sOs' Macro Blink DT (PvT Economic)

Description

This is probably one of the only times I'm ever going to be able to make a guide like this. I'm not letting this opportunity go to waste. sOs has made a MACRO blink DT build. I don't care that this is cutesy, stylish, micro intensive and probably not entirely reliable if you aren't sOs himself; but this is too good to pass up. I wanted something cool, fun, and interesting for the comeback of BotW and this serves that purpose very well. This is a fun iteration of a normal build to spice up your ladder games and give you some extra stuff to play with as early macro blink DT is not something you see done.

VOD

Replay - Blackpink LE (163)

Build Order

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Analysis

Build Explanation

Like I said, this is a fun variant of a more normal DT opener that sOs used to great effect vs KeeN in the GSL a few weeks ago. He said in his interview that he's been using it on ladder and dominating with it so he decided to use it in the Ro32. Like many other sOs builds as well, this is a very lean version of a more common build. sOs gets things at very certain times to streamline the build in the greediest way possible which may not make it the best to build to copy exactly in lower leagues. I'll be sure to explain what those areas are and how you can switch it up a bit to make it more ladder friendly. Another thing is that he plays the mid and late game a bit different than most games would look which I figure is in part because sOs likes to toy with his opponents at times. I took the main idea of what he was going for but condensed it into what would be a more normal looking style in the build.

The build starts normal as always with a 20 Nexus opener that goes straight into a Twilight Council. Something that also has been becoming more standard is for Protoss players to open with a single adept even if they aren't going Stargate so that they can shade across the map and use it to scout what the Terran is doing. Usually you send your initial Gateway scout probe in for a second scout after the reaper goes across the map, but a lot of Terrans have been opening with a Marine before Reactor which denies the rescout. The Adept then helps to fulfill that role without needing to send a probe across the map to check if there's a cyclone push coming or something, since if you aren't prepared with shield batteries then those 2 cyclone, 2 hellion, marine pushes can immediately kill you.

After that there's a stalker and once the Twilight finishes you'll make your Dark Shrine. The same time you make the Dark Shrine you should send a Probe out to make your proxy pylon if you didn't leave one on the map to do so. It's at this point that the build starts to become pretty lean. Normally you would get two extra Gateways around 39 supply to line up with Warp Gate finishing and to wall off the natural in case they try to do a hellion run-bye. Upon seeing that he wouldn't be under any immediate pressure, sOs instead goes for only one Gateway at 39 and gets his third gas and then goes for an earlier Blink than normal with a DT build. After the 3rd gas is done he then gets the 4th gas and the 3rd Gateway. Since you aren't going to be making more than two DTs anyway, this is a more efficient way of going about the build if you know that you aren't going to be attacked early. You'll have two gates done when WG is done for the DT harass and the 3rd will be done just a little bit later. If you wanted to be a bit safer with this you could simply get the two gateways at the normal time of 39 supply with the gasses at 4:00. Since you don't necessarily NEED Stalker blink super early if you aren't going to make a bunch of stalkers, then you don't need to get it as early as sOs does.

After the DT warp in you'll send them in to do some harassment which could vary from game-ending to absolutely terrible. As I mentioned in my last DT guide its important to send them in one at a time and split them between the bases to allow for maximum damage. It also prevents them from scanning both at once and losing them for nothing, which would put you quite far behind. At 4:30 you'll get your 3rd Nexus (which is also a tad greedy since sOs doesn't really make any other units for a while) and also DT BLINK!!! The upgrade takes about five years to finish though so you'll need to chrono it quite a lot. Similarly to other DT builds, you'll go into double forge as well provided that your DTs do decent damage and you see no signs of heavy two base aggression from the Terran like a heavy three rax play or even five rax. In that case it would be safer to only go one Forge and get earlier Gateways and more units. Provided the game is going normally though, you'll get an extra five Gateways between 5:15 and 5:45. Charge is started as Stalker Blink finishes and meanwhile you should be poking around with a few DTs if you can as your form of scouting and map control.

Then around 7:00 is when the fun starts. Blink should be done for your DTs and you can make a couple extra to start with your harassment. Blackpink is a good map for this since you don't need extra vision to blink into the natural, you can do it from the high ground across from it. Depending on which 3rd the Terran took though this might not be possible to abuse in the same way that sOs did. Whenever I use this build I send a hallucinated phoenix to the edge of the Terran's main to let me blink up there. Basically you should be able to have two sets of blink DTs roaming around killing SCVs. One set goes to the main/natural and another set blinks into the 3rd's SCV line and immediately starts killing an insane amount of SCVs. A lot of Terrans may not be as passive as KeeN was in this game vs sOs though, so what you can also easily do is time your DT blink ins to when the Terran is across the map and focused on trying to kill/pressure you. DTs blinking right onto mineral lines will wipe SCVs so fast that if the Terran doesn't respond quickly and properly, they will fall behind very quickly and it also allows you to deal with their push better since they'll have to multitask to defend the DTs.

Also remember, DT Blink is quite cheap. All you have to do is save one DT once and the upgrade has already paid for itself.

Transitioning into the mid-late game

After the blink DT phase is when sOs gets a little weird, as per usual. He stays on mass gateway for so long with a late Robo and tries for this big 3/3 Gateway/Immortal attack. It doesn't quite work and then he transitions into a 2nd Robo and Colossus. This is not really something I would suggest, especially with the incoming Marauder buff, so I've adapted the build to be a bit more standard while still keeping the same idea of what sOs was doing. He eventually goes into the double Robo Colossus like I mentioned so I just made that transition come quicker. 6:00 is a good time to add in the Robo for Observers, Immortals, and Warp Prisms and once it's done you can get a 2nd one and a Robo Bay. This is a good transition since a lot of Terrans will see mass Gateway and go right into Ghosts expecting a Storm transition. The double Robo can catch them off guard and also gives you a more beefy/brute force style army composition.

However, you can also still go into Storm if you wanted to. Due to the way this build works and the transition allows, you'll end up with quite an excess in gas while your 3rd is being saturated. You won't need to take your 3rd base gasses quickly with this build because of that, so if you feel comfortable transitioning into a faster storm then you are free to do so with this build as well. It's a fairly flexible build that allows for basically any transition. If you wanted to try the mass Gateway stuff like sOs does, then by all means go for it, but just know that that is sOs doing sOs things and simply being much better than KeeN.

Regardless, this is a more fun build that utilizes a very niche upgrade in a way not normally seen as a way to snowball the initial damage that the DT opener provides. They give plenty of counter attack potential with blink and also a large amount of map control since it will cause the Terran to be extremely cautious about their move-outs if you are constantly blinking DTs around outside of turret and scan range. The amount of damage you can inflict should either net you a quick win or set yourself up for a very strong mid and late game with double upgrades behind it and the opportunity to transition into nearly any type of mid-late game composition you'd like.

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Details

• Created by: Gemini_19    
• Published on: May 12, 2018
• Modified on: May 12, 2018
• Patch: 4.0.0

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