An Introduction

Hey guys, my name is Gemini and I'm a Grandmaster Protoss player who has been making guides since 2011 on various sites. The Build of the Week is my most popular series of build order guides that I've been making for about three years now on /r/allthingsprotoss. With the help of TeamLiquid.net and Spawning Tool I'm now bringing my guides over to TL as well!

Each write-up includes build order notes, an explanation/analysis of how the build works, and a VOD section so you can check out the source game and how it should go. I'll also include the Spawning Tool link so that you can practice it in game yourself and download the replay of me doing it. I hope you enjoy and be sure to read the whole write-up before asking any questions as I'm sure some of them will be answered in here!

How to use Spawning Tool
Link to the Spawning Tool Build
Link to /r/allthingsprotoss Guide.

INTRODUCTION

I usually like to diversify who I rip builds from but herO has been on fire recently so I'm doing another build from him. This one was also played very recently in the Peopleimage StarCraft League qualifiers. A lot of Protoss have been opening for stargate in PvP recently, whether it be oracles or phoenix, so this 3gate blink all in should be a good way to end the game quickly in your favor.

[PvP]herO's 3gate blink all in

Build Notes

Build Explanation

It's that time of the week to talk about chronoboost timings again!

I recently talked with Harstem about optimal chrono timings since there's been a lot of discussion about it. I was going to make a separate post but since chrono is going to be changed I figured I'd wait. Basically you should only chrono before pylon if you don't care about your gateway being a second or two late. Since you can make your gateway on 15 if you don't chrono before pylon, you can get it down a second or so faster than chronoing before pylon which makes you put it down on 16. In PvP you never want your gateway to be late, so you should never do it before pylon. You also need double gas in PvP, so you shouldn't be chronoing right after gateway either, so you wait until after your gasses are down to chrono. You can technically chrono right before the 17th probe comes out, but it won't make a huge difference. I imagine something similar will happen once chrono is changed next patch since it is a longer duration, so there would only be a waste of chronoboost for chronoing before pylon.

As for this build, it's very simple. I wanted to find something quick and easy for you guys to learn to aid in any PvP woes you might be having.

The concept behind this build is to get the fastest possible blink timing while still looking like a normal build. You open with a normal 2gate PvP opening with two adepts as the first units of choice. This does a few things: It allows you to scout their Nexus timing. It allows you to potentially harass their mineral line if they don't block the adept shades. It makes it look like you aren't going blink. Basically every stargate opener now is opening with adepts (and sometimes four adepts) to do some initial harassment and to put the game into as much chaos as possible. By opening adepts yourself it makes it look like you're going for that style and also has the potential to throw your opponent off with the adept harassment to set up your all in a bit better.

After the two adepts you'll be getting only stalkers. Before that though, you should build a pylon at your natural on 28 supply to continue to fake the macro game. Building your 3rd pylon at your natural has become the standard in PvP. If you don't see that then it's pretty obvious that you're doing some sort of all in, however since we're not doing a proxy all in, we can put it at our natural to play some extra mind games. The twilight council also goes down at 28 supply. Then after you build your first two stalkers you take a natural. This will be the same timed natural as someone else who went for tech before expand, so if they scout you and see this they might be prepared for something, but may not be prepared for blink. Also be sure to send the probe that made the nexus around the map to make a proxy pylon near their base to warp in from.

There will be a small delay between the Nexus and being able to start blink, but once you can start blink immediately and dump three chronoboosts into it. You then make some extra stalkers and a 3rd gateway. The 3rd gate won't finish in line with warp gate but it will be done in time for the 2nd warp in across the map to give you a total of 9 stalkers. 8 is an important number since that's how many it takes to one shot another stalker, rendering shield batteries useless, so this build gets you one extra when you attack so that you can still one shot even after losing one stalker.

herO also cancels his nexus right before it's done to get some extra minerals back, but I don't know how necessary this is. It seems like you should be fine producing at first without the extra minerals but if you want to continue the all in it would probably better to have them. If you're going against a robo expanding player it would probably be better to keep the nexus since it will be hard to fully break them, so you'll have to just try and pressure and contain with the stalkers and then go into a macro game afterwards. Against stargate openers you should be totally fine, but they will try to kill your entire mineral line with an oracle. In this scenario it makes sense why herO canceled the nexus and went completely all in. Even though he lost all his probes Zest had nothing to deal with the amount of blink stalkers that he had. If he for some reason went 1 base DT, then you can pack up your things and accept your build order loss. Ideally you should be able to scout this since his Nexus would be later than yours and he won't have many units, but sometimes PvP just kinda works like that.

Overall this build is just meant to punish the popular stargate openers that are being used right now to hopefully give you some quick wins.

VODs

Zest opens for a stargate and gets rolled despite killing all of herO's probes with an oracle.