Stats' 3gate robo pressure (PvP Timing Attack)

Description

Intro

To anyone who wanted a super standard blink/robo opening that goes into a 3rd base and chargelot/immortal/archon then this build is not for you. I'm really not a fan of this boring passive meta right now so I've been doing some other builds instead, including this one. This build has been giving me tons of success on ladder and it's very fun to execute.

VOD

Replay - Ascension to Aiur LE (60)

Build Order

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Analysis

Build Explanation

There's a couple of fun and cute things that Stats does with this build to make it look very standard in order to catch his opponent off guard. Firstly, this build starts just like any other PvP opener. It uses a normal 2 gate opener with stalkers first and an MSCore, however you don't actually finish the MSCore. If you notice they scout you, you start building the MSCore but then cancel it once they leave and it allows you to sneak a robo down with that money instead slightly earlier to prepare for this heavy aggression. This is a very cutesy part of the build that relies on your opponent being good enough that they know when they should be leaving your base as to not die to the MSCore spawning. It only gets the robo down a few seconds earlier so if you don't want to worry about this then don't. Just get the MSCore as normal and get the robo right after it when the probe isn't in your base anymore.

Stats also then goes for a Nexus on 29 after only 2 units out of the gateway instead of 4. This is to abuse how literally every PvP is the same opening of 4 units into a Nexus with no real way of scouting it early enough to punish. This is safe to do because you still have an MSCore produced and you have a fast robo that you can fall back on in case of an earlier all in planned by your opponent. You then get a sentry and start your Immortal once the robo is finished, it should line up nearly perfectly to having 250 minerals. You then get your 3rd gate and a 2nd sentry as well as a pylon at the front of your natural. After the Immortal you get the warp prism and you should also warp in 2 stalkers once warp gate is done. Then your Nexus will be finishing and you can afford to get 2 probes while you wait for your 3rd gateway to finish in order to get your 3rd stalker warp in. Push across the map just as the warp prism is finishing and warp in any stalkers on the prism as you walk across. You should get to their base just before 5:00 in order to get another warp in done and be pushing their natural at around 5:10 with 8 or 9 stalkers, 2 sentries, and 1 immortal.

This is a very unexpected timing to hit from the opponents perspective of seeing what they think is a completely standard (partially greedy if they noticed how quickly you took a nexus) opening. They may have gone observer first out of the robo, meaning they won't have an immortal out in time, and they definitely will have only 2 gateways and blink on the way. If they don't scout with a hallucinated phoenix (it comes across the map just as you're getting to his base if it's a straightaway path) then they'll only have 1 pylon up that can easily be focused down before the overcharge can get much damage done. Basically, this push should kill them if they aren't prepared and aren't expecting this attack. However, if you don't end up killing them, you can still transition out of it if you focus on it early enough in the attack and kill enough probes during your attack which I will get into later.

Managing the engagement

You have a warp prism with this build. That is your main advantage other than attacking at a strange time. The amount of micro potential out of a prism this early vs a player who doesn't have one is massive and that alone can win you the fights. This is an extremely fun build because of this early warp prism and you should definitely try to use it to it's maximum potential if you have the micro skills to do so. You can go from barely pushing through with this attack, to completely destroying them if you micro all your units during the engagement. Simply right clicking on the units being injured with the prism while it's sitting in the back of the army and then immediately dropping them is enough to get an edge up in the fight.

It is especially important to lift up any units that get caught in overcharge range by their forcefields. They'll have 2 sentries most likely that will spam down a row of FFs right when you engage as a panic maneuver, but that can easily be made a waste by lifting everything out of danger and putting it back. You can then wait for another warp in round and dive onto the pylon or their units now that there's no more forcefields to worry about.

While going for the attack be sure not to get surrounded by probes either. Probe DPS will creep up on you and do way more than you'd think, so be sure to stutter step back to kill as many probes as possible and to not get surrounded. If the engagement is lasting for quite a while as well their blink should eventually finish too, so if you get surrounded by probes and you're trying to focus fire stalkers before they blink, you're going to be in for a rough time because your units will just derp around trapped by probes.

The more you try the prism micro the better you'll get at it so just give it a whirl a few games and see how you do.

So why didn't Stats win with his push?

Usually I rip builds in which the source game resulted in a victory for the player using the build. So you may be wondering why I decided to write up this build when Stats didn't even win the game in which he showcased this build.

It's pretty simple really. The build itself is sound and has a lot of potential to work (I used it a lot on ladder before writing this to be sure of it) but Stats actually butchered the engagement in his game vs Dear.

He was doing fine when he did the first poke in overcharge range using the immortal to soak damage and then pulling it back. The mistake occurs when he lets his sentries walk forward into overcharge range and instantly lose them WHILE having the prism down in phase mode warping units in. He basically tried to do too many things at once instead of taking his time with the push. If you are ever going to attack into overcharge range, be sure to have your prism either in range to pick up or not in warp in mode. Stats is close enough to micro the sentries but he tries to warp in while also pushing into the overcharge so he isn't able to pick the sentries up when they get forcefielded.

After that he continues to push into an overcharged pylon to kill it with a forcefield still to his left so not everything is attacking. Then shortly after he targets a pylon that isn't being overcharged and also an adept despite there being an immortal with it's shields down that could have been 2 volleyd by Stats' army, which was basically all of Dear's power in his defense. Since SSL doesn't have damaged life bars I can't tell if Dear was just being super mindgamey with the MSCore by not actually overcharging despite having the energy to try to get Stats to do exactly what he did, or if Stats just attacked a pylon when there was no energy to overcharge it.

Regardless, he realized his attack wasn't going to win the game and instead he focused on killing probes. He was able to go ahead 4 probes at one point which put him in a perfectly fine spot to transition, as I'll talk about now.

Possible follow up

There will sometimes be cases where you can't kill them for whatever reason, but you trade even enough to the point where you can actually macro off of it. This is why I'm not labeling the build as an all in, because there is definitely follow up potential. If you notice during the engagement that the fight isn't going your way and you're trading well vs his probes, you can start making probes again and come out even or ahead on workers. Keeping the warp prism alive is crucial here so that you can keep him back in his base while you tech up, since your tech will definitely be behind.

We can see Stats go for a disruptor drop transition and into twilight/forge. He ends up losing because he tried to go into chargelot/immortal/archon after the ruptor drop into someone who already had a leg up on that composition. If he went pure blink/ruptor I think he would have done perfectly fine. I personally go for passive disruptors and instead use a few adepts or what I have left from the attack to harass probes and keep him back. I end up getting an immortal first usually to stay safe while the robo bay is finishing and get gasses quickly as well. Then as I have money I get a twilight and what not.

The game ends up in a bit of a weird state but if you learn how to control this weird state then it will be greatly in your favor. Not many people get put in these types of situations so it ends up making them do some pretty big mistakes or bad decisions that you can easily capitalize on if you go for blink/ruptor.

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Details

• Created by: Gemini_19    
• Published on: Aug 28, 2017
• Patch: 3.8.0

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