EPT
NOTE: This might be REALLY boring for you to read.
I Didn't Want to Become Terrible at TvP...
...and yet I lose them all. Somehow, somewhere, TvP just got harder and harder for me. I was never good at it to begin with, but Protoss players got better and better. TvT was always decent, and TvZ was always challenging for me, but up through, let's say, Gold League, I had thought I had TvP entirely figured out, and had Build Order Win most of the time. As I got better, I realized I actually have no idea what was going on in this matchup, and started losing terribly.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Fhamls.jpg)
Chapter 1: Not all that glitters is Gold League
Keeping in mind that I started thinking about and really winning TvPs in Gold, let me tell you how my TvPs went. There were only two builds I ever encountered, down in Gold League, and I put together a build that beat both of them. (This was at the beginning of last fall):
The first build was "poorly-executed tech rush", which is basically either a Void Ray allin, 1 base Colossus, or DT rush, but poorly-executed. This build cuts a lot of units and comes out about a minute to two minutes later than a regular builds, usually with a smaller army. It's build is vulnerable to any sort of early pressure, so I borrowed a 1 rax concussive pressure FE I saw on Debo's stream, which goes something like this: 10 depot, 12 rax, 13 refinery. Your Rax produces a Marine, a Marauder (start Concussive Shell) and another Marauder (stop mining gas), and when you've banked 400 you start your expo. Once both Marauders and Concussive Shell are out, you push with them, your Marine, and your scouting SCV, and you kite like a runner.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/jxglt.png)
This is what you did, micro wise.
For a Gold League Protoss who cut early units and gateways for a faster Void Ray or DT or whatever, these units showing up in your base at 5:30 was bad. Like, mind-blowingly bad. My micro was also mind-blowingly bad, though, so it was an even fight. Sometimes, though, he'd have only like 1 Stalker and hilarity would ensue.
The second build was "poorly-executed 4-warpgate rush", which is based off of the 4-warpgate rush, but instead of hitting at like 5:45, it would hit at... I'm gonna say 7:30. The main point was, this Protoss player would make a lot of units and try to bust my front. Seeing a fast factory and just Marines, a lot of players would go for this. The beautiful, lovely part of this, though, was that because the rush hit so late (with gold league macro), a tricky sneaky Terran [like me
] could sneak out a couple Banshees with cloak in time to stop the push and molest the mineral line of the Protoss player without a forge or robo. So my transition out of the 1 rax pressure, instead of being an FE, would be a Banshee rush ._. Against the average Gold Leaguer who went for a 4-warpgate rush, this was alarmingly effective. Often-times, he would bust my front and we'd base trade, but he'd never be able to tech up to detection in time, and due to Terran op floating buildings, I'd often win ._.
What I imagined I was.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/bq5Ob.jpg)
What I actually was.
+ Show Spoiler [Side Note on Protoss Detection] +
Okay, so I like playing terran, and god I love Banshees, but I really really feel bad for Protoss and their selection of detectors. Put simply, Protoss detection sucks. Like Zerg and Terran, they have a static defense that provides detection, and that's pretty standard. Unlike Zerg and Terran, their static defense is extremely expensive since it can also shoot ground, and is, well, static. Spore crawlers can run around to chase cloaked units if need be, and Terran has a million ways to detect (Scan, Raven, EMP) so it barely matters that turrets can't move. Protoss, though, for mobile detection, relies on Observers.
And goddamnit, Observers are crappy. They're not underpowered, they're just crappy. Hear me out here, first. The obvious comparisons for Observers are Ravens and Overseers, right? Now a Raven is much more expensive, but has combat functionality. Terran also has access to scans to stall for a Raven to get out if need be, so even though a Raven is pricier than an Observer, It's probably a "better" unit if such a comparison could be made... but a Raven has more in common with, like, the Sentry and High Templar than it does with the Observer, and Terran doesn't have detection problems anyways. And given the total gas costs involved (225 tech + 200 unit for raven, 100 tech + 50 unit for overseer, 100 tech + 75 unit for observer), it's clear that the observer vs overseer is the real comparison here. Here's where I start to think about why Protoss is forced into certain builds. The thing is, an observer uses prod fac time from the incredibly valuable robotics facility, which means every observer you build is cutting immortals (which are awesome), colossi (which are standard), or even warp prisms (which are underused since they cut immortals and colossi). Furthermore, not every Protoss player wants to get Robo tech; if you could also build observers out of starportsgates, you'd see a lot more stargate play I think.
But really, what it comes down to in the Observer vs Overseer comparison is the fact that it's almost impossible to stop Overseer production and they are easy to make. Overseers are expensive, but cost 0 food, use no production facilities, and in fact use flying units to produce them that provide food (Overlords). You can build several of them simultaneously, and of the units that have both cloaking and attacking abilities (Roaches, Infestors, Ghosts, Banshees, Dark Templars, and, erm Mothership), only some of them can attack while cloaked (Infestors [arguably], Ghosts, Banshees, Dark Templars) and only some of THEM can attack air (Infestors [arguably, again, but who rushes burrowed infestor ZvZ? {oh, right, Destiny's Infestor harass. whatever}], Ghosts) and of those units, none of them are really used for harass. This means that you can morph several Overseers if there's like, multi-pronged banshee/DT harass, and they will be able to morph in peace, and you won't get supply blocked. Obviously such a wave of production would be expensive and inefficient, but it's POSSIBLE, and you're not cutting ultralisks production time to do it.
The point I'm making here is that Overseer Tech is Lair Tech, which zerg needs to get roach or bane speed, or hydras, or mutas, or infestors, or really anything cool-- so you'll get it, and be happy and ready to make multiple detectors if the need arises. Observer tech is robo tech, though, and it always seemed sad to me that protoss has to go for observer tech or fear the cloaked banshee attack. Also observers are super freaking slow, as I've noted when off-racing as protoss. How do you even catch banshees with it? Also, Observer speed needs a robotics bay. Are you kidding me? Couldn't that research out of the cybernetics core or something? Nobody's gonna be like "oh, well I've teched to colossus tech to get observer speed" because like... it's not a good investment relative instead making like 3 more obs and spreading them against mobile banshees.
And goddamnit, Observers are crappy. They're not underpowered, they're just crappy. Hear me out here, first. The obvious comparisons for Observers are Ravens and Overseers, right? Now a Raven is much more expensive, but has combat functionality. Terran also has access to scans to stall for a Raven to get out if need be, so even though a Raven is pricier than an Observer, It's probably a "better" unit if such a comparison could be made... but a Raven has more in common with, like, the Sentry and High Templar than it does with the Observer, and Terran doesn't have detection problems anyways. And given the total gas costs involved (225 tech + 200 unit for raven, 100 tech + 50 unit for overseer, 100 tech + 75 unit for observer), it's clear that the observer vs overseer is the real comparison here. Here's where I start to think about why Protoss is forced into certain builds. The thing is, an observer uses prod fac time from the incredibly valuable robotics facility, which means every observer you build is cutting immortals (which are awesome), colossi (which are standard), or even warp prisms (which are underused since they cut immortals and colossi). Furthermore, not every Protoss player wants to get Robo tech; if you could also build observers out of star
But really, what it comes down to in the Observer vs Overseer comparison is the fact that it's almost impossible to stop Overseer production and they are easy to make. Overseers are expensive, but cost 0 food, use no production facilities, and in fact use flying units to produce them that provide food (Overlords). You can build several of them simultaneously, and of the units that have both cloaking and attacking abilities (Roaches, Infestors, Ghosts, Banshees, Dark Templars, and, erm Mothership), only some of them can attack while cloaked (Infestors [arguably], Ghosts, Banshees, Dark Templars) and only some of THEM can attack air (Infestors [arguably, again, but who rushes burrowed infestor ZvZ? {oh, right, Destiny's Infestor harass. whatever}], Ghosts) and of those units, none of them are really used for harass. This means that you can morph several Overseers if there's like, multi-pronged banshee/DT harass, and they will be able to morph in peace, and you won't get supply blocked. Obviously such a wave of production would be expensive and inefficient, but it's POSSIBLE, and you're not cutting ultralisks production time to do it.
The point I'm making here is that Overseer Tech is Lair Tech, which zerg needs to get roach or bane speed, or hydras, or mutas, or infestors, or really anything cool-- so you'll get it, and be happy and ready to make multiple detectors if the need arises. Observer tech is robo tech, though, and it always seemed sad to me that protoss has to go for observer tech or fear the cloaked banshee attack.
Also observers are super freaking slow, as I've noted when off-racing as protoss. How do you even catch banshees with it? Also, Observer speed needs a robotics bay. Are you kidding me? Couldn't that research out of the cybernetics core or something? Nobody's gonna be like "oh, well I've teched to colossus tech to get observer speed" because like... it's not a good investment relative instead making like 3 more obs and spreading them against mobile banshees.Disclaimer: 1 Rax concussive FE into banshee rush will probably get you killed nowadays, since the level of skill has risen and protoss will just attack you before you have cloak, and more players are getting robos since warpgate was nerfed, and if you rush banshee and don't deal a lot of damage, you will lose due to late expo. This build seems "different" for a reason-- it was a build for a different time.
So here I was, 1 Rax Concussive Pressure -> Cloaked Banshee Rushing every TvP, and in Gold League, it was amazingly effective. A lot of what made it strong was the small maps, meaning that my push would reach is front really quickly, before he could get another gateway unit out. Delta Quadrant, Steppes of War, even Blistering Sands were all in the pool, and really gave life to this sort of attack. And where concussive pressure failed, usually Cloaked banshee would slip in under the 4gate and hold it off.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/3C8vN.jpg)
Chapter 2: The good, the plat and the banshee.
In due time, I reached Platinum League. It took months, and nearly 100 games, and I still had no idea how to TvZ, lost to any TvT opener that used hellions or banshees, but I had an 80% win rate in TvP. I leaned on my TvP heavily to gain points and MMR, and then I started to struggle. In Plat League, players were substantially better, especially about the warpgate timing. Even players with fast tech would get out 3 gateway units by the time my Concussive pressure would arrive, and my micro would be too weak to win an even fight [little did I know, the pro scene had moved from the 2-Marauder Concussive attack to the 4-Marauder Stim attack, with great effect]. Maps like Blistering Sands and Jungle Basin phased out, and newer, bigger maps stepped into the gap to replace them. My rushes were slowed, but 4gate was not, thanks to proxy pylons. And it wasn't just the maps, the players were quicker, too. The 4 warpgate rush, still the most common all-in, would hit about a minute and a half earlier, with stalkers beating on my door as early as 6:30. I couldn't possibly have cloak in that time. I needed to rethink my game.
I needed faster banshees. I took faster gasses, and didn't spend any on anything except teching to Banshees faster. Marauder pressure was out the door, it was 125 gas taken away from getting Banshees quicker that I couldn't afford. I learned to make the Tech Lab on my Factory and swap it to the Starport, shaving off 30 seconds. The Marine defense instead of Marauders shaved off more time. I took an earlier 2nd gas, and managed to bring my timing ever-closer to getting a cloaked Banshee out before the 4gate hit.
Try as I'd like, though, such a thing was impossible. 4gate could, in theory, hit as early as like 5:30 if it was like 90% Zealots, (the 100-gas 4gate with just Warpgate research and a Stalker, and the rest Zealots. This would let you go for an 8 Pylon chronoboost Probes 10 Gate 11 Assimilator that would hit amazingly quickly), and no amount of build order optimization could get a Banshee out in time.
I was also suffering from kiting. Every few games I'd run into a Protoss who would rush out a couple Stalkers when he saw me not building an addon with his scouting Probe but taking a gas, and he would keep on poking and poking and poking and there was no end to it and I'd run out of Marines and lose. This was going to be a problem without Concussive Marauders.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/CTaf0.jpg)
Not the same type of poke, but very similar in terms of deliciousness for Protoss.
In the end, I found a way to solve both problems at once: Using the saved gas from making Marauders instead of Marines let me tech faster-- and I'd use the saved minerals to get up a bunker to stop the poke, then add more bunkers at about 5:45 until I had 3. Using bunkers and repair (this was before MC had shown the world how to FF scvs off of bunkers in the GSL finals) I could hold the 4 warpgate all-in. I would defend with pure minerals, rush cloaked Banshee, and try to harass the Protoss player to death.
Using pure Banshee rush, my TvP winrate began to climb again. Once more I leaned heavily on my TvP to gain MMR and points, and although my TvT was marginal and my TvZ straight-up terrible, during these times of Protoss popularity I did well. I'd still drop the odd game to 3 gate Robo allin, Void Rays or DTs, but any Protoss who played "Standard" and went for a 4gate would lose. That's when I began to be matched up against Diamond League players. I was ecstatic.
That's also when the trouble started. Diamond league was a whole new beast- even in the lower portions. Before, my problems had been one of Scale. Protoss players were getting better at the 4 Warpgate rush, or were being quicker at the strategies that a cloaked Banshee could beat if I could stall long enough. Diamond league wasn't a problem of Scale, though, it was a problem of Type. These players weren't just more-skilled versions of the other players, drawing from the same strategic toolbox with greater efficacy; no, they did something else entirely.
These players didn't use the 4 Warpgate rush.
This might sound uninteresting nowadays, but back then the 4 Warpgate rush was very common in my league-- and my entire strategy was predicated on Protoss doing this most of the time. At first, I was just confused. It wasn't every player who did this, or even most of them; it was probably about half. They'd get a Gateway, a Robotics Facility, a 2nd Gateway, and then lay down a Fast Expand. I barely understood it. How did they know I wasn't gonna all-in them with a Stimpack rush? When I attacked with my Banshees, he'd have Stalkers and an Observer at home, and I wouldn't be able to deal much damage-- what damage I COULD deal through kiting and going back and forth between the main and nat was minimal compared to the economic lead he had from the expansion and high Probe count.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/YDRN0.png)
God, why do you get the be invisible AND detect!?
How could he afford to chrono boost his Probes so much? What made these Protoss players so confident, and what made this Robotics Facility fast expand so strong? That's when I realized it: these guys were scouting and using Observers to determine what to do. No matter what I did, they countered it appropriately, and they had better micro and macro than I did. I couldn't beat them with skill: they were Diamond; and I couldn't beat them with gimmicks: they scouted. Unless I could think of something, I was going to lose every TvP, and I would never achieve my dream of being Diamond.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/N6uJN.jpg)
I wish I were twice as cool, so that I could be half as cool as this guy. I certainly tried.
I was stumped. I knew would be in Platinum League forever unless I adapted and evolved. I rose to this challenge, however, and began to, for the first time in my Sc2 career, try to innovate a new build order / timing attack. I began with the basic precept: a small number of Banshees are only useful if 1 of 2 conditions is fulfilled: 1) the opponent has no detection, letting the Banshees cloak and win by killing probes or killing his anti-air before his detection arrives or 2) the opponent has little or no anti-air, letting the Banshees win in a straight-up fight.
Option #1: How do I stop the observer? I began here, since Observer was the addition wrecked my harass. It's cloaked, which presents a problem. Making Vikings to kill it and a Raven to see it occurred to me, but getting several Vikings and a Raven AND getting Banshees would not be easy. I'd need a 2nd Starport and it would have to largely make units that couldn't shoot ground units. I was already using all my gas as it was getting cloak and 2-3 Banshees. I'll need to stop the Observer using just minerals-- with Marines and a scan. I spent several games bringing my Marines with my Banshee harass to kill the Observer, and it worked-- once. Most players are careful with their Observers when around both Banshees and Marines, and I wasn't able to reliably kill the Observer before all my Marines fell to Zealot and Stalker fire.
Option #2: How do I stop his anti-air? This was the only plausible option left. Maybe if I let him keep his Observer, and produced extra Marines from a 2nd barracks and try to overwhelm his Stalkers? I gave it a couple of tries, but I could never quite get it to work. A ball of Marines and Banshees are good, but due mostly to Zealots, it was really hard to take out enough Stalkers to let my Banshees clean up, and when they did, the next warpin of Stalkers would finish them off. At this point, I realized that getting cloak for Banshees was pointless; I wasn't going to kill the Observer anyways, so maybe I could put the 200 gas to better use. But where? My only idle production facility is my Factory...
![[image loading]](http://sc2armory.com/img/terran/renders/marine.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://sc2armory.com/img/terran/renders/siege_tank.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://sc2armory.com/img/terran/renders/banshee.jpg)
And so was born a Marine Tank Banshee all-in. It had all the perks of a Marine Banshee all-in, but with a small number of Siege Tanks (2), Stalkers went down very, very fast. I thought myself a great innovator of strategies, but little did I know this all-in was as old as time itself, and in its strongest form usually included a Raven, whose PDD made it far more powerful.
Still, the idea of a no-stim, no-siege, no-cloak marine tank banshee all-in tickled my fancy. It was fun, and most of all, it worked. I'd still lose to protoss players who would rush DTs or void rays (sometimes) and some fast expanding players would hold it off, but for the most part it was an effective timing push. I shored up my TvT quite a bit, and despite continuing to be horrible at TvZ, about 50 games later, my TvP win rate carried me forwards once more into the darkness of the unknown:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/yqQmMs.jpg)
Chapter 3: Diamonds are Forever
One thing that I was quick to learn was that just within Diamond League there were more tiers of skill than in all the rest of the leagues combined. Remember that at this time there was no Master or Grand Master league, and even presently there are vast gulfs in skill within both Master League and Diamond League. At this time, saying "I'm in Diamond League" narrowed down how skilled you were only marginally more than "I ladder" because of how diverse it was.
Which is why I wasn't taken entirely by surprise when, after a couple months in diamond league, my Marine Tank Banshee all-in stopped working. It wasn't even a matter of whether or not it dealt damage-- it was a matter of whether or not it dealt ENOUGH damage. With probe pulling, as long as he had a probe count similar to my scv count when the dust settled, he'd be ok; he could double-produce probes and I would be down an expansion. I started facing opponents who would get out immortals and zealots, both of which are good. I fought several fast expoers who used flanks to prevent me from kiting.
The 1 base all-in wasn't realistic any more. Either I was facing better players, or the players i was facing had gotten better at dealing with it. There were no more cheeses, no more build order wins, and no more timing attacks left-- or if there were, I was too unskilled to find and use them. I could go no farther; these people were just better than me, and by enough that my gimmicks and timings could no longer break them. There was no hope.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/KfNyX.png)
This is basically me when I realized that my all-in no longer worked.
I could stop here, though: I'd achieved my goal. I was in the highest division across the servers. I was Diamond. I made it. I basically stopped laddering. I played 1-2 ladder games a week, and played customs and 1v1 obs games with my friends. Whenever someone asked, I was Rank 90 Diamond, but really it was just because my bonus pool was huge because I didn't play much, if I had all my bonus pool I'd be near the top, right guys?
I didn't get in through skill, or micro, or macro (though I had some of those traits). I got in because I found a timing window to jump through. I always felt illegitimate among other diamond players, like a cheeser among the greats, an outsider among good mates. They didn't jump through a timing window; they walked through the front door of mechanics, macro and micro. I had gotten my little Diamond emblem, but for what? I was still a noob. My victory was empty. If at that point, I had been still in Plat, I'm not sure I would have been able to get back into Diamond.
And as though Blizzard could sense my unease, as though they knew my secret shame, they took from me that which I desired:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/WHGRQ.jpg)
A New Challenger Approaches!
In one brutalizing stroke the system was vindicated and I was indited for my crimes: I was not good enough to be in the top league, not even close. In Season 2, I put in a cursory effort to get into Master League, but there was no way I'd actually make it. I had to learn how to play standard in TvP, and improve my macro and micro until I could win legitimately, but I was not up to the challenge. For most of Season 2, I didn't ladder.
But I stop playing, either... I kept on trying in customs. I tried going for bio mech TvP, ghost-mech, big air, you name it, if it wasn't standard, I tried it with my friends, and got it to almost semi work. Eventually, I went for fast expand into MMM+VG, the gold standard of TvP. Where before I was listlessly drifting at the bottom of Diamond League, the introduction of Master League had given me new purpose-- I needed to get into Master league and listlessly drift at the bottom of THAT league
I needed to improve. Actually improve. I learned how to fast expand, how to pressure, how to scout. I practiced all my matchups, and worked on mechanics and basic build orders. By the final weeks of Season 2, as I returned to the ladder with a new toolbox of standard builds, a toolbox built on a foundation of solid mechanics, walls made out of improved macro, (bear with me, here) and with a handle made out of good game sense, I found I was winning again. TvP was no longer my strongest matchup, though; hundreds of games played learning the standard TvZ and TvT had made me much better, but having only recently begun my foray into standard TvP, I was struggling.
But I am not giving up. Maybe Diamonds are not forever; maybe I have a shot at Master League.
