EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/OoZMl.png)
Introduction
Hello TeamLiquid, I´m JayPower and this is my 5th guide I bring you with another video guide. This time it is a PvZ playstyle I´ve developed over the past couple of months. It´s a style where you go for a phoenix heavy force to keep the infestor count of the zerg low (or keep their energy low), have complete mapcontrol and are able to harass the zerg all game long. With this vivid playstyle you will put your multitasking and mechanics to the test to outplay the zerg. Some of you might be familiar with a phoenix compliation video I posted a while ago where I show what cool things you can use phoenix for.
Build overview
There are 2 openers that I use with this playstyle. One is an opener I did a guide on quite a while ago, Naniwa’s PvZ gateway expand into phoenix build. The other one is a variation of that build with a 3gate pressure you can do after expanding. Both builds are very similar, one just a bit more aggressive than the other.
Once you have your natural up and running you want to go for a fast +1 attack upgrade while making phoenix’. Since you get the stargate really fast with both openers, I prefer hunting on overlords with my first phoenix. This prevents you from getting scouted early and opens up the possibility to go for various tech routes unnoticed. Once your +1 is about 70% done, you want to start your twilight council so you can get +2 attack right away. If your zealots don’t 2-shot speedling, it will be very hard to get a 3rd base later. Please note that you keep making phoenix out of your stargate at all times.
When you reach a count of 4 phoenix, you want to be around your opponents base pretty much all the time. This is why I prefer clearing overlords before you go to your opponent’s base. You don´t have the element of surprise, but you do get (usually 2) overlord kills a lot faster and you don’t have to go back later to kill them. This will also prevent the zerg from scouting you.
You will use your phoenix’ mostly for scouting and harassing, a while later once infestors are out (and you have the ranged upgrade) you want to have them spend energy or even kill them if the zerg allows you. Please note that you continuously make phoenix’ the whole time. At the same time you’re getting a 3rd base around 10-11 minutes if this is possible. Against a roach heavy responds of the zerg you will make a robo instead of a fleatbeacon to get your 3rd up safely. The zerg going for a lot aggression means he will have his infestors out a lot later (or in smaller numbers), you can punish that by having a voidray to defend against the roach aggression and at the same time deny/delay a potential 4th base.
From here on it is your job to use you multitasking to get ahead/win the game. Don’t forget to get up proxy pylons or make warp prisms for zealot harassment and don’t be afraid to get a voidray.
Build order
I have 2 openers that I use when I’m going for this style.
9 pylon / 13 gateway / 14 gas
16 2nd pylon / 17 cybercore
18 zealot
You can of course skip the zealot if don’t like to get one. This will get you a slightly faster nexus (23/28 instead of 27/34), so before your 3rd pylon. You can even go nexus before stalker, this will delay your stalker by quite some time though.
23 Stalker
Right now you can pressure your opponent with your zealot (which should be on his way to your opponent´s base already) and the stalker. Make sure to remember when your opponents zergling speed will finish (assuming he got his gas), timings for that will be in this guide as well.
24 Pylon (at natural)
27 Nexus / 2nd gas
28 forge (at natural) / stargate (in main)
31 pylon
32 cannon / 2nd gate to wall off natural
You can make the forge / stargate / 2nd gate in almost any order you want, depending on how greedy you want to play. I recommend forge first though, it is always good to get that quick cannon up after that the stargate and then the 2nd gateway.
My other opening that I have been using more often recently, involves a 3gate pressure that you can do after your expand to pressure the zergs 3rd base.
9 pylon / 13 gateway / 14 gas
16 2nd pylon / 17 cybercore
21 stalker
23 nexus
23 pylon on the lowground
23 double gateway on the lowground
24 stargate / 2nd gas
~26 forge to completely wall-off your natural (unless you play on a map where you can completely wall your natural with the 2 gateways). Please note that the forge timing depends on what your opponent is doing. For example if the zerg went for fast 3 hatch with a late gas, you will delay the forge to get out more zealots to pressure that 3rd. We’ll go more in-depth on reacting to what you scout later.
Phoenix
Now many of you might be wondering why the phoenix? Why not just stop at 4-5 and forget about the range like everyone else does? Well I think you can get a lot more out of your phoenix than just killing some overlords, a queen or 2 and a couple of drones. I think if you use phoenix in higher numbers, you can pick off a lot more units (drones mostly) while being hit by a spore crawler. Having 2 extra range on your phoenix also gives you more survivability against infestors. Of course fungal out-ranges your ability to lift, this is why you spread out your phoenix. This will allow you to use the phoenix’ that aren’t hit by fungal to lift infestors with energy and make the chain-fungal a lot less useful. Since infested terrans are 5 range and phoenix are 4 without the upgrade (6 range with), you can actually fight the infested terrans. Phoenix´ with air upgrades are pretty good in combat too. This is what allows you to get up your 3rd base. Your +1 zealots and rip through zerglings while your phoenix’ can take care of a lot of the roaches. If your opponent goes for an extremely roach heavy play, you get a robo instead of a fleatbeacon and delay your 3rd. Generally the zerg will go for a defensive play with infestors and use speedlings for map control, so this works out great.
Phoenix’ in the mid/late-game can only work in combat if you keep up the upgrades for them. Since you get your cybercore that much faster than the zerg would even think about getting a spire, this is possible. Phoenix’ need +2 air attack to be able to kill corruptors 1on1, you will need +3 air attack if they use corruption (you would be surprised how many zergs forget to use it). So make sure you keep your air upgrades going. When you’re done with +3 attack you can get armor too, maybe get a 2nd forge for shield upgrades when you’re on 3 or 4 bases. Don’t forget that you can micro you phoenix a lot more easily than the zerg can micro his corruptors, so make sure to pull back the hurt ones.
Priority when you get your first couple of phoenix out:
1. Overlords around your base. (you don’t want to have your robo/fleatbeacon scouted)
2. Queens (unless he has more queens than hatchery, then don’t bother you won’t cripple his production)
3. Drones.
4. Overlords around his base (usually the zerg has overlords around his bases (most likely his 3rd) to spot for proxy pylons, he might have forget to pull those back). You warp prism harassment will become a lot stronger if the zerg has no map vision.
Responding to what you scout
I honestly don’t want to go in-depth on early-game scouting again. In my other guide you can find a lot of information on early-game scouting when going gateway expand. In this guide I will go over mid-game and late-game scouting and responding though. Please note that not everything that I’ll be covering is final or conclusive, I’m just writing what I recommend based off my experience with this style.
Mid-game
With mid-game I mean any time in the game from when your stargate is finished until you have your 3rd base up and running. I recommend going up to 5 gateways before expanding so you can get enough units out to be safe. Make sure you use your phoenix’ for the things I point out before and scout actively. The big thing you’re looking for with your first few phoenix’ is what kind of defensive or offensive play your opponent is going for.
You can tell your opponent is going to defend by a couple of things; the roach warren is big indicator. Normally the zerg will get roaches to deal with gateway allins/attacks after an expand, but when that’s not the case the zerg won’t always use the roach warren. The zerg would like to dump that 100 gas in his defensive against phoenix rather than to prepare for a ground attack which is not coming. So make sure you look if roach speed is upgrading or not.
A quick 4th base going up in combination with 6 gas geyser will most definitely be defensive play. You can pressure this with zealot harassment, especially when the zerg relies on speedlings as core units.
The next thing is the number of gas geysers that are mining. When the zerg sees your phoenix opening and decides to defend and tech he will have all his 6 gas geysers, or get them really fast. Make sure you account for other unusual strategies like queen heavy defence or hydralisk defence which will cost a lot less gas than the common infestor defence. Even though hydralisks are fast on creep and have great dps, you have to make sure you have your phoenix´ around your opponent´s base at all times. You never know whether a zerg would actually attack with slow hydras. So if the zerg is staying on 4 gasses for a long time or even has no more than 2 gasses, make sure to prepare for an attack. Your phoenix´ are essential for knowing whether the zerg is going to attack or not, you have to be around your opponent´s bases to spot his army movement.
Now the responses to these different types of openings are quite simple. When you think your opponent is going to commit to an attack without roaches (so either mass speedling or a big speedling/infestor attack), you have to make sure you use a couple of warpins before you take a 3rd, you can even tech to charge to make your zealots more efficient. The quick +1 should be enough to deal with speedlings and you are most likey save to tech to fleatbeacon. Keep in mind that even though +1 (or +2 vs +1 armor) zealots are very good against speedlings, they will only last for so long. You will eventually need archons to hold off big speedlings/infestor attacks. Make sure you punish this playstyle by going lots of harassment with your zealots. Use your mapcontrol to get proxy-pylons up or use warp prims. You want to have the zerg spend gas on other things than just infestors.
When you think your opponent is going to commit to an attack with roaches. It is essential that you get a robo instead of the fleatbeacon. Depending on how early your opponent stopped droning to make units, you will have to delay your 3rd to get immortals out. This is hard to estimate and requires experience. Gas is very valuable in this situation, you need to make immortals, phoenix’ and keep up in both ground and air upgrades. This is why I prefer staying on a low sentry count (3 max), get charge and rely on a zealot heavy ground force. This will also allow you to get the fleatbeacon faster once you help the roach aggression.
Late-game
With the late-game I mean any time in the game from when the zerg has a lot of corruptors with his infestors or just more infestors to make the ultimate zerg anti-air (aka anti-everything). This is a very difficult situation to play in, especially when you aren´t able to kill infestors or have them spend energy in the early/mid-game. Here is where your air upgrades kick in. If you spread you phoenix well enough, pick off infestors with high energy and pull back the phoenix that are low on health you should be able to manage. Once zerg starts adding corruptors to his infestors, you absolutely have to get 2 additional stargates.
Your ground army is the most important during this stage of the game, any damage from stalkers/archons/storm on the broodlords will help your phoenix significantly. You want to have a very similar army to what protosses have regularly. The only problem is that you don’t have as much gas to your expense because of the investment you make in the air. The low sentry count in the early-game is a good compensation for that, but isn’t enough. I prefer going for a high zealot archon army, then add stalkers and high templar with storm in later. This will work great to clear infested terran from the infestors and keep you phoenix alive longer. Please note that I do not have a definite army composition for the late-game, I’m still trying out lots of different things. If you have ideas/suggestions, please post them.
Tips & other useful things to know
- A +2 phoenix can take on a corruptor 1on1
- If you scout after pylon, you can cancel your gateway and go for an in-base forge (into FFE) if you see the zerg opening with gas first.
- If a queen injects, the hold position on it is lost and you can lure it out of spore crawler range again.
- Make sure to target the queen once you lift it up with the phoenix if there are overlords nearby. You don’t want to waste any phoenix shots on the overlords causing you to use 2 lifts to kill 1 queen.
- It takes 6 fungals to kill a full health/shield phoenix.
- If you plan to expand, you can fully wall-off your natural on some maps to feel more save. (ohana + entombed valley).
- On some maps you can put you zealot in a very nice position to hold the watchtower. It makes it a lot harder for the zerg to pick it off. Use your stalker and sentry to wall your natural.
- Phoenix can lift your own units too. You can use this to pick up stalkers/immortals that are surrounded by speedlings for example.
- Use phoenix to prevent units from retreating.
- Don’t hesitate to get a voidray out if you see your opponent makes a lot of roaches to pressure you expansion. You might not have enough immortals out. You can use this voidray to harass even more in combination with the phoenix’.
- Be aware of nydus play even though you cleared overlords.
- VS ling infestors defense, have zerg spend gas on other things.
- Don’t forget about the mothership. I don’t have this unit anywhere in the guide because I’m not sure when to get it. I’d say just make it when you can afford it, this is usually when you have your 3rd up and running.
- You can wall at your ramp like shown in the image below. This well help a lot against ling runbys. The gap is big enough for an archon to fit in.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/IIb4R.jpg?1)
Video Guide
The video guide I made offers more in-depth analysis and visualization of situations mentioned above.
part2 (much shorter)
+ Show Spoiler +
VODs and replays
FPVODs with commentary over it
Playlist of my PvZ phoenix FPVODs
+ Show Spoiler +
Dynamic mid-game PvZ with ranged phoenix
Combating late-game Zerg with ranged phoenix
Combating late-game Zerg with ranged phoenix #2
Stabilizing after taking economic damage in PvZ
Mass phoenix in PvZ
Mass phoenix in PvZ #2
Holding roach/ling pressure PvZ
3gate pressure and dealing with counter agression PvZ
Putting a lot of pressure on zerg PvZ
Controlling the mid-game with phoenix PvZ
Combating late-game Zerg with ranged phoenix
Combating late-game Zerg with ranged phoenix #2
Stabilizing after taking economic damage in PvZ
Mass phoenix in PvZ
Mass phoenix in PvZ #2
Holding roach/ling pressure PvZ
3gate pressure and dealing with counter agression PvZ
Putting a lot of pressure on zerg PvZ
Controlling the mid-game with phoenix PvZ
Replays
Non-3gate opening
http://drop.sc/267844
In this game I hold a heavy roach/ling pressure.
http://drop.sc/283972
In this game my opponent went for a big roach/queen drop in my main into roach/hydra macro.
3gate opening
http://drop.sc/283973
In this game you can see how you hold heavy roach/ling pressure when you try to take a 3rd.
http://drop.sc/283974
Very intense mid-game oriented PvZ with lots of aggression from both sides.
http://drop.sc/283975
After a failed 3gate pressure I get behind in this game but with good phoenix micro I’m able to fight my way back into the game. Make sure to check out the PFVOD for this game with commentary.
http://drop.sc/283976
This game was quite passive. I just macro’d properly and attack when I was maxed against a zerg that went defensive ling/infestor/corruptor.
http://drop.sc/283978
In this game my opponent went for a very normal speedling/infestor defense with a little bit of pressure. In the late-game I lost a big clump of my phoenix but with my triple stargate I was able to remake them
http://drop.sc/269004
In this game you can see what happens if you take advantage of zerg trying to cut corners in their defense. With phoenix/zealot pressure I was able to win that game.
If you’re looking for a more in-depth analysis of my game where I go over what I’m thinking at what point in the game, I recommend watching the VOD on my YouTube channel. I’ll explain what my thought process is from what I’m scouting and present you different things you can do to react to what you scout. I make an analysis video for every replay.
FAQ
What do you do against 40 infestors?
You lose. The point of this playstyle is that you have a lot of potential to keep the infestor count low. You do this by keeping the zergs economy low with pressure/harassment and have the infestors spend energy to defend against your phoenix.
Will this work on a professional level?
I don’t know. I think I’ve proven that it works on my level (mid master protoss with high master zerg knowledge) though. I think the playstyle has some holes, this is why I’m still developing it. If it won’t work on a professional level, I’ll still be left with a very fun to play strategy that I can use in master league.
What if the zerg meta-games this style?
Even though I think this style is good all-round, there’s big advantages for the zerg to get if he’s certain you’re going for this very early into the game. This is why you need to do different styles that look similar in a boX series. Please note that the build orders for these other styles are less refined.
Normal stargate play is a very common follow-up. This is basically stopping at 4-5 phoenix and going for another tech route (most of the time robo). This is quite common and not something I want to go in-deputy about.
+2 blink all-in is very strong against both roach/ling as ling infestor play. You cut phoenix production at 4-5 and get you twilight council after your first phoenix.
Replays:
http://drop.sc/284148
DT rush is a bit of a cheesy strategy to try to catch your opponent off guard. You get a twilight council instead of a stargate and get a dark shrine asap. You can follow this up with a robo or just a blink attack.
VOD of Naniwa doing this variation:
Replays:
http://drop.sc/284144
Voidray/zealot heavy attack is another cheesy strategy to catch your opponent off guard. You start with a voidray first, followed by only 1 phoenix. Your opponent might think that you’re going for a standard voidray first into 4-5 phoenix’. But instead you will chronoboost out more voidray and go for a zealot heavy 7gate all-in with 4-5 voidrays.
VOD of Naniwa doing this variation: http://www.twitch.tv/lonestarclash/b/339084387?t=3h37m21s
About me
I'm JayPower. 19 years old and from the Netherlands. I play all races in sc2 at a master league, right now I'm playing protoss the most. I like to use unexplored/fun strategies to play since I gave up on competitive gaming a while ago. I make FPVODs of my games on my YouTube channel often and share my analysis.
My YouTube account: http://www.youtube.com/user/JayPowerSC2
My Team's site: http://ucap-esports.co.uk/
My other Guides on TeamLiquid
My Protoss account: battle.net / sc2ranks
My Zerg account: battle.net / sc2ranks
Please give me feedback on the guide / video guide. I really do appreciate any feedback, so please give me suggestions on how I can improve. Any questions about the guide are welcome too, I will try to answer them as soon as possible.
