Both players went for their trademark openings, with Flash going 14CC against Rain's safe mothership-core one-gate FE. While Flash's three-rax bio follow-up was very standard, Rain showed immediately how deeply HotS changed Protoss builds, going for a stargate and then a robo off a single gate, making only one sentry, one stalker and the msc for defense.


Rain's particular variation on stargate play, specifically oracle usage, was very different from what others players had shown thus far. Oracles are commonly used in PvT as a surprise unit off of one base and often proxied. Protoss players try to catch their opponents off-guard or out of position to gain an insurmountable worker lead in the early game, or use their exceptional dps in all-in busts, killing SCVs and marines. For example, MC showed excellent one-base oracle play at the MLG Winter Championships, going further than any other Protoss at this tournament almost solely on the backs of his oracles. Meanwhile, Feast and MaNa are two Protoss especially fond of one-base proxy oracle play, using this tactic to great success in the Acer Teamstory Cup and other online tournaments.

Rain, on the other hand, built his stargate off of two bases as more of a macro-based strategy. When the stargate finished, Rain made just a single oracle, planning to harass SCVs and scout Flash's build and timings while teching to a standard mid-game composition behind the harassment. He made just a single unit out of this stargate the entire game, planning to get the most out of this one unit as he could throughout the whole game. In the early game, Rain employed the oracle as a light harassment unit while in the mid/late-game, he made great usage of its abilities both for drop defense and map awareness.


As soon as the oracle popped out of its stargate, Rain hallucinated a phoenix and used it to lead the expedition to Flash's base. This was an especially clever move because it achieved many goals:

• It checks for defense at different locations in the Terran base, allowing Rain to choose the best location to harass.
  
• It sets off any hidden widow mines.
  
• It can potentially draw marines out of position, leaving more openings for the real stargate unit.
  
• An obviously hallucinated phoenix mind games the Terran player into thinking his opponent isn't going stargate tech.

Note that the hallucinated unit was not another oracle, but a less threatening phoenix; using a fake oracle instead would have meant that the Terran would have been more likely to move marines to his mineral lines. Much like a banshee opening, this kind of stargate play still needs to do some damage to put the Protoss ahead, but it's by no means a cheesy or all-in strategy if followed up properly..


Rain's plan worked out very well, and he was able to kill 6 SCVs while going up to three gates, colossus tech and double forge. As is common in HotS early game, Rain cut a very high amount of units to set up his infrastructure, thanks to a combination of inherent safety provided by the msc, a probe scout being always present in front of Flash's base, and familiarity with Flash's style. Indeed, at the eight-minute mark Rain still only had three gateway units.

As Flash moved out with his medivac timing, the oracle immediately went for the mineral line again, killing four marines and even more SCVs. As a result, by the time Flash was across the map, his army was incredibly small compared to Rain's and was in no position to do any damage.



Rain attempted to squeeze all he could out of this one oracle, employing it for a completely different purpose in the mid-game. Instead of clumping it in his main army or trying to harass further, he kept it active on its own on the map, using the revelation ability to spot Flash's army. This proved extremely useful, as it prevented a doom drop from landing, spotted a group of vikings and later on allowed him to land a key storm. Also note its positioning: the oracle was kept behind the main along the most common drop route to the main, where it can both spot (in place of an observer) and even contribute to the defense with its ground attack.

An Aside: General Macro Double Forge Colossi Play

As mentioned previously, Rain's transition of choice is a double-forge colossi mid-game. This double-forge style is currently the most popular PvT style thanks to many of the changes in HotS. First, the added defensive capabilities of the mothership core make it easier to defend when doing "greedy" builds. But perhaps more importantly, because Protoss players are forced to delay the third base a lot longer, they usually lack the resources for both colossi and templar off of three bases. Thus, Protoss need to find alternative ways to set up a strong late-game, and investing heavily into upgrades is one of the best ways to do so.

Rain's particular variation on the double forge build in this game was designed to hold Flash's three-base pushes. Instead of trying to tech switch into storm and opening up a timing for the Terran to hit, he constantly made colossi (going up to four before the first engagement) and only got archons when the gas was available, even delaying his 3/3 to maximize his army strength. Anticipating Flash's timing, he played extremely safely, gearing his build to defend the exact timing he predicted Flash to employ. This general plan Rain and his teammates use to defend the Terran timing can be seen in both this game and the following games where Rain uses the same mid-game sans the oracle:

• Rain vs Last -VOD
  
• Rain vs Reality -VOD
  
• Rain vs INnoVation -VOD
  
• Brown vs TaeJa -VOD

Rain always makes 8-10 stalkers and 4-5 colossi, filling the rest of his army with zealot/archon with which to tank. During the inevitable battle, Rain blinks his stalkers into position to snipe vikings, which usually lack armor upgrades. As long as at least two colossi and some form of meat-shielding survives by the time all the vikings are sniped, Rain will have won the battle. Without an overwhelming amount of bio or a very open battlefield, it's incredibly difficult to push back two colossi with a good number of supporting zealots. If the Protoss wins such a battle especially convincingly, he can sometimes even win right there with a counterattack. If not, he'll be able to head safely into the late game where Protoss is generally considered to be favored. Conversely, if the Terran decides not to opt for this timing push, Protoss then has ample time to finish 3/3 while the Terran is still on 2/2 and he will generally be able to successfully a-move into his opponents' army.

Back to the game

As predicted, Flash went for his first push around 175 supply, and Rain geared up to stop it after using the oracle to spot the move-out. He moved his msc closer to his third and positioned his stalkers to poke the bio army to try to snipe a viking or medivac. More importantly, he started a fifth colossus while warping in exclusively zealot/archon. As the engagement happened, Rain's perfect positioning and all the small adjustments in his build paid off: he was left with one colossus barely alive, and a second colossus joined the battle just in time to finally shut down Flash's push. His choice of using two time warps instead of using a time warp and a nexus cannon was also key; while photon overcharge is very powerful in the early/mid-game, later on time warp is much more effective in a straight up engagement.


Flash traded extremely well but was unable to completely break Rain, who came out only slightly behind despite the loss of his tech units: Rain's 3/3 was done and he had a very developed tech tree, but the Protoss army was too small to mount any attack. Despite the rather large amount of damage Rain dealt with his oracle and the very clean nature of Rain's build, his defense against Flash's timing was still very close.

A second push failed, and the Terran's position worsened considerably when a risky double drop was sniped by blink stalkers and his fourth got cancelled by a zealot warp-in. Rain was now finally able to move out and control the map.


The finals moves of the game are a trademark of Rain's solid play-style, utilizing zealot warp-ins to gain favorable positioning on his opponents, punishing their mistakes. As a group of chargelots moved to Flash's third, Flash's brief moment of indecision allowed the oracle to land a key revelation, which later resulted in a devastating storm landing on the bio army. Once again, the oracle pays off.


During the final engagement, Flash's ghost and medivac count wasn't enough to deal with the 5 archons and several templar in the Protoss army, and zealot/archon warp-ins together with a couple of rallied colossi were enough to finally force a gg.

In Conclusion

Rain's plan to combat Flash's inevitable push was two-fold. First, he employed a relatively new macro opening designed to throw Flash off. Then, he seamlessly transitioned into a standard mid-game, designed to hold off the expected Terran three-base timing attack. All the while, he showed impeccable oracle use throughout the mid-game, proving that it's not just a gimmicky early game unit to always be proxied. True to his style, Rain showed solid macro play with his own little twist, all tied together with impeccable execution. This time, it was certainly enough to take down even Flash.

It has been over a month since this game was played and since then, macro oracle openings have only been used sparingly. So far, it seems as if the macro oracle opening in the PvT match-up will not reside in the rotation of standard Protoss openings. Rather, its place is akin to that of the DT drop opening we analyzed in our last article. It is something to be mixed in every so often and yet another potential threat for the Terran to consider. Moreover, it is a potentially devastating build that seamlessly transitions into standard play. Overall, another great build to add to your repertoire.