by mizenhauer

- Mizenhauer




It was inevitable. In a game in which players arm themselves with three distinct factions, it was impossible for all of them to be created equal. Terran has the scrappy cowboys and mercenaries, while Zerg is characterized by endless waves of mindless horrors. Protoss has advanced technology to rely on and an air of sorrowful arrogance. As time went by, players, storylines and awe inspiring moments refined and reinforced the mythology around these races. As StarCraft II nears its eighth year their identity is more ossified than ever.

The community may be divided on all sorts of matters, but on some fronts, it’s established something resembling a consensus. Terran is the flamboyant showman of StarCraft II, defined by flourishes of brilliant micro that take your breath away. Scything army movements, harrying medivacs, and comebacks in the face of overwhelming odds—it is the swaggering peacock everyone adores. Zerg, too, is not without its appeal. One can quibble over the repetitive nature of larva injects in the race’s identity—we still agree there is some primal, visceral satisfaction in watching the Swarm sweep over the battlefield in a bloody wave of chitin and acid. It’s clear what makes these races great. Years of marine splitting and ling/bane/muta created the romantic ideal by which StarCraft II is measured.

Where is Protoss’ place in this schema, though?

Protoss doesn’t pass the eye test in the same way. Even the most ardent supporters of the venerable and ancient race would struggle to argue that games which end abruptly at the hands of adepts, oracles or blink stalkers feel fair. There’s something about the hopeless defense, the turret that came up a second late, the extra round of drones, and ultimately the inability to properly scout and prepare that leave players and spectators alike shaking their heads. How many times has one of those builds left the audience feeling like THEY were the ones who had been mugged?

StarCraft II is most noble in a proper macro game, but the filthy Aiur scum have other ideas. It’s behind this banner of disgust that the masses have rallied. Their propaganda and screeds have been smeared on forums and Twitch chats for years. Their slogan is a simple one, the purest encapsulation of their woe: P R O T O S S E D.


It could be that we’ve just seen the ‘perfectly executed’ Protoss timing-attack too many times. From the beginning of Wings of Liberty, warp gate tech made it dumb for Protoss players to not play aggressively, and they’ve gone on to figure out timings off countless combinations of units, upgrades, and bases. Forcefields influenced the outcome of battles disproportionately compared to their ease of use, allowing players far below the level of MC or PartinG to carve their way through the stoutest Zerg defenses.

But we’re not playing against DRG and Mvp, or more recently, soO and TY. When faced with a truly elite opponent, one can’t simply ride Protoss imbalance to victory. It takes precise execution to catch an opponent unaware. It takes the type of adepts splits that Neeb used to conquer Rogue to eke out advantages in skirmishes. It takes herO’s trademark warp-prism shenanigans to displace the defense.

Even forcefields, long-derided as Protoss’ free-win button, can’t be taken for granted. PartinG might be able to calmly place dozens of forcefields to tie a GSL finals from a 1-3 deficit, but there have been plenty of times when a champion-class Protoss blew a game because he could only summon ‘good’ when perfect was required.

For all the tens of thousands of players who called upon the Soul Train, only PartinG truly made it his own, the cornerstone of an entire match-up. Every Protoss under the sun tried out phoenix/adept in 2017, but it was herO alone who piloted it all the way to a trophy.


Fights may look one-sided for Protoss players, but that’s because they have mastered precise micro and constant analysis of the situation. Protoss isn’t just about holding the “z” key down and painting some zealots on the map—it’s about knowing where to deploy which units for maximum efficiency. Sure, ramming as many adepts as you can down the opponent’s front door can be effective, even in a GSL final, but it’s not always so simple. Think all the way back to the summer of 2016 when Classic decided to kill the rocks on Apotheosis with dark templars, shutting out Dark’s army, giving his adepts free reign over Dark’s main and natural. By the time he cleaned it up, his fourth bases was under siege. Even the most zealous hater would have to admit Classic was more wily than despicable.

Speaking of wily, StarCraft II’s version of Wily E. Coyote is a prime example of the community’s love/hate relationship with Protoss. It’s downright perplexing how a player like sOs has managed to evade the anti-Protoss movement despite his extremely cheesy playstyle. He’s made a living off heinous stuff that would have seen a less charismatic Protoss crucified. Charisma is really central to the issue: people ultimately want to be entertained, though what constitutes ‘entertainment’ seems to vary wildly. Once a player has received the community’s favor, his games will always be seen in a favorable light. sOs is at worst a buffoon and certainly never the villain. MyuNgSiK is the lowest of the low and deserved to be brought to tears at Maru’s hands.

The prejudice extends to other races as well. A player like herO is vilified for his abusive flavor of the month play, but Dark has been leaning on the same ravager/ling all-in for the majority of Legacy of the Void. Whether a build is judged as wholesome or immoral is up to the whimsy of the community. When LITERAL GOAT Mvp resorted to SCV-pull timings in Wings of Liberty, it was seen as an act of desperation instead of what it really was: an exploitation of that era’s Protoss play style. Sometimes it really is possible to put lipstick on a pig.


On day 5 of SSL Premier Season 2, Classic and Dear introduced the Korean scene to mass oracle. It wasn’t anything new to foreign fans who knew it as one of Has’ gimmicks, but these Korean champions had turned a joke build into a fanged monstrosity.

The community immediately grabbed their pitchforks. If there was ever proof of Protoss imbalance, this had to be it. The height of absurdity was a game between Classic and Solar where Wolf wondered if 15 oracles were any sort of match for 30 hydralisks. When the dust settled, six oracles bobbed in the sky while all the hydralisks had been erased. If it looked stupid, that’s because it was. David Kim never had that in mind when the oracle was just a gleam in his eye.

It took time, but Zergs figured the build out. They developed a crisp, efficient response, and the triple stargate faded to the periphery. Protoss is a race that has to rely on these sort of things from time to time, and they deserve the fruits of their creativity. Because taking a risk is no guarantee of a reward.

sOs is all too familiar with this. His builds are meticulous and well-thought out. But for every cannon rush that puts him impossibly far ahead, remember there are also debacles like his game vs Bunny where two gold bases worth of zealots and oracles lost to a pair of supply depots. He can win a game by countering liberators with ranged phoenixes, but he’ll also throw away a GSL final by trying an unorthodox dark templar blink all-in.


Dramatic all-ins and zany builds are one thing, but even the standard Protoss macro game has attracted much ire. What are Zerg and Terran supposed to do when faced with colossi, high templars and skytoss, while twelve zealots are warping into their main base? Everyone who has stared down that maxed-out Protoss army understands how unstoppable it seems. When fan-favorites and supposedly superior players like INnoVation, Dark or Maru lose in the same fashion to that very same army, it’s natural to feel despair.

As Maru was splitting his bio and vikings against storm while launching off emps, and Dark was controlling infestors, vipers and corruptors, it looked like the Protoss was just a-moving and spraying storms about willy-nilly. See that a few times and you might start to believe that’s all there is to Protoss once they reach the late game. But watch some of those fights again, because Protoss comes with its own set of challenges. A Protoss player is forced to manage blink stalkers, forcefields, shades, charge zealots, phoenixes and warp prisms in the mid game, many of these all at once. Enter the late game, and they have to control those same units as well as high templars, colossi and tempests. It looks easy because the result is so disastrous for the opponent, but it requires a level of proficiency that few in the world have maintained. Dark and maybe Rogue are the only Zergs who can handle similarly complex late game armies, but Protoss like Stats and Zest have been doing it for years to little acclaim. ShoWTimE made the easy look impossible against soO at GSL vs. The World when a recall that never happened left his carriers stranded and cost him what appeared to be a sure fire trip to the quarterfinals.

And if a Protoss player falls behind in a macro game? Good luck. Making up for a disadvantage is harder in Legacy of the Void than ever before and Protoss gets the worst end of it. Protoss is all about spreading resources in as many directions as possible in order to create an army with the complexity, force and size to conquer the opponent. When Dark’s zerglings killed herO’s third base in the WCS Global Finals, herO was forced to weigh every worker, unit, upgrade and tech structure to try to reclaim a position of strength. When a Zerg’s mineral line goes up in smoke, they hold down the “d” key and get back to business as usual as best they can. A Terran drops mules and continues production while seizing the initiative with drops and harassment. So what did herO do? Snipe a base, defend an attack and juggle archons in warp prisms like his life depended upon it. herO may not have had the classical tools available to the other races, but he allocated what he had precisely enough to allow him to take a third and stampede to victory with charge zealots.


If Blizzard had a nickel for every time someone complained about Protoss, they could have doubled the BlizzCon prize pool. But the game has been around for eight years and Zergs are still dying to random hellion run-bys. A few queens out of position and ten to twenty workers go up in flames. It's the same result as a resonating glaives timing. When it's the Terran dealing the blow, blame—nay, mockery!—falls upon the Zerg for their inability to cope with such simple pressure. In another game the same hapless Zerg loses to adepts and cries of imbalance are heard around the world. Somehow, this is the fault of Protoss and its flawed design. There is no such thing as objectivity in a fandom divided three ways. A glass house has been constructed by which supporters of other races can clamor for Protoss' dismantling while ignoring the same problems within their own faction.

Protoss’ redeeming qualities are oft ignored. As we enter 2018, Protoss players possess an arsenal more varied than those of other races. Call it easy-mode or cheesy, but no other race is capable of such surgical all-ins and wild, off-the-wall strategies. Fans are too quick to recall Protoss at its worst, forgetting all the games that left them captivated with their mouths agape, or the sOs specials that made them howl in laughter. Yes, maybe there's some bullshit inherent to Protoss. But on the whole, Protoss isn't as bad as we make it out to be.

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