[D] Prae.ThorZaIN vs. TLAF Liquid'Tyler (Analysis)

Thorzain opens with the standard timings for a 1-1-1 opening but gets the fastest possible siege tank by switching the factory for the tech lab on the barracks, while Tyler seems to be doing his standard vs. terran 3 gate robo expand, with his fast sentry. For more on Tyler's opening and it's vulnerabilities check out the TLO vs. Tyler analysis. Thorzain then expands behind it, builds a starport on the tech lab, and begins an armory. Thorzain immediately gets a raven while using a hellion to scout his opponent at 7:15. The expansion goes out, two bunkers are begun, and plus one armor is started for Thorzain as Tyler's expansion goes down and he begins +1 attack. Tyler is going for the very standard colossus opening while Thorzain is getting a 3rd bunker, a viking, a second factory, and a reactor on the barracks. It looks like Thorzain is going to being going thor viking, with some marine support.

Thorzain switches the reactor for the factory and begins pumping helions and starts +2 armor. Tyler and Thorzain begin their thirds at the same time and Thorzain adds a third factory while Tyler is going double robo colossus. Upon scouting with a viking Thorzain gets a reactor on his starport in response to the double robo colossus. Thorzain added on a third factory and begins pre-igniter and 250 mm cannons as +2 armor finishes, and Tyler's +2 weapons finishes.

Tyler pressures Thorzain's third but Thorzain manages to get it up. Thorzain is able to kite some zealots and do some major damage to their health, as Tyler adds a third robotics and 4 more gateways, bringing his number up to 7. Thorzain tears apart Tyler's colossus with his vikings and strike cannons. Tyler tries to rebuild his third base as Thorzain gets his fourth base and begins banshee production. Thorzain at this point is able to just roll over what is left of Tyler's army and force a gg.

Thorzain played this one out beautifully. Important subtleties of Thorzain's build are: (I'm only going over the subtleties because anyone can watch the production bar on the VOD and see how to do it)

- Hellion Scout while building the starport on the tech lab used for one siege tank. The hellion let's you see if your opponent has expanded yet (indicating number of bunkers needed) as well as unit composition, an early hint of what will come later (gateway style or robo style). The fast raven is very important because having to get an e-bay for turrets in case of DTs would eat into the build immensly, especially because you don't need the e-bay for anything else

- The immediate armor upgrade allows to hold any 6 gate all in or something that is extremely zealot heavy. Up until infernal pre - igniter is researched mass gateway zealot is a hell of a problem for this build, that's why you see 3 or 4 bunkers go down by Thorzain (I think). The build requires a slow build up of thors and so is vulnerable to early wg or immortal pushes. Once Thorzain's third completes he seems to feel much more comfortable, adding on the extra factory, salvaging the bunkers, and beginning strike cannon and pre igniter. This tells me that against a more aggressive opponent this build may have some issues.

- The reactor starport vikings are ESSENTIAL to this build. They force colossus to not out micro the thors with their range. The two things that Protoss has that are best against thors are immortals and void rays. The strike cannons combined with the pre igniter can do okay against the immortals, but otherwise this build is too vulnerable to immortal colossus, or immortal void ray. Not to mention, judging by the banshee production beginning late into the game, I suspect that Thorzain would begin going sky terran as a good use of his viking count.

- The viking scouting the double robo colossus. I think that if Thorzain were to see a high immortal count he may want to get a few ghosts, combined with the 250 mm cannon he should be able to deal with it.

I think thorzain's build is vulnerable to two things, early aggression before his third base finishes and what Day9 touched on briefly at the end, the mass gateway with immortal style. The good thing about this style by Thorzain for protoss is that it is really easy to scout out and Thorzain can't really pressure you with it. I think that Tyler was really anxious about the style by Thorzain and because of that attacked into it. I think the best answer to this style would be double forge (otherwise zealots will be even worse) mass gateway, use warp prisms to abuse mobility while expanding and building up a big immortal zealot stalker force. Blue flame hellions are good against Zealots, but Zealots are not zerglings and that is important to remember. A blue flame hellion does 9.6 dps v light while a single marine with stim does 10.5 (using liquipedia's numbers). This means that if you spread your zealots to minimize splash damage the Zealots with charge should do okay against blue flame hellions. You need them to tank damage for the immortals and stalkers to go to work. If you're a protoss and scout a terran not getting vikings up then you can get away with void rays as well. The real power in gateway robo though is that you can rebuild much faster than your opponent and use warp prisms to abuse mobility and whittle down his forces.

I think what's even more dangerous about Thorzain's style is the late game banshee viking tech switch. I would like to see him do this again to see how this works out, but I'm having a hard time even theory crafting how to deal with that transition. Let me know what you guys think, because I haven't seen too much of this style so I'm not sure what works best.

Thorzain goes for a 1 rax FE while Tyler is again getting two gases up but is this time getting two more gateways and a twilight councl hidden in the gas rather than his typical robo play. Thorzain went barracks gas barracks gas, a little bit safer variant of some of the Koreans who immediately get both gases and a factory. Tyler moves stalkers acorss the map as blink is finishing and a proxy pylon is getting set up to watch the high ground.

Thorzain has gotten a third barracks and a fast stim. Tyler has cut probe production at this point and does an amazing blink past for vision and gets the stalkers on the high ground. The stimmed marines with the SCVs to tank damage are able to kill off the stalkers and reinforcements. At this point Thorzain is ahead in army size and expansion while Tyler is forced into getting a late expo. Thorzain is going two factory tank with three barracks marine maurader. Tyler is just too far behind to hold Thorzain's counter attack and Tyler is forced to gg.

This game is fairly simple, as essentially Tyler's build was meant to kill Thorzain and it was damn close doing it, but all Thorzain had to do was not die to be ahead. This game teaches two important things.

1. It is important to recognize that Tyler's build is extremely well timed out and is a good build to know against Terrans who you are confident will fast expand on this map. Had ThorZaIn done the more Korean version of that fast expand (immediately getting double gas and rushing for tanks, or double expanded like a couple weeks ago, he would have been dead.

2. This is why you tech slowly when 1 rax fast expanding, had Thorzain gone straight for the siege tanks without marine and stim support, he would have very likely died to Tyler's push. Always be sure to add on extra barrack before double gassing. If you want more examples of how terran should tech after fast expanding check out game one of the GSTL 2 finals and compare it to the MKP vs. MC series

Tyler again goes double gas at standard timing and going for his standard 3 gate robo while Thorzain appears to be going for a one rax fast expand with a tech lab. Thorzain makes a now common move of building a reaper to be able to scout Tyler's base and expansion timing. Thorzain begins an extremely fast +1 weapons with only 3 barracks while teching to factory and starport. Thorzain is continuing to macro on 3 rax and a reactor starport while Tyler is going double forge with 5 warp gates and one robo that is continuing to build observers. Both players are fairly even in harvestors, but terran has a notable advantage at this point due to the earlier expo timing. Thorzain gets in an aggressive position as +1 infantry armor, combat shield, and concussive shell all finish. Thorzain begins an armory, a second forge, and a second starport.

At this point Thorzain is actually even with Tyler in upgrades. Tyler and Thorzain both begin third bases with Thorzain slightly ahead. Thorzain begins three more barracks and Tyler is looking to get aggressive with 22 but pulls back. Thorzain's 22 finishes just after Tylers as he begins 33. Thorzaine is continuing to get more vikings and just landing them, preparing for eventual colossus. Due to Thorzain's nullification of the upgrade advantage that is crucial to going gateway against MMM, Thorzain crushes Tyler's army and takes the win.

If you play a standard MMM TvP, go back, watch this replay, and watch Thorzain's timings. He has a beautiful timing push line up early on with +1 +1, combat shield, and concussive shell all finishing at the same time. If this timing push doesn’t work he has a 2nd e-bay, an armory, and +1 armor all finish at the same time to begin +2+2. Even then he is smart enough to go viking preemptively because it is very standard for protoss to transition into. I have been struggling for a very long time to safely get upgrades as Terran in the matchup and this game absolutely showed me how to balance tech, upgrades, and army size perfectly.

If you are going mass gateway against Terran you need an upgrade advantage or else pure gateway is simply terrible against MMM. I'm not sure if colossus would have been the correct answer since Thorzain was blindly preparing for them anyways. I think that this was just Thorzain playing the standard TvP style and just out macroing Tyler (which I thought was damn near impossible).

I also think that Tyler may have been on tilt in this game due to how badly he just kind of died to very standard player (something that he is normally very good against). I also think that ThorzaIN's build this match would have destroyed AdelScott, we'll see if QXC employed any of these special tactics tomorrow!