[D]Tyler and MC a different style of PvT

The game starts off with Select going for a gas less CC and Tyler doing his standard but eventually turns into select going for a two ghost push and Tyler going for his 1-1 6wg play.




As you can see Tyler has not seen the ghost academy yet even though he had his obs in his base. This is sort of a big deal and it would really have been a disappointing loss if he died because of this, however Tyler’s build is safe enough to be just fine against this style of play.


Select scans and kills Tyler’s observer, which ends up not really mattering because Tyler had already built a second one.

Tyler’s second obs sees selects first ghost at 8:30, this is pretty huge because it gives Tyler time to not only spread his units but it gives him an idea of what he is going up against.





Tyler is able to use his observer to not only see the army but also to see that the rally point is set to his side of the map which really signifies aggression. Seeing the push ahead of time Tyler is able to spread his units in a way that not all of his sentries can be emped (2 ghosts with 1 emp each), this also allows him to get a greater concave than his terran opponent Select. This just goes to show just how big of a deal a good observer scouting is. This is because if Tyler had not seen the ghost and the push out he would have no idea that he would need to spread his units and he would fall victim to the impending emps.


As you can see the emps only hit 4 of his sentries, and Tyler is even able to cast a guardian shield off one of them before the emp lands, this shows how big of a deal positioning plays not only in this match up but in Starcraft in general.



Tyler ends up losing all but one of his sentries but select ends up losing his whole army. Before the fight Tyler was behind in food since he was spending money on 2 forges and focusing on upgrades while select was primarily pumping units, so that fight went about as well as it could have for Tyler.



Tyler decides to do a counter push after his 1-1 finished. He gets pushed back and loses his pylon but lowers Selects worker count from 42 to 33.



Tyler engages and kill more workers but his force fields ended up giving the zealots less surface area and ends up losing all of his zealots. Tyler is forced to pull back losing many units to marauder slow, however he is in a huge economic lead. The harvester count at this point is 47 to 28 which means Tyler is looking to take a third as he grows closer to being over saturated. He lost all of his sentries in the battle and only keeps 6 stalkers. Also, Select had medivacs out which are really good versus this style of attack and really helped swing the momentum.



After seeing the medivacs and being satisfied with the economic damage he did, Tyler feels comfortable transitioning into standard colossi play. I would have been a little bit more weary about a counter attack, but then again I am not Tyler =D.



When I first saw this replay I was incredibly perplexed that Tyler manages to hold a 6 medivac push without a colossi.



Again Tyler uses his scouting to give him a nice conclave, however his sentries really could be split better. However, Tyler makes me look like a fool by splitting just as an emp landed, like literally two sentries got out just in time.



His colossi pops just in time and forces Select to retreat, Tyler chases and manages to pick off some medivacs which forces Select to re-engage, this was huge play by Tyler because he picks off medivacs and kills almost all of the marauders. Select ends up losing 4 medivacs and both players look to take a third base.



Tyler pokes in with his stalkers and colossi to do damage without really taking damage. He also manages to force emps from Select, in fact all of selects emps. Take note of this Protoss players, if there is room to do damage without receiving then take advantage of it. Drawing the emps also assures that his sentries will have full energy for the next engagement. From here Tyler grabs his fourth colossi and pushes and wins. This game shows a transition of the build and really showcases the importance of scouting and positioning in pvt. It also shows you that you can take advantage of a terran by poking as long as you don’t over extend.

He eventually techs to dark shrine and templar archives but there is no point in putting the supply/time down for this since all of this info can change depending on events that occur in the game. He adds 3 gates right before he takes his third, which is really important because you need more gateway infrastructure if you plan on doing this build. Before the Nexus he drops his Dark shrine.



There is no getting up that ramp for Thorzain, and if he sticks around he is in for a really rough game. Essentially if he stuck around he could have been run down and his low ground expansion would have been compromised.



This is a great play by MC because he identified the fact that Thorzain opened 2 rax conclusive shell, so he knew he would be able to take map control. Thorzain identified this by already having three bunkers, but MC essentially is faking pressure and gaining map presence and denying info from Thorzain.




Thorzain decides to push while taking his third by going for a delayed 2 medivac push due to his opener and being forced to make 3 bunkers and a few turrets. MC understands this and builds the Dark Shrine. Again, now that MC can see this coming he positions his stalkers to prevent drops, and since he has blink he is able to blink down to engage.





Thorzain looks like he is going to be going for a drop, but MC positions his stalkers in a place where they can be blinked down if Thorzain should push through his natural choke. Thorzain does this and MC defends with immaculate force fields. He chases down the army and gets free damage, which is a really important thing to do in high level play, by picking off that medivac it signifies significant damage for no real cost. However, MC is still behind in supply due to a 10 worker deficit.



Thorzain flies a command center to the gold, MC understands he needs to do something about this because if Thorzain takes the gold his fourth will be significantly faster and he can control space with a pf at the gold. MC then drops his templar archives and takes out the rocks at his gold. He then checks the terran army by sending in a dark templar.



MC engages but it does not go his way and loses all of his zealots and sentries and is forced to cancel his gold. Thorzain retreats and MC goes for some more free damage picking off 2 more marauders, storm is now finished researching and MC has a few templar back home and retakes his gold.



A series of sick storms and drawing emps severely weakens the terran army, so MC reinforces and crushes it. This essentially ends the game, and shows that managing your emps and storms are really important in these situations.

That is as far as I will take the build order, but Thorzain does the same two medivac timing but it is about one minute and thirty seconds faster. Also, blink finished just in time so I am fairly sure MC has his timings down to a T so that he can have blink for the standard two medivac timing. He ends up backing off and waits for four medivacs.



A key difference between this game and the one on Xel Naga is that MC decides to go for a much faster Templar archives, this may be because he realized that Thorzain was prepared last name and all the dts did was contest for map control. After this MC pushes forward and sniped three medivacs FOR FREE. This is a huge play and gives him an unreal advantage, and he is now ahead 20 supply.



Thorzain does a little poke and ends up killing some templars while taking little to no damage, this is what he needs in order to come back and it was a good play.



Thorzain walks near the edge and gets his whole army stormed, big play by MC and MC is pushing out. At 16:04 MC is up 50 supply and is in a dominant position. MC moves forward while securing his fourth.



MC starts to make the transition into double robo colossi and since he is so far ahead it will be really hard for Thorzain to deal with it. While doing this MC is sharking around in the middle with complete map control and scouts Thorzain’s proxy cc and forces a cancel.



Thorzain having to cancel his fourth and knowing that he needs to regain map control to retake it pushes out and lands some great emps with his insane number of ghosts. MC’s force fields work against him and Thorzain regains map control with some sick ghost control.



MC just lost a major battle a few seconds before this but two more colossi rallied out and since Thorzain was not prepared and since MC has been sitting on his better economy all game he was easily able to make more units and crush his push. This was basically the nail in the coffin for Thorzain.