PiG Daily Articles

Welcome to the PiG Daily strategy article! The PiG Daily is a show by Jared "PiG" Krensel that focuses on StarCraft 2 strategy and becoming a better player. We've joined forces to create an article series that summarizes his dailies into short, digestible articles that provide insight on builds, tactics and game sense. By combining with Spawning Tool, this series will bring you the most comprehensive learning experience for build orders and strategies.

How to use Spawning Tool

We highly recommend using Spawning Tool in order to follow the basics of these builds. The PiG Daily and our strategy articles will serve as supplementary guides to understand the subtleties behind each decision.

Of course, we're not forgetting about protoss. Today, we go through a basic P build that's applicable in every matchup.

Link to the Spawning Tool Build

A Protoss Build for Beginners

This is a very safe and solid opening for beginner Protoss to use in all 3 matchups. It’s just a guide that you can use consistently for the first few minutes of every game. You can branch off into any style you want off this opening.

The first step to becoming a good player is learning about the mechanics of the game.

As a beginner, your main focus should be learning the fundamentals of macro: constantly building workers, spending your money and not getting supply blocked. I talked about this in detail in Daily #16:

After this initial set up, you can choose your tech of choice depending on what you see. You can opt for colossus, storm, forges for quick upgrades, or stargate in some situations. You can even halt probe production and warp in non-stop and try to kill your opponent with adept-immortal. It's an effective basic all-in for every matchup, but it's not a quick fix.

Walling Off

Remember:

• Always wall off your main ramp, especially against zerg.
  
• If you prefer, you can skip this against terran and even against protoss. However, it's good to get used to walling off and practicing how to organize your buildings to maximize coverage and defensive attack angles.
  
• Only wall off your natural and other bases against zeg to stop rushes and zergligs from squeaking by. Otherwise, they can block your units when you're trying to defend.
  
• Remember to always hold position a unit on the ramp against zerg.

Scouting and Staying Safe

Send a probe to your nearest watchtower in order to spot early attacks. In the mid-game, use zealots or adepts to hold watchtowers to give you control of the map.

Try to keep your scouting probe alive. Not only can they scout again, but you can use them to put down sneaky pylons around the map as spotters and warp in points.

There are three main things you need to scout for: the potential for an early rush, their tech of choice, and their third base timing.

If you see a big attack coming your way, stop building probes and focus on non-stop warp ins. Chronoboost your tech facilities. Hold the attack before resuming probe production.

If you scout a rush:

• Try to keep tabs on the units with your probe
  
• Build an extra pylon or two at the front for overcharge
  
• Prioritize unit production and chrono your gates

If you scout no expansion at 3:00

• Build extra pylons at the front of your natural for overcharge
  
• Switch chrono on your unit production and focus on non-stop units
  
• Scout their unit composition and build the appropriate units
  
• Check if you need detection or anti-air

If you see special tech at 4:00

• Build the counter — detection vs invisible units, anti-air for flyers, immortals for roaches, etc.
  
• Make sure the watchtowers are controlled so you can prepare for any incoming attack
  
• Invest in cannons if you are worried, but no earlier than 4:30 so it doesn't disrupt your economy

You don’t have the game knowledge to have any large reactions to scouting at this point, so try not to focus on it much. Just get used to controlling the map and seeing what they’re up to once in a while. It's a good habit to develop.

Remember that there’s no absolute guide that will just make you win every game. Your opponents are also intelligent people using all of their brain power to overcome you. Maybe they even read these articles. Always look for areas to improve, always strive to understand and experiment with new units, styles or ideas in StarCraft. If you keep this critical and learning-focused mindset you’ll fall in love with StarCraft very fast. GL learning the best and hardest game in the world!