supply of mostly stalkers, zealots, vikings and phoenix (6) (and a single collosus) MC sets up his forward pylons and begins the first potentially game ending push. No upgrades have started, and I believe there isn’t even a forge on the map.
When the two armies clash the unit counts are as follows:
51 SCVs 4 Medivacs 1 Hellion 5 Vikings 14 Marauders 38 Marines
54 Probes 2 Observers 11 zealots, 2 colossi, 17 stalkers, 6 phoenix, 5 sentry 1 oracle, one mothership core.
Revelation goes down to start the attack.
Phoenixes chew apart the vikings which are focussing mostly on the colossi, and despite somewhat sub par forcefields the collosi and oracle make short work of the many marines. With the anti air eliminated, the medivacs are next to fall and the remaining marauders are helpless to the aerial threat.
Bomber pulls probes to repell the attack, and (according to the casters) reads that MC will no longer be producing colossi and so resumes medivac production. However, he’s at 25 SCVs to MC’s 54 Probes and MC still has (I think) at least 3 phoenix left which are able to shut down any drop play bomber might use to get himself back in the game. MC resumes colossi production but does produce a twighlight counsel to keep his options open.
After a disconnect the game resumes, Bomber all-ins and MC crushes it for the win.
Holy cow. That took the better part of an hour to make sure I got everything right. So I'm gonna leave it there today because I really want to try this. This build was less all-in than some of the others, and we'll note some distinction there when we get there.
MC vs Bomber Game 2: Stargate All In, Star Station
+ Show Spoiler +
9 Pylon
13 Gateway
15 gas
15 gas
17 Pylon
18 cybercore
19 start zealot
22 Pylon
23/21 Cybercore completes, cancel zealot at last second, start wg research and stalker
23 Mothership Core
25 2nd stalker (immediately after first stalker completes) (chrono)
28 Stargate, send MSC and stalkers to scout/poke
30 Pylon
30 Sentry
34 Oracle (soon as stargate is complete), stalkers and MSC arrive at Bombers base, seeing no expo or perimeter supply depots they return to base.
38 cut probes, nexus
38 phoenix, probe (his probe production is kinda funky this game), sends oracle to Bomber's base
40 Pylon
40 Phoenix
40 (after pylon completes) resume probe production
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At this point a bunch is happening in the game. MC's probes have been misrallied and he has 6 idle probes as Bomber's drop arrives. Meanwhile MC's oracle arrives at Bomber's base. As such, the build order from here is gonna be largely based on the events occurring in game, but it's early enough in game that I might as well detail them anyway.
45 (phoenixes die, stuff is warped in to help with the drop etc) 2nd oracle produced (most likely to clean up the mines in MC's base. Hard to say if this would have been a phoenix or oracle otherwise).
49 Phoenix
55 Phoenix
58 Double Gas (mines have been cleaned up by a zealot and the oracle. Also 2 stalkers were sacced to the mines... though I'm not entirely convinced that was intentional. I mean, wouldn't 2 probes right on top of the mines have done the same but cheaper? Couldn't he have warped in a zealot to sac? (maybe he didn't have time?) stalkers are expensive are the thing, and those two looked like they were there to help ward off further drops.
64 Forge
68 Phoenix (they've actually been pretty much constantly produced for a while now).
68 2 pylons are built due to a hard supply block.
71 +1 ground armor
73 gateway x 2, oracles poke a bit
75 twighlight council, charge is researched when it is complete.
More gateways are produced now that MC's air armada of 2 oracles and 6 phoenixes are complete, he gets up to 10 gates as charge finishes.
He gets templar archives too as the 9th and 10th gate are about half way done warping in. Storm starts researching once templar archives is complete.
At 128 supply MC takes his third and a cannon is made somewhere (not at his third). I find that cannon a bit odd right now and hopefully someone can explain it. Heck even the third is a bit funky at this time in my (fairly noobish) opinion. +2 attack is going up, MC has phoenixes to take care of drops, and it'll be a while before MC's 3rd pays for itself. I guess once he attacks having base defense will be nice but generally the rule of thumb is to have your resources in your army if you're on the offensive, this is especially true with the mothership's recall, plus warp in I would think.
+1 ground attacks start as Bomber's bio army pushes out and catches an oracle off gaurd, revelation does go down on the army however.
Forcefields and storms eat bomber's all in alive and Bomber GGs.
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Okay. So to me, that game was too much of a gong show to draw any real conclusions from. It seemed like most of the game was decided early on by the damage that first oracle did. MC's timings were also clearly thrown off in my opinion, but in the end solid fundamentals saw him through. I'd love it if a pro came in here to explain some of the more subtle decisions that were made after the early game crazyness, but I won't speculate myself.
MC vs Bomber Game 3
+ Show Spoiler +
MC's standard stargate opening takes a slight deviation in game 3 as he gets his Stargate at 24 rather than 28, super early. (22 Probes out, 1st stalker in production along with WG research barely started).
This likely is due to him scouting Bomber's gasless opening.
24 MSC
26 2nd Stalker
29 Oracle (soon as stargate completes)
32 Cut probes, Gateway x 3, MSC begins poking at outlying supply depots.
32 Pylon
32 2nd Oracle
Then basically the MSC catches about half of Bomber's marines in a nice time warp and the oracle cleans them up and begins working at the mineral line. The marines from the front go to deal with that, and the stalkers and oracles regroup and push in the front for the kill and the flawless victory.
If you see gasless terran, this seems like a hell of a good play.
MC vs Illusion
Coming Soon!
Advantages of Stargate Play:
1. Map Control.
Being able to deal with medivacs is HUGE right now. This accomplishes that in two ways: Not only do the phoenix shut them down quite well (not perfect, but better than any other option at the moment), but stargate play necessitates vikings which slow down medivac production much like needing to build observers slow colossi production.
2. Economic advantage through worker harass.
This is obvious at first, but the answer of "widow mines" is equally obvious. However, MC's use of envision and phoenixes to clear out the mines was nothing short of brilliance in my mind and a bit of a game changer. Once the mines are gone, the oracles reign supreme until a sufficient marine or viking force arrives.
3. Oracles are extremely effective vs marines.
It seems a critical mass of about 4 oracles can take on an absurd amount of marines, particularly if they are funneled through a ramp or use of forcefields. Thus, splash damage is no longer as necessary as it once was and the race against time and stim is negated somewhat. Vikings are necessary to defeat the oracles, and phoenixes will usually be out first so the vikings often need to hide somewhat until they are in sufficient number.
Disadvantages of Stargate Play:
Lack of a more stable detection.
While envision is fantastic, it's no observer which always detects and has increased survivability through it's perma-cloak.
Lack of ground upgrades.
This can put the protoss player behind in a longer game I think, and maybe something to really consider further down the road.
More difficult to use than robo play.
Phoenix and Oracles need to be microed more than colossi. To me, this is just part of the fun of stargate, but it is a disadvantage as more time microing means less time available to macro.
Anyways, feel free to begin discussion of this, let me know if I got anything wrong. I'm gonna go play a few games now that I've got this build order up, and I'll add a writeup of MC's other stargate games later.
Farewell for now!
Dougler
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Very insightful. Thanks for posting this.
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I thought about doing this myself. When you're working on this guide, just a tip, they're all the same build, so you only have to write it down once. The primary decision points are when to pull back with his stalkers and mothership core, and when to switch from oracles to phoenix production, which is all based on his reads. The only exception is that he did a weird gateway pressure in one of his games. Although I haven't watched all the Innovation games so could be wrong.
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On March 19 2013 14:03 FlyingBeer wrote:
I thought about doing this myself. When you're working on this guide, just a tip, they're all the same build, so you only have to write it down once. The primary decision points are when to pull back with his stalkers and mothership core, and when to switch from oracles to phoenix production, which is all based on his reads. The only exception is that he did a weird gateway pressure in one of his games. Although I haven't watched all the Innovation games so could be wrong.
I'm noticing you're right. I'll fix the formatting of this later so that I have the opening in one post and have people refer to it, and then note where it differs.
In other news, I've got game 2 vs bomber updated. It's a bit of a gong show though as the build is thrown out of wac by some early game crazyness and then as far as I can tell MC is ahead and gets more ahead.
Edit: Also, how long have people been doing the zealot cancel? Because it's bloody brilliant and I'm now doing it all the time. I hate having a useless zealot for most of the game.
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Game 3 of MC vs Bomber has been added and the opener has been added in it's own seperate spoiler tags. I'll work more on the formatting and add the MVP Stargate games and any stargate vs innovation games tomorrow.
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1oracle, few voids, tempest, late collossi PvT
Im working on this opener for PvT. It uses the nexus cannon to buy time for eventual fleet beacon units.
It opens with 1 oracle to force the turrets / defenses then gets expansion/voidrays. Only make 1stalker+ 1-2zealots of of the gateway, 1stargate, 1oracle then drop the expansion. The stargate+oracle cost you money, but force the terran to spend money too so its even.
In WoL the same build would be horrible and never survive to fleet beacon units but in HOTS the nexus cannon provides that 2 minutes of defense needed to get out the higher units
I go for a couple tempests first because realistically carriers are stronger but i realized holy cow tempest buildtime is 60 seconds (compared to 120 seconds for carrier) So getting tempests lets you produce simply so much more out of that 1 stargate. Also carriers without the upgrade are probably weaker and that upgrade is a big 150/150 which on 2 bases is expensive.
While working towards tempests you use leftover gas off 2bases to work towards getting a few collossi to deal with marines. After about 5-6 tempests and 1-2 collossi you can switch over to making carriers. pump carrier/collossi / stalker. with a couple zealots i never like to have more than 5 lategame prefer to get stalkers. Upgraded stalkers are very powerful in the sense that they force marauders, and marauders arent that great vs carrier tempest collossi
replay
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=279854
just started playing again so im in diamond i crushed this gay. was top masters in wol tho
BO ive been using:
+ Show Spoiler +
9pylon
2 chronoboosts nexus
14gate
15gas
17pylon
chronoboost nexus
18 cyber
19 gas
produce probes nonstop except for core
zealot (without cutting probes)
pylon (without cutting probes)
chronoboost nexus
mothership core after cyber
stalker asap after core
stargate
produce probes to 25 (19 on minerals, 6 on gas) then stop to expand
upgrade warptech after stargate goes down
harass with core+stalker+zealot
make pylons as needed dont get supply blocked
make another zealot then stop to pile minerals for expo. dont use the gateway anymore until you expand
make 1 oracle. after that 100% of stargate time is dedicated to voidrays. the stargate should be producing units 100% of time, chronoboosts go on nexus and once a minute put one on stargate
harass with oracle right when it pops to make sure you forced turrets. Your goal isnt to kill anything simply fly in and if theres no mine/marine/turret defense then kill some SCV's.
REMEMBER when entering his base with oracle put 100% of your focus on the oracle as you are running to his mineral line. If he has any mines there with micro you can pull back and avoid the mine fire. Any unit no matter how fast or slow can avoid mine fire theres a 2 second window to pull back because if the unit is slow it moves in slow then moves out slow either way theres a 2 second window to pull back to avoid mine fire.
If there is ANY defense at all, bring oracle home. The oracle paid for itself by forcing defense.
After expand make zealots+voidrays + pylons + probes. chronoboost probes. Ive found the ideal number on minerals is 18, anything more is barely much more income but i guess its up2u
while not missing anything above, make 2 more gasses when you got about 35 probes.
While not missing gas for voidrays, make the fleet beacon when you have enough money. Normally this is after 4-5 voidrays
make a forge after 2-3 voidrays for a cannon in each mineral line. work towards 1/1/1 from the forge.
after beacon is done stargate is used for tempests.
after warpgate techs done upgrade air attack constantly
18 miners on each mineral line is full sutation. work towards that. so about 48 workers is full saturation + 2 more for good measure
stop once you reach ~8 zealots that the highest amount of zealots you want. save minerals
after fleet beacon you can make the robo and work towards some collosi. make 4 more gateways around this time for 5gates total + 1robo + 1stargate
after 4-5 tempests you can switch to making carriers. Pump out carrier+stalker+collossi
After you drop those 4 extra gates you can go take your third (assuming oracle didnt scout him already taking third. In which case you take your third.) . Make a second forge after taking the third to work towards 3/3/3 ground
Use the fast moving oracle to try to scout if he took third bases if your ever wondering if he took a third at like 10 minutes
After thirds up and running go ahead and go up to 8-9 gates.
Pretty much lategame goal army is tons of upgraded stalkers, some tempest, some collossi, some carriers. As you work towards bases 4-5 you could add in storm/archon
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The thing I'd like to know is what reads/ situations should you NOT send your first oracle or 2 to the enemy base but instead keep them home for defense. I've lost some games on ladder because my first 1 or 2 oracles were poking at his main base (and scouting at the same time) when a cloak banshee or widow mine drop suddenly arrives in my main and all I'm scrambling for some detection. Obviously vs gasless openings you can be a bit more aggressive with the stargate units but vs an unknown or gas opening (even if you've just seen a reaper) I'm curious as to what timings or reads might cause me to play more passively.
Also I feel like if you don't do that much damage with the oracles, a flood of gateways (+4 or 5) and an early charge might be a better transition than going straight to colossus. Because if they have a good 2 base economy they can keep pumping vikings which will counter both your colossus and air units with a nasty timing, whereas 7 gate chargelots (and a quick-ish storm) plus mothership core should do better if they try some kind of big frontal counter attack.
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On March 19 2013 17:10 centergoliath4 wrote:1oracle, few voids, tempest, late collossi PvT Im working on this opener for PvT. It uses the nexus cannon to buy time for eventual fleet beacon units. It opens with 1 oracle to force the turrets / defenses then gets expansion/voidrays. Only make 1stalker+ 1-2zealots of of the gateway, 1stargate, 1oracle then drop the expansion. The stargate+oracle cost you money, but force the terran to spend money too so its even. In WoL the same build would be horrible and never survive to fleet beacon units but in HOTS the nexus cannon provides that 2 minutes of defense needed to get out the higher units I go for a couple tempests first because realistically carriers are stronger but i realized holy cow tempest buildtime is 60 seconds (compared to 120 seconds for carrier) So getting tempests lets you produce simply so much more out of that 1 stargate. Also carriers without the upgrade are probably weaker and that upgrade is a big 150/150 which on 2 bases is expensive. While working towards tempests you use leftover gas off 2bases to work towards getting a few collossi to deal with marines. After about 5-6 tempests and 1-2 collossi you can switch over to making carriers. pump carrier/collossi / stalker. with a couple zealots i never like to have more than 5 lategame prefer to get stalkers. Upgraded stalkers are very powerful in the sense that they force marauders, and marauders arent that great vs carrier tempest collossi replay http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=279854just started playing again so im in diamond i crushed this gay. was top masters in wol tho BO ive been using: + Show Spoiler +
9pylon
2 chronoboosts nexus
14gate
15gas
17pylon
chronoboost nexus
18 cyber
19 gas
produce probes nonstop except for core
zealot (without cutting probes)
pylon (without cutting probes)
chronoboost nexus
mothership core after cyber
stalker asap after core
stargate
produce probes to 25 (19 on minerals, 6 on gas) then stop to expand
upgrade warptech after stargate goes down
harass with core+stalker+zealot
make pylons as needed dont get supply blocked
make another zealot then stop to pile minerals for expo. dont use the gateway anymore until you expand
make 1 oracle. after that 100% of stargate time is dedicated to voidrays. the stargate should be producing units 100% of time, chronoboosts go on nexus and once a minute put one on stargate
harass with oracle right when it pops to make sure you forced turrets. Your goal isnt to kill anything simply fly in and if theres no mine/marine/turret defense then kill some SCV's.
REMEMBER when entering his base with oracle put 100% of your focus on the oracle as you are running to his mineral line. If he has any mines there with micro you can pull back and avoid the mine fire. Any unit no matter how fast or slow can avoid mine fire theres a 2 second window to pull back because if the unit is slow it moves in slow then moves out slow either way theres a 2 second window to pull back to avoid mine fire.
If there is ANY defense at all, bring oracle home. The oracle paid for itself by forcing defense.
After expand make zealots+voidrays + pylons + probes. chronoboost probes. Ive found the ideal number on minerals is 18, anything more is barely much more income but i guess its up2u
while not missing anything above, make 2 more gasses when you got about 35 probes.
While not missing gas for voidrays, make the fleet beacon when you have enough money. Normally this is after 4-5 voidrays
make a forge after 2-3 voidrays for a cannon in each mineral line. work towards 1/1/1 from the forge.
after beacon is done stargate is used for tempests.
after warpgate techs done upgrade air attack constantly
18 miners on each mineral line is full sutation. work towards that. so about 48 workers is full saturation + 2 more for good measure
stop once you reach ~8 zealots that the highest amount of zealots you want. save minerals
after fleet beacon you can make the robo and work towards some collosi. make 4 more gateways around this time for 5gates total + 1robo + 1stargate
after 4-5 tempests you can switch to making carriers. Pump out carrier+stalker+collossi
After you drop those 4 extra gates you can go take your third (assuming oracle didnt scout him already taking third. In which case you take your third.) . Make a second forge after taking the third to work towards 3/3/3 ground
Use the fast moving oracle to try to scout if he took third bases if your ever wondering if he took a third at like 10 minutes
After thirds up and running go ahead and go up to 8-9 gates.
Pretty much lategame goal army is tons of upgraded stalkers, some tempest, some collossi, some carriers. As you work towards bases 4-5 you could add in storm/archon
The build I use every TvP is this:
3 hellion medievac drop into your base.
I got a bunker in the front (sometimes the back), and 5-6 marines in the back of my base.. If you decide to attack my front, ill repair bunker and poke away your MSC.
if you attack the back with your oracle, my marines will chase you..
Either way, i will drop your main, kill your workers, see your stargate tech, I will tech to bainshees + vikings, mass marine...
I will go to your base, if you got nexus defend on, My medevac will ship marines to the cliff side, and my bainshees will fly to your main base, kill your units and structures
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A variation of that is:
I don't do a hellion drop on you, but just 1base you, with 2 bunkers, mass marine, bainshees and vikings, and a raven for pdd.
You won't have time to get alot of collos out, if u got oracle and pheonix, my marine + viking will kill it.
mass stalkers? Raven. + bainshee
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On March 19 2013 17:28 Erik.TheRed wrote:
The thing I'd like to know is what reads/ situations should you NOT send your first oracle or 2 to the enemy base but instead keep them home for defense. I've lost some games on ladder because my first 1 or 2 oracles were poking at his main base (and scouting at the same time) when a cloak banshee or widow mine drop suddenly arrives in my main and all I'm scrambling for some detection. Obviously vs gasless openings you can be a bit more aggressive with the stargate units but vs an unknown or gas opening (even if you've just seen a reaper) I'm curious as to what timings or reads might cause me to play more passively.
Also I feel like if you don't do that much damage with the oracles, a flood of gateways (+4 or 5) and an early charge might be a better transition than going straight to colossus. Because if they have a good 2 base economy they can keep pumping vikings which will counter both your colossus and air units with a nasty timing, whereas 7 gate chargelots (and a quick-ish storm) plus mothership core should do better if they try some kind of big frontal counter attack.
Yoyo, I believe I might be able to help a bit with your conundrum.
One of the reasons you see MC get so aggressive with stalkers and MSC early on is to find out exactly what you're getting at here: if something fishy is going on. As Day[9] says, getting aggressive is one of the best ways to find out what your opponent is doing. With a couple stalkers and your MSC, you should be able to see anything weird happening before he can actually use it. Use your MSC in open air space to spot things like drops and banshees, and poke at the front with your stalkers. Then, you should know most everything that is happening, especially by the time you have your Oracles in his base. If you see a gas before an expansion from the Terran, I would think that it's typically prudent to keep your MSC home and/or in the air space between your and the Terran's bases if possible. That way, you can defend from drops and Banshees more conveniently.
Moreover, I would think of that kind of play this way: if the Terran has elected to go for a Banshee or drop play, he's committed to something which will decrease the amount of defense he has at home. Your Oracles should be able to DESTROY the amount of Marines he has, especially with some gateway units to back them up. They really do an incredible amount of damage. Don't underestimate them.
Finally, as far as defending drops with Oracles (especially Widow Mines) goes, you should watch game 2 of Innovation vs. MC in the + Show Spoiler + match. It will enlighten you quite a bit as to how to defend drops while you wait for your next Oracle.
Hope that helps some, just some suggestions!
On March 19 2013 23:17 BurgerFreak wrote:
A variation of that is:
I don't do a hellion drop on you, but just 1base you, with 2 bunkers, mass marine, bainshees and vikings, and a raven for pdd.
You won't have time to get alot of collos out, if u got oracle and pheonix, my marine + viking will kill it.
mass stalkers? Raven. + bainshee
Indeed, sir, your strategy is completely infallible. Why did no one think of this before you? The depth of your response to the above poster is like that of a black hole, slowly sucking away my insanity as it wracks my brain with its inconsiderate, haughty, and short-sighted nature.
Bravo, sir, bravo.
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Posted this post to the previous post, just to keep things concise.
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Sick guide, I'm going to test this on the ladder today!
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A few things we should probably consider before people go making stargate their staple for PvT.
1. Can stargate-based play do this much damage consistently? Oracles are *good* against marines - don't get me wrong - but at 150/150, with 160 health, 0 armor and 25 dps vs. light (consuming energy), they aren't exactly cost effective against marines either. The Oracle is worth about 9 marines of resources (including supply costs), and that many marines make really short work of an Oracle (it dies in a little under 3 seconds, having killed a single marine). Make it a bunker and 4 marines (instead of 9), and you'll find a similar result. The Oracle does almost nothing, and dies rather quickly.
2. Can stargate-based play hold all attacks? Using phoenixes to snipe medivacs sneaking out towards mineral lines is cute, but what about when the medivacs are immediately backed by a large force of marines? Using photon overcharge to grant the protoss an extra minute with which to defend a bio-based allin is nice, too. But will the delay to Colossus tech prove this to be safe? MC gets AE damage quite late - and as we said above, Oracles are *good* against marines.... but not THAT good. And of course, the most pressing question - what happens when you need to use Oracles against marines and for detection - as is the case for marine/WM or marine/banshee pushes?
3. Late Game - What about vikings? It's been widely known for some time that Vikings are good against Phoenixes (due to the longer range in part). And Vikings absolutely annihilate Voids, Oracles, Carriers and Tempests without Storm. And if you're going Stargate, and then straight into storm, your opening for bio-heavy pushes is even wider. Keep in mind that the one game where MC pushes with Colossus (at least according to the unit counts in the OP), the Protoss has a supply lead. Someone who's opening Stargate into Expand into Robo should not expect this against a player who's kinda just going with a standard bio composition.
It's way too early to say that this is good or bad, but keep in mind the player you're talking about. Sure, he was one of the first to make popular the 1-gate FE in PvT - but he was also the guy who Void-Ray allined a surprising amount in PvT early in WoL, the guy who got a Carrier allin going against Kas in a pro tournament. He does these things not because they're solid inherently but because nobody else does them. MC takes risks - a lot of risks. It's part of his playstyle. Having put this style out there now, you can expect the next major tournament he's involved in to show a lot of Terrans trying intentionally to break this style. Maybe it'll stick around - but my spider sense (aka bits of analysis I'm doing above) makes me think that this is more a result of how much damage he's doing to players who don't expect it and aren't sure the optimal reaction to it - and not because the style itself is solid.
I like Oracles, and the best feelings I get in PvT is when I'm able to play Oracle Stalker MSC aggression effectively (and it is effective), but it's hard to know if it's effective because it's a solid play, or because there's a couple slight adjustments Terrans haven't figured out yet which'll absolutely negate it once they do.
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Just a follow up to my last post, I did the stalker pressure and scouted an early starport so i kept my first oracle at home. I think this game shows a pretty solid defense and follow up if anyone is interested
(master league replay): http://drop.sc/311419
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On March 20 2013 00:06 Treehead wrote:
A few things we should probably consider before people go making stargate their staple for PvT.
1. Can stargate-based play do this much damage consistently? Oracles are *good* against marines - don't get me wrong - but at 150/150, with 160 health, 0 armor and 25 dps vs. light (consuming energy), they aren't exactly cost effective against marines either. The Oracle is worth about 9 marines of resources (including supply costs), and that many marines make really short work of an Oracle (it dies in a little under 3 seconds, having killed a single marine). Make it a bunker and 4 marines (instead of 9), and you'll find a similar result. The Oracle does almost nothing, and dies rather quickly.
2. Can stargate-based play hold all attacks? Using phoenixes to snipe medivacs sneaking out towards mineral lines is cute, but what about when the medivacs are immediately backed by a large force of marines? Using photon overcharge to grant the protoss an extra minute with which to defend a bio-based allin is nice, too. But will the delay to Colossus tech prove this to be safe? MC gets AE damage quite late - and as we said above, Oracles are *good* against marines.... but not THAT good. And of course, the most pressing question - what happens when you need to use Oracles against marines and for detection - as is the case for marine/WM or marine/banshee pushes?
3. Late Game - What about vikings? It's been widely known for some time that Vikings are good against Phoenixes (due to the longer range in part). And Vikings absolutely annihilate Voids, Oracles, Carriers and Tempests without Storm. And if you're going Stargate, and then straight into storm, your opening for bio-heavy pushes is even wider. Keep in mind that the one game where MC pushes with Colossus (at least according to the unit counts in the OP), the Protoss has a supply lead. Someone who's opening Stargate into Expand into Robo should not expect this against a player who's kinda just going with a standard bio composition.
It's way too early to say that this is good or bad, but keep in mind the player you're talking about. Sure, he was one of the first to make popular the 1-gate FE in PvT - but he was also the guy who Void-Ray allined a surprising amount in PvT early in WoL, the guy who got a Carrier allin going against Kas in a pro tournament. He does these things not because they're solid inherently but because nobody else does them. MC takes risks - a lot of risks. It's part of his playstyle. Having put this style out there now, you can expect the next major tournament he's involved in to show a lot of Terrans trying intentionally to break this style. Maybe it'll stick around - but my spider sense (aka bits of analysis I'm doing above) makes me think that this is more a result of how much damage he's doing to players who don't expect it and aren't sure the optimal reaction to it - and not because the style itself is solid.
I like Oracles, and the best feelings I get in PvT is when I'm able to play Oracle Stalker MSC aggression effectively (and it is effective), but it's hard to know if it's effective because it's a solid play, or because there's a couple slight adjustments Terrans haven't figured out yet which'll absolutely negate it once they do.
Thanks for your post! I've been doing this build a fair bit now, and I think I can comment on some of it.
1. Can stargate-based play do this much damage consistently? Oracles are *good* against marines - don't get me wrong - but at 150/150, with 160 health, 0 armor and 25 dps vs. light (consuming energy), they aren't exactly cost effective against marines either. The Oracle is worth about 9 marines of resources (including supply costs), and that many marines make really short work of an Oracle (it dies in a little under 3 seconds, having killed a single marine). Make it a bunker and 4 marines (instead of 9), and you'll find a similar result. The Oracle does almost nothing, and dies rather quickly.
Your question is very good but I think you go to some wrong conclusions with it. Like most builds, its effectiveness is at least lightly based on your opponent. Against a gassing terran the phoenixes are what it's about and the oracle is largely there for detection a good chunk of the time. Against gasless expands though? Big time. It's practically a build order win in fact. The thing is, you kind of compare apples to oranges when you compare 450 minerals and 9 supply of marines (the most cost effective unit in the game), to 150 minerals, 150 gas, 3 supply of Oracle, and then say that they both begin attacking eachother simultaneously. Rarely is that the case. Generally, you arrive at the mineral line, get a SCV kill or two, and then the marines start funnelling in and you can pick off another 2 or 3 before needing to get out of there. If you have 2 oracles though things really get nutty as there needs to be a good clump of at least 6 marines to really be a threat.
So you pillage the mineral lines free of the fear of mines underground, force missile turrets and get ahead in economy through killing workers, and then go for whatever your favourite bust strategy is. MC went stalkers, I'm partial to chronoing out a VR, though I fear that may be an inferior choice.
2. Can stargate-based play hold all attacks? Using phoenixes to snipe medivacs sneaking out towards mineral lines is cute, but what about when the medivacs are immediately backed by a large force of marines? Using photon overcharge to grant the protoss an extra minute with which to defend a bio-based allin is nice, too. But will the delay to Colossus tech prove this to be safe? MC gets AE damage quite late - and as we said above, Oracles are *good* against marines.... but not THAT good. And of course, the most pressing question - what happens when you need to use Oracles against marines and for detection - as is the case for marine/WM or marine/banshee pushes?
Yeah this the real trick. You need really good map awareness I'm finding. If you can catch the push when it's halfway accross the map and take out the medivacs, maybe force a stim even, fantastic. Holding that on 2 bases isn't a problem. But when they get to your base and have full health and medivacs and you have not slowed them down at all through your phoenixes, THEN that's a problem for sure.
3. Late Game - What about vikings? It's been widely known for some time that Vikings are good against Phoenixes (due to the longer range in part). And Vikings absolutely annihilate Voids, Oracles, Carriers and Tempests without Storm. And if you're going Stargate, and then straight into storm, your opening for bio-heavy pushes is even wider. Keep in mind that the one game where MC pushes with Colossus (at least according to the unit counts in the OP), the Protoss has a supply lead. Someone who's opening Stargate into Expand into Robo should not expect this against a player who's kinda just going with a standard bio composition.
For sure, stargate in late game is not good, but it does force out vikings which end up being useless when storm happens.
It seems like you're overestimating the bio push a bit. Without medivacs (because you've killed them) it's pretty easy to hold off a mid game bio push just with forcefields and photon overcharge and meanwhile you're free to ruin their mineral lines with your phoenix (plural) and oracle.
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On March 20 2013 04:41 TheDougler wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2013 00:06 Treehead wrote:
A few things we should probably consider before people go making stargate their staple for PvT.
1. Can stargate-based play do this much damage consistently? Oracles are *good* against marines - don't get me wrong - but at 150/150, with 160 health, 0 armor and 25 dps vs. light (consuming energy), they aren't exactly cost effective against marines either. The Oracle is worth about 9 marines of resources (including supply costs), and that many marines make really short work of an Oracle (it dies in a little under 3 seconds, having killed a single marine). Make it a bunker and 4 marines (instead of 9), and you'll find a similar result. The Oracle does almost nothing, and dies rather quickly.
2. Can stargate-based play hold all attacks? Using phoenixes to snipe medivacs sneaking out towards mineral lines is cute, but what about when the medivacs are immediately backed by a large force of marines? Using photon overcharge to grant the protoss an extra minute with which to defend a bio-based allin is nice, too. But will the delay to Colossus tech prove this to be safe? MC gets AE damage quite late - and as we said above, Oracles are *good* against marines.... but not THAT good. And of course, the most pressing question - what happens when you need to use Oracles against marines and for detection - as is the case for marine/WM or marine/banshee pushes?
3. Late Game - What about vikings? It's been widely known for some time that Vikings are good against Phoenixes (due to the longer range in part). And Vikings absolutely annihilate Voids, Oracles, Carriers and Tempests without Storm. And if you're going Stargate, and then straight into storm, your opening for bio-heavy pushes is even wider. Keep in mind that the one game where MC pushes with Colossus (at least according to the unit counts in the OP), the Protoss has a supply lead. Someone who's opening Stargate into Expand into Robo should not expect this against a player who's kinda just going with a standard bio composition.
It's way too early to say that this is good or bad, but keep in mind the player you're talking about. Sure, he was one of the first to make popular the 1-gate FE in PvT - but he was also the guy who Void-Ray allined a surprising amount in PvT early in WoL, the guy who got a Carrier allin going against Kas in a pro tournament. He does these things not because they're solid inherently but because nobody else does them. MC takes risks - a lot of risks. It's part of his playstyle. Having put this style out there now, you can expect the next major tournament he's involved in to show a lot of Terrans trying intentionally to break this style. Maybe it'll stick around - but my spider sense (aka bits of analysis I'm doing above) makes me think that this is more a result of how much damage he's doing to players who don't expect it and aren't sure the optimal reaction to it - and not because the style itself is solid.
I like Oracles, and the best feelings I get in PvT is when I'm able to play Oracle Stalker MSC aggression effectively (and it is effective), but it's hard to know if it's effective because it's a solid play, or because there's a couple slight adjustments Terrans haven't figured out yet which'll absolutely negate it once they do. Thanks for your post! I've been doing this build a fair bit now, and I think I can comment on some of it. Show nested quote + 1. Can stargate-based play do this much damage consistently? Oracles are *good* against marines - don't get me wrong - but at 150/150, with 160 health, 0 armor and 25 dps vs. light (consuming energy), they aren't exactly cost effective against marines either. The Oracle is worth about 9 marines of resources (including supply costs), and that many marines make really short work of an Oracle (it dies in a little under 3 seconds, having killed a single marine). Make it a bunker and 4 marines (instead of 9), and you'll find a similar result. The Oracle does almost nothing, and dies rather quickly. Your question is very good but I think you go to some wrong conclusions with it. Like most builds, its effectiveness is at least lightly based on your opponent. Against a gassing terran the phoenixes are what it's about and the oracle is largely there for detection a good chunk of the time. Against gasless expands though? Big time. It's practically a build order win in fact. The thing is, you kind of compare apples to oranges when you compare 450 minerals and 9 supply of marines (the most cost effective unit in the game), to 150 minerals, 150 gas, 3 supply of Oracle, and then say that they both begin attacking eachother simultaneously. Rarely is that the case. Generally, you arrive at the mineral line, get a SCV kill or two, and then the marines start funnelling in and you can pick off another 2 or 3 before needing to get out of there. If you have 2 oracles though things really get nutty as there needs to be a good clump of at least 6 marines to really be a threat. So you pillage the mineral lines free of the fear of mines underground, force missile turrets and get ahead in economy through killing workers, and then go for whatever your favourite bust strategy is. MC went stalkers, I'm partial to chronoing out a VR, though I fear that may be an inferior choice. Show nested quote +2. Can stargate-based play hold all attacks? Using phoenixes to snipe medivacs sneaking out towards mineral lines is cute, but what about when the medivacs are immediately backed by a large force of marines? Using photon overcharge to grant the protoss an extra minute with which to defend a bio-based allin is nice, too. But will the delay to Colossus tech prove this to be safe? MC gets AE damage quite late - and as we said above, Oracles are *good* against marines.... but not THAT good. And of course, the most pressing question - what happens when you need to use Oracles against marines and for detection - as is the case for marine/WM or marine/banshee pushes? Yeah this the real trick. You need really good map awareness I'm finding. If you can catch the push when it's halfway accross the map and take out the medivacs, maybe force a stim even, fantastic. Holding that on 2 bases isn't a problem. But when they get to your base and have full health and medivacs and you have not slowed them down at all through your phoenixes, THEN that's a problem for sure. Show nested quote + 3. Late Game - What about vikings? It's been widely known for some time that Vikings are good against Phoenixes (due to the longer range in part). And Vikings absolutely annihilate Voids, Oracles, Carriers and Tempests without Storm. And if you're going Stargate, and then straight into storm, your opening for bio-heavy pushes is even wider. Keep in mind that the one game where MC pushes with Colossus (at least according to the unit counts in the OP), the Protoss has a supply lead. Someone who's opening Stargate into Expand into Robo should not expect this against a player who's kinda just going with a standard bio composition. For sure, stargate in late game is not good, but it does force out vikings which end up being useless when storm happens. It seems like you're overestimating the bio push a bit. Without medivacs (because you've killed them) it's pretty easy to hold off a mid game bio push just with forcefields and photon overcharge and meanwhile you're free to ruin their mineral lines with your phoenix (plural) and oracle.
I botched some of the analysis here (unusual for me, but that's what happened), but I meant to say 6 marines (i.e. equal cost to Oracle) - which still takes out an Oracle while losing about 2 marines (instead of 1). The other notable piece is that you can have far, far more marines than this if you suspect, or even scout a stargate coming by the time the first Oracle arrives. Sure, you may do a bit of initial damage (an SCV or two, some turrets perhaps), but is that really worth the cost of:
a) deflecting bio aggression with severely delayed AE damage
b) the 150/150 required to produce an Oracle
Sniping medivacs in the middle of the map really means one of two things happened, both of which can be remedied as Terran learn how to play against phoenixes. Either the Terran pushed out with a very low number of medivacs, or the terran let his medivacs get away from his marines. With a very high number of marines, are you comfortable that your phoenixes can snipe the medivacs (at 9 dps per phoenix, killing a 150 health unit) consistently in the middle of the map without losing way more than your opponent?
When I tried this in beta (and admittedly, I'm pretty bad), it always felt like I came out way behind when someone kept medivacs and marines close together.
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You guys have to appreciate that this build is meant to counter the recent popularity of widow mine drop/reaper builds. It's effective because it applies pressure and harassment while giving you the tools to defend against drops.
If the terran just builds a massive amount of marines, you will have to transition. Fortunately this transition will be easy to do because this build gives you awesome map presence.
Here's an imperfect diamond level replay of the build. I transitioned to colossi and a third base because he didn't go for aggressive drop play and put mines in all his mineral lines.
http://drop.sc/311499
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On March 20 2013 09:40 MrFrenchy wrote:You guys have to appreciate that this build is meant to counter the recent popularity of widow mine drop/reaper builds. It's effective because it applies pressure and harassment while giving you the tools to defend against drops. If the terran just builds a massive amount of marines, you will have to transition. Fortunately this transition will be easy to do because this build gives you awesome map presence. Here's an imperfect diamond level replay of the build. I transitioned to colossi and a third base because he didn't go for aggressive drop play and put mines in all his mineral lines. http://drop.sc/311499
The Transition is already a part of MC's build, as we saw in a couple of the games. He does it like he did Stargate play in 2011 WoL, except now he gets an Oracle with his 6 Phoenix before transitioning. And while this build does seem to be a solid counter to gas openings, specifically Widow Mine drops, as we have seen it's also *very* scary to gasless openings, because of the inherent dependence on Marines. It's an exclusively early game build, it has no bearing on the mid to late game except for hopefully you keep your Phoenix alive and deal with Medivacs better than normal.
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On March 20 2013 10:05 ZjiublingZ wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2013 09:40 MrFrenchy wrote:You guys have to appreciate that this build is meant to counter the recent popularity of widow mine drop/reaper builds. It's effective because it applies pressure and harassment while giving you the tools to defend against drops. If the terran just builds a massive amount of marines, you will have to transition. Fortunately this transition will be easy to do because this build gives you awesome map presence. Here's an imperfect diamond level replay of the build. I transitioned to colossi and a third base because he didn't go for aggressive drop play and put mines in all his mineral lines. http://drop.sc/311499 The Transition is already a part of MC's build, as we saw in a couple of the games. He does it like he did Stargate play in 2011 WoL, except now he gets an Oracle with his 6 Phoenix before transitioning. And while this build does seem to be a solid counter to gas openings, specifically Widow Mine drops, as we have seen it's also *very* scary to gasless openings, because of the inherent dependence on Marines. It's an exclusively early game build, it has no bearing on the mid to late game except for hopefully you keep your Phoenix alive and deal with Medivacs better than normal.
Completely agreed, this build is great because it's viable against gas or gasless openings. I was just responding to earlier posters saying that it can't deal with a ton of marines.
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Has anyone tried this against the old standard 2 rax play? Or even 3 rax openers? 1 Gateway seems to be really tough, and by the time you have enough Phoenix to threaten Marines, the Terran will have a Reactors pumping away.
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On March 20 2013 11:06 Supah wrote:
Has anyone tried this against the old standard 2 rax play? Or even 3 rax openers? 1 Gateway seems to be really tough, and by the time you have enough Phoenix to threaten Marines, the Terran will have a Reactors pumping away.
Having played with the build a bit, I can tell you that the MSC absolutely demloshes these shenanigans. As long as you know how to expand properly, these builds are never an issue.
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Right, they're never a threat to kill you or do too much damage, however, I feel like it severely mitigates a Stargate opener, and essentially makes your Phoenix useless, albeit with 4-5 SCV kills and the errant Marine here and there, but much less worth it for the cost of all that Phoenix and delayed upgrade.
What about gasless play? As in, CC first, followed by the typical 2 Rax and then a few more later on. Do you just scrap the build and continue your merry way? I feel like you would have to do substantial damage to the economy to even merit Stargate play, and with that many Marines with a big economy that early.. I don't know.
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On March 21 2013 04:08 Supah wrote:
Right, they're never a threat to kill you or do too much damage, however, I feel like it severely mitigates a Stargate opener, and essentially makes your Phoenix useless, albeit with 4-5 SCV kills and the errant Marine here and there, but much less worth it for the cost of all that Phoenix and delayed upgrade.
What about gasless play? As in, CC first, followed by the typical 2 Rax and then a few more later on. Do you just scrap the build and continue your merry way? I feel like you would have to do substantial damage to the economy to even merit Stargate play, and with that many Marines with a big economy that early.. I don't know.
This is what you want to happen, their eng bay is delayed so your oracles and phoenixes do tons of damage.
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On March 21 2013 04:08 Supah wrote:
Right, they're never a threat to kill you or do too much damage, however, I feel like it severely mitigates a Stargate opener, and essentially makes your Phoenix useless, albeit with 4-5 SCV kills and the errant Marine here and there, but much less worth it for the cost of all that Phoenix and delayed upgrade.
What about gasless play? As in, CC first, followed by the typical 2 Rax and then a few more later on. Do you just scrap the build and continue your merry way? I feel like you would have to do substantial damage to the economy to even merit Stargate play, and with that many Marines with a big economy that early.. I don't know.
except now you have a bunch of map control with your phoenix's which can pick off stray units, and also help vs the vikings, meaning your transition to colo is a bit safer, it prevents any sort of drop shennannigans, and if they go gasless expand, 2-3 oracle should just straight up kill him
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
On March 21 2013 05:44 polysciguy wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2013 04:08 Supah wrote:
Right, they're never a threat to kill you or do too much damage, however, I feel like it severely mitigates a Stargate opener, and essentially makes your Phoenix useless, albeit with 4-5 SCV kills and the errant Marine here and there, but much less worth it for the cost of all that Phoenix and delayed upgrade.
What about gasless play? As in, CC first, followed by the typical 2 Rax and then a few more later on. Do you just scrap the build and continue your merry way? I feel like you would have to do substantial damage to the economy to even merit Stargate play, and with that many Marines with a big economy that early.. I don't know. except now you have a bunch of map control with your phoenix's which can pick off stray units, and also help vs the vikings, meaning your transition to colo is a bit safer, it prevents any sort of drop shennannigans, and if they go gasless expand, 2-3 oracle should just straight up kill him
Yeah about the Colossus transition, for those who don't know, 6 Phoenix (how many MC was getting) beat 7 Vikings. So it's going to be really hard for your opponent to counter 1 or 2 Colossus. Do you force him to make 8 Vikings to kill 1 Colossus? Does he make a few less than that and just try to focus fire them, losing the Vikings so you can keep making Colossus? I think the 1 or 2 Colossus transition is really strong because of the strain it puts on the Starport production in this way, it makes the ability of you to take out Medivacs so well that much stronger when they are forced into so many Vikings.
(And now that Phoenix have 5 range like marines, there isn't any range discrepancy between the Marines and Phoenix, so if their Marines are hitting your Phoenix, your Colossus can hit their Marines)
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On March 20 2013 00:06 Treehead wrote:
A few things we should probably consider before people go making stargate their staple for PvT.
1. Can stargate-based play do this much damage consistently? Oracles are *good* against marines - don't get me wrong - but at 150/150, with 160 health, 0 armor and 25 dps vs. light (consuming energy), they aren't exactly cost effective against marines either. The Oracle is worth about 9 marines of resources (including supply costs), and that many marines make really short work of an Oracle (it dies in a little under 3 seconds, having killed a single marine). Make it a bunker and 4 marines (instead of 9), and you'll find a similar result. The Oracle does almost nothing, and dies rather quickly.
2. Can stargate-based play hold all attacks? Using phoenixes to snipe medivacs sneaking out towards mineral lines is cute, but what about when the medivacs are immediately backed by a large force of marines? Using photon overcharge to grant the protoss an extra minute with which to defend a bio-based allin is nice, too. But will the delay to Colossus tech prove this to be safe? MC gets AE damage quite late - and as we said above, Oracles are *good* against marines.... but not THAT good. And of course, the most pressing question - what happens when you need to use Oracles against marines and for detection - as is the case for marine/WM or marine/banshee pushes?
3. Late Game - What about vikings? It's been widely known for some time that Vikings are good against Phoenixes (due to the longer range in part). And Vikings absolutely annihilate Voids, Oracles, Carriers and Tempests without Storm. And if you're going Stargate, and then straight into storm, your opening for bio-heavy pushes is even wider. Keep in mind that the one game where MC pushes with Colossus (at least according to the unit counts in the OP), the Protoss has a supply lead. Someone who's opening Stargate into Expand into Robo should not expect this against a player who's kinda just going with a standard bio composition.
It's way too early to say that this is good or bad, but keep in mind the player you're talking about. Sure, he was one of the first to make popular the 1-gate FE in PvT - but he was also the guy who Void-Ray allined a surprising amount in PvT early in WoL, the guy who got a Carrier allin going against Kas in a pro tournament. He does these things not because they're solid inherently but because nobody else does them. MC takes risks - a lot of risks. It's part of his playstyle. Having put this style out there now, you can expect the next major tournament he's involved in to show a lot of Terrans trying intentionally to break this style. Maybe it'll stick around - but my spider sense (aka bits of analysis I'm doing above) makes me think that this is more a result of how much damage he's doing to players who don't expect it and aren't sure the optimal reaction to it - and not because the style itself is solid.
I like Oracles, and the best feelings I get in PvT is when I'm able to play Oracle Stalker MSC aggression effectively (and it is effective), but it's hard to know if it's effective because it's a solid play, or because there's a couple slight adjustments Terrans haven't figured out yet which'll absolutely negate it once they do.
A good place to start to think about this is what made Stargate openers not viable in WoL? While certainly a dedicated 2-base MMM push is quite threatening to a stargate opener in WoL, which spent a lot of resources on phoenixes, this wasn't the reason Stargate wasn't viable because you could defend against it if you had tight timings (MC and Hero both fancied Stargate openers for a time).
The real reason Stargate openers weren't viable was due to the popularity of the fast triple CC, which by the time you could scout it it was too late. You would do damage with Phoenixes yes but due to the limited energy for lifts you couldn't do enough to stay equal with Terran economically. Protoss' then tried to all-in off 2 base with Zealot/Sentry/Phoenix but Terran could repel that easily with simcity and bunkers.
Fast forward to WoL and guess what, fast 3rd CC is now scoutable much earlier due to MsC. Defending expansions with minimal ground forces is easier now with Nexus cannon. Void Rays are beasts now with the activated charge and melt armored units (comparable DPS to an Immortal when they are charged!), making Void Rays viable for defending pushes. And Oracles can dish out much more economical damage than Phoenixes ever could, and are can overwhelm small number of marines. Phoenixes are also better to manuver to take out Vikings now as they got a range increase. Phoenixes and Vikings roughly traded cost-for-cost in WoL and nothing has changed there.
What this all means is that is that IMO fast 3rd CC is a thing of the past, and that defending 2-base MMM pushes with a stargate opener is not going to be a problem. The real question is how stargate openers compare relative to other openers, such as where it puts you economically compared to Terran. IMO with proper play it is a much safer opener compared to robo or twilight since stargate affords you some map control and mobility, and that robo and twilight builds are going to be relegated more for timings attacks or for particular maps.
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I personally favor stargate openers to the alternatives, but to be frank i still think it is kinda gimmicky. If you look MC's games over you will see that he does massive amounts of damage (that could have been avoided with turrents or otherwise) in every game he wins. This is basically how i feel about stargate as a whole. Either you do significant damage with it (witch to be fair is rather easy considering how bad terrans are at defending it at the moment) or you lose to lack of aoe like always.
The issue with both oracles and phoenix'es is how weak they are to static defense. A terran can with minimal investment be relatively safe against both while also getting access to early upgrades. Something you as a protoss will lack. This makes marines absolutely lethal unless you have aoe witch is also delayed. All in all not a very good situation. Oracles fair very well against marines in the early game, but once stim and combat shield get into play it is a whole different beast. All of this combined with widow mines make for a fairly unstable situation.
Oracles do one thing really well however. There high mobility and high damage make them very good at forking. This can be seen very well in MC's win over innovation where he threatens to hit the workers at the main base while actually going for a bust. The ability to do this kind of attack is very potent. However once again, if you don't do damage you're behind. Stargate is cool, but i would personally prefer a safer style if i felt one was around.
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United States4883 Posts
On March 21 2013 06:56 Skyro wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2013 00:06 Treehead wrote:
A few things we should probably consider before people go making stargate their staple for PvT.
1. Can stargate-based play do this much damage consistently? Oracles are *good* against marines - don't get me wrong - but at 150/150, with 160 health, 0 armor and 25 dps vs. light (consuming energy), they aren't exactly cost effective against marines either. The Oracle is worth about 9 marines of resources (including supply costs), and that many marines make really short work of an Oracle (it dies in a little under 3 seconds, having killed a single marine). Make it a bunker and 4 marines (instead of 9), and you'll find a similar result. The Oracle does almost nothing, and dies rather quickly.
2. Can stargate-based play hold all attacks? Using phoenixes to snipe medivacs sneaking out towards mineral lines is cute, but what about when the medivacs are immediately backed by a large force of marines? Using photon overcharge to grant the protoss an extra minute with which to defend a bio-based allin is nice, too. But will the delay to Colossus tech prove this to be safe? MC gets AE damage quite late - and as we said above, Oracles are *good* against marines.... but not THAT good. And of course, the most pressing question - what happens when you need to use Oracles against marines and for detection - as is the case for marine/WM or marine/banshee pushes?
3. Late Game - What about vikings? It's been widely known for some time that Vikings are good against Phoenixes (due to the longer range in part). And Vikings absolutely annihilate Voids, Oracles, Carriers and Tempests without Storm. And if you're going Stargate, and then straight into storm, your opening for bio-heavy pushes is even wider. Keep in mind that the one game where MC pushes with Colossus (at least according to the unit counts in the OP), the Protoss has a supply lead. Someone who's opening Stargate into Expand into Robo should not expect this against a player who's kinda just going with a standard bio composition.
It's way too early to say that this is good or bad, but keep in mind the player you're talking about. Sure, he was one of the first to make popular the 1-gate FE in PvT - but he was also the guy who Void-Ray allined a surprising amount in PvT early in WoL, the guy who got a Carrier allin going against Kas in a pro tournament. He does these things not because they're solid inherently but because nobody else does them. MC takes risks - a lot of risks. It's part of his playstyle. Having put this style out there now, you can expect the next major tournament he's involved in to show a lot of Terrans trying intentionally to break this style. Maybe it'll stick around - but my spider sense (aka bits of analysis I'm doing above) makes me think that this is more a result of how much damage he's doing to players who don't expect it and aren't sure the optimal reaction to it - and not because the style itself is solid.
I like Oracles, and the best feelings I get in PvT is when I'm able to play Oracle Stalker MSC aggression effectively (and it is effective), but it's hard to know if it's effective because it's a solid play, or because there's a couple slight adjustments Terrans haven't figured out yet which'll absolutely negate it once they do. A good place to start to think about this is what made Stargate openers not viable in WoL? While certainly a dedicated 2-base MMM push is quite threatening to a stargate opener in WoL, which spent a lot of resources on phoenixes, this wasn't the reason Stargate wasn't viable because you could defend against it if you had tight timings (MC and Hero both fancied Stargate openers for a time). The real reason Stargate openers weren't viable was due to the popularity of the fast triple CC, which by the time you could scout it it was too late. You would do damage with Phoenixes yes but due to the limited energy for lifts you couldn't do enough to stay equal with Terran economically. Protoss' then tried to all-in off 2 base with Zealot/Sentry/Phoenix but Terran could repel that easily with simcity and bunkers. Fast forward to WoL and guess what, fast 3rd CC is now scoutable much earlier due to MsC. Defending expansions with minimal ground forces is easier now with Nexus cannon. Void Rays are beasts now with the activated charge and melt armored units (comparable DPS to an Immortal when they are charged!), making Void Rays viable for defending pushes. And Oracles can dish out much more economical damage than Phoenixes ever could, and are can overwhelm small number of marines. Phoenixes are also better to manuver to take out Vikings now as they got a range increase. Phoenixes and Vikings roughly traded cost-for-cost in WoL and nothing has changed there. What this all means is that is that IMO fast 3rd CC is a thing of the past, and that defending 2-base MMM pushes with a stargate opener is not going to be a problem. The real question is how stargate openers compare relative to other openers, such as where it puts you economically compared to Terran. IMO with proper play it is a much safer opener compared to robo or twilight since stargate affords you some map control and mobility, and that robo and twilight builds are going to be relegated more for timings attacks or for particular maps.
Personally, I think it also has to do with the fact that oracles can 1) keep terran players pinned back at home and 2) defend against marines as well. The main issue I had with using Stargate in WoL was the fact that terran players could do things like 2raxs or any kind of early push with stim to really deal a lot of damage. With phoenixes, you could barely survive, but you'd be so far behind economically and tech-wise that you would straight-up lose to a follow-up MMM push. Even against the standard 3rax 10:00 timing, phoenixes lost their usefulness too early and caused your AoE to be too late to deal effectively with the 10:00 push; oracles can do so much more damage so much earlier that terran can't skip out on turrets or a fast ebay in order to deal with them.
Stargate almost always worked against gas first openers. In fact, we saw MC ALWAYS go stargate in response to the 1-1-1, with an amazing amount of success. But the main threat from these openers were not big balls of marines and marauders, they were cute little hellion drops, tank rushes, and banshees, all of which phoenixes excel at defending.
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On March 21 2013 09:00 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2013 06:56 Skyro wrote:On March 20 2013 00:06 Treehead wrote:
A few things we should probably consider before people go making stargate their staple for PvT.
1. Can stargate-based play do this much damage consistently? Oracles are *good* against marines - don't get me wrong - but at 150/150, with 160 health, 0 armor and 25 dps vs. light (consuming energy), they aren't exactly cost effective against marines either. The Oracle is worth about 9 marines of resources (including supply costs), and that many marines make really short work of an Oracle (it dies in a little under 3 seconds, having killed a single marine). Make it a bunker and 4 marines (instead of 9), and you'll find a similar result. The Oracle does almost nothing, and dies rather quickly.
2. Can stargate-based play hold all attacks? Using phoenixes to snipe medivacs sneaking out towards mineral lines is cute, but what about when the medivacs are immediately backed by a large force of marines? Using photon overcharge to grant the protoss an extra minute with which to defend a bio-based allin is nice, too. But will the delay to Colossus tech prove this to be safe? MC gets AE damage quite late - and as we said above, Oracles are *good* against marines.... but not THAT good. And of course, the most pressing question - what happens when you need to use Oracles against marines and for detection - as is the case for marine/WM or marine/banshee pushes?
3. Late Game - What about vikings? It's been widely known for some time that Vikings are good against Phoenixes (due to the longer range in part). And Vikings absolutely annihilate Voids, Oracles, Carriers and Tempests without Storm. And if you're going Stargate, and then straight into storm, your opening for bio-heavy pushes is even wider. Keep in mind that the one game where MC pushes with Colossus (at least according to the unit counts in the OP), the Protoss has a supply lead. Someone who's opening Stargate into Expand into Robo should not expect this against a player who's kinda just going with a standard bio composition.
It's way too early to say that this is good or bad, but keep in mind the player you're talking about. Sure, he was one of the first to make popular the 1-gate FE in PvT - but he was also the guy who Void-Ray allined a surprising amount in PvT early in WoL, the guy who got a Carrier allin going against Kas in a pro tournament. He does these things not because they're solid inherently but because nobody else does them. MC takes risks - a lot of risks. It's part of his playstyle. Having put this style out there now, you can expect the next major tournament he's involved in to show a lot of Terrans trying intentionally to break this style. Maybe it'll stick around - but my spider sense (aka bits of analysis I'm doing above) makes me think that this is more a result of how much damage he's doing to players who don't expect it and aren't sure the optimal reaction to it - and not because the style itself is solid.
I like Oracles, and the best feelings I get in PvT is when I'm able to play Oracle Stalker MSC aggression effectively (and it is effective), but it's hard to know if it's effective because it's a solid play, or because there's a couple slight adjustments Terrans haven't figured out yet which'll absolutely negate it once they do. A good place to start to think about this is what made Stargate openers not viable in WoL? While certainly a dedicated 2-base MMM push is quite threatening to a stargate opener in WoL, which spent a lot of resources on phoenixes, this wasn't the reason Stargate wasn't viable because you could defend against it if you had tight timings (MC and Hero both fancied Stargate openers for a time). The real reason Stargate openers weren't viable was due to the popularity of the fast triple CC, which by the time you could scout it it was too late. You would do damage with Phoenixes yes but due to the limited energy for lifts you couldn't do enough to stay equal with Terran economically. Protoss' then tried to all-in off 2 base with Zealot/Sentry/Phoenix but Terran could repel that easily with simcity and bunkers. Fast forward to WoL and guess what, fast 3rd CC is now scoutable much earlier due to MsC. Defending expansions with minimal ground forces is easier now with Nexus cannon. Void Rays are beasts now with the activated charge and melt armored units (comparable DPS to an Immortal when they are charged!), making Void Rays viable for defending pushes. And Oracles can dish out much more economical damage than Phoenixes ever could, and are can overwhelm small number of marines. Phoenixes are also better to manuver to take out Vikings now as they got a range increase. Phoenixes and Vikings roughly traded cost-for-cost in WoL and nothing has changed there. What this all means is that is that IMO fast 3rd CC is a thing of the past, and that defending 2-base MMM pushes with a stargate opener is not going to be a problem. The real question is how stargate openers compare relative to other openers, such as where it puts you economically compared to Terran. IMO with proper play it is a much safer opener compared to robo or twilight since stargate affords you some map control and mobility, and that robo and twilight builds are going to be relegated more for timings attacks or for particular maps. Personally, I think it also has to do with the fact that oracles can 1) keep terran players pinned back at home and 2) defend against marines as well. The main issue I had with using Stargate in WoL was the fact that terran players could do things like 2raxs or any kind of early push with stim to really deal a lot of damage. With phoenixes, you could barely survive, but you'd be so far behind economically and tech-wise that you would straight-up lose to a follow-up MMM push. Even against the standard 3rax 10:00 timing, phoenixes lost their usefulness too early and caused your AoE to be too late to deal effectively with the 10:00 push; oracles can do so much more damage so much earlier that terran can't skip out on turrets or a fast ebay in order to deal with them. Stargate almost always worked against gas first openers. In fact, we saw MC ALWAYS go stargate in response to the 1-1-1, with an amazing amount of success. But the main threat from these openers were not big balls of marines and marauders, they were cute little hellion drops, tank rushes, and banshees, all of which phoenixes excel at defending.
I'm not sure I follow. A 2-rax rush hits before you even drop a stargate, and phoenixes actually defends hellion drops quite well due to being able to pick up 1-base hellion drops to prevent damage to your econ plus the ability to chase down the medivac. Both of these strats really are meant to punish fast expands and abuse Protoss' inability to scout Terran early game and not really all that relevant to stargate openers.
As I said above even in WoL you could defend the 10:00 minute push itself, and in HotS it's even easier with Photon Overcharge, Oracles, and buffed Void Rays and Phoenixes. The problem was that the Terran could expand to their 3rd much faster than Protoss could (worst case would be a fast 3rd CC, but even a 3rd at the 10 min mark, which is pretty much standard in a vanilla 3-rax 10:00 timing, would put you far behind), and the limited potential of harass from Phoenixes were not enough to overcome this deficit. All of this changes in HotS. All the issues Stargate openers had are all gone except the delayed AoE, and I'm not entirely convinced at this point you absolutely need AoE to secure your 3rd with a stargate opener. I believe it may be possible to secure your 3rd with Chargelots and some combination of Stargate units. If you can get the medivacs down (new Void Rays burn them down FAST) then you're pretty much good to go.
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Here are a few more master league replays from today.
http://drop.sc/311796 - Pretty bad start since my first oracle ate a widow mine (should have been more careful especially since he scanned the stargate) and then lost the second oracle while it was detecting for a mine drop (make sure your oracle is at a distance!). Still managed to stay ahead in probes even though he took a pretty early third. I kept my upgrades going and once I had storm I was safe to grab a third while defending my main from drops thanks to phoenix + HT + MSC. Once my third got saturated I switched into double robo colossus which he was completely unprepared for.
http://drop.sc/311782 Very close game that I barely wound up losing. A few critical mistakes were that I built my 3rd nexus without scouting the timing on his (it was actually considerably late, he added an extra barracks before it to stay very aggressive). I also lost my mothership core a few times and didn't immediately rebuild it, so I wound up with periods that I didn't have a critical photon overcharge or time warp. I should have also had a few more HT and gateway units at my natural -- with those I should have been able to hold his pressure and be in a good spot for a long game.
http://drop.sc/311804 One thing that really threw me off in this game was a hellbat drop which nobody has been doing. He opted for an interesting stim marauder + hellbat push (and took a fast 3rd CC behind it) and my composition was just not adequate versus that. I tried chrono boosting out some void rays when I realized what was going on but it was too little too late. In retrospect I think that adding a second stargate might be a good idea since he is heavily lacking in anti-air (and I actually did get a good scout with my first oracle on his composition). If I had sent over a hallucinated pheonix earlier I would have been in even better shape to prepare for it, perhaps only getting 1 oracle and adding the second stargate immediately for 4-5 phoenix and then pure void rays. Since I can't rely on zealots for zoning his army, I would have needed either forcefields or a sim city at my ramp. Even though he had stim marauders I think that if I had a wall and he tried to bust it in a frontal assault, he could be stalled for long enough for my void rays + overcharge to kill most of his units (I can also lift and nullify some of the marauders with phoenix).
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there's a lot of situational play, against gasless 1 rax FE you can harass, against a fast teching player, they'll have mines out, so just try to do damage in non obvious places (harass buidings that are constructing etc..) alternatively you can get creative and use envision/phoenix+ oracle harass later if theyr'e relying purely on mine protection.
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Don't know if this was asked already, but what tech path is better for the mid game, Colossus or Templar (considering they will make vikings against my air)?
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On March 22 2013 01:36 Kinon wrote:
Don't know if this was asked already, but what tech path is better for the mid game, Colossus or Templar (considering they will make vikings against my air)?
I've been trying both, there are definitely pros and cons to either one but the most important thing is not to over-invest in air when you don't get any damage done with your first 1-2 oracles and you notice they are not trying to drop/ are just macroing up a big marine ball. In that case you need to cut phoenix and either chrono the hell out of storm or get some colossus/sentries ASAP for the incoming push. If you keep your oracles alive then you should try to get a revalation on the medivacs at all times so you can focus on defending a full frontal assault without having to worry about him backstabbing your main with drop play.
As for the actual decision between colossus/templar... I feel like it is easier to survive his bio timing by getting a colossus or two and a few more sentries than it is to go the TC route (especially if you didn't get any damage done with your harass) but the templar tech makes it easier to secure a third base when the time comes and sets you up for a stronger lategame. So if you are doing a lot of work with your oracles/phoenix and see that his push is going to be severely delayed (or he's just opted for a faster third CC) then I like the templar route more. Most decent players won't build more than 1-2 vikings do deal with oracle harass so I wouldn't count on going templar tech to "counter" their vikings, since any sizable number of vikings should be built reactively to seeing colossus tech. That being said, if you get a lot of damage done with your air units it can also be viable to just hit a 2 base colossus timing and kill him (as MC did in a few games) but those decisions are also going to depend on the map and how comfortable you are going into lategame.
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On March 22 2013 01:36 Kinon wrote:
Don't know if this was asked already, but what tech path is better for the mid game, Colossus or Templar (considering they will make vikings against my air)?
a better question to ask is, how good is your micro? If you go templar tech, you need to understand that you will probably have about two storms should he do a standard bio push at ~10-11 min timing. Ofc your storm timing is completely based on how much gas you invested into air and how fast you get those gases at your natural. If you miss your storms, and you havent completely trapped his army with FF, i really can't see you surviving for very long. Imo, colossus is the "safest and easier" route simply because of the consistent damage output you will get from colossus, and you'll have access to observers which are so much more reliable for detection and scouting.
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EPT
