Zest's 6 Adept into DT (PvP Timing Attack)

Description

Check out the /r/allthingsprotoss guide for other VODs.

I'm sorry.

With GSL vs The World finishing this weekend with some amazing games, I wanted to do a trifecta BotW series featuring games from the tournament. I really wanted to do a ShoWTimE build since he had such a nice showing vs Zest, but honestly the builds he used were either ones I've already covered or just not really great examples of builds to do a write up on. Instead, we get a build that my own ladder points probably will regret after this.

After Zest showcased his 6 Adept into Stargate build in last season's GSL Code S, it has become a staple of PvPs everywhere. As natural evolution would have it, I present to you this mind game MMR buster build: 6 Adept into DT.

VOD

Replay - Acid Plant LE (170)

Build Order

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Analysis

Build Explanation

I'm going to be honest, this is a pretty simple build to both execute and talk about. This is going to be one of my shorter and more straight forward guides, but unfortunately this is kind of what the state of PvP is right now. Is this the most safe and solid build meant to give you the best opportunity to win games with pure mechanically stable play? No. Is this build meant to pretty much be a dice roll that gets some cheeky wins because your opponent didn't account for it at all? Yes.

The initial stages of this build works nearly identically to the original 6 Adept into Stargate version when it comes to how you use your Adepts. The first two Adepts allow you to scout early on for early pressure and potentially see the tech choice of the opponent if they let you into their base. Unlike the Stargate build, seeing an early Nexus or not doesn't really have any indication on what you'll be doing. If you continue to see a really late Nexus (or none at all) with constant reshades, then it's likely they're doing a one base all-in and you'll just have to be more careful of that. You have six Adepts though, so you'll be fine. Six Adepts are extremely strong still in early skirmishes and can easily take on their fair share of Stalkers. Four Stalker openings can't directly engage six Adepts and if you ever catch any of their units out of position you can very easily jump on them with shades to kill them. It's also important to remember that six Adepts kill buildings faster than just the normal two do, so just because you might get blocked out of their base with a Pylon at the top of the natural doesn't mean you can't complete the shade and bust that down. You'll easily be able to break it in one or two volleys and then ravage the probe line.

Basically the only difference with this build and the original one is that instead of getting a Stargate at 28 supply, you get a Twilight Council. Then once that is done you get a Dark Shrine, you proxy the 36 Pylon, and then warp-in DTs once the Dark Shrine is finished. If they didn't get detection: Congrats you win the game. If they did get detection: Congrats, you probably just lost the game. The build is so simple that you can even open for the original Stargate version and just cancel the Stargate if it gets scouted and plop down the Twilight and go about your way (like Zest did vs Has).

If you want you can also proxy the 3rd Pylon to hide the Twilight Council and Dark Shrine. Zest did this vs ShoWTimE in their first game and Zest really should have won that game. He just didn't commit hard enough with his DTs since he thought there would be detection out quicker and that instead caused him to lose. He also tried to do a follow up all-in after sloppily losing too many Probes to Oracles instead of just macroing up. This makes it even look like a proxy Stargate which would really force your opponent into not making detection if they're smart enough to read into it.

In the example game vs Has, the initial Adepts were able to break into the base and get a ton of Probe damage done and also scout that Has opened for no detection at all. This prompted Zest to throw down an extra Gateway at the Proxy Pylon and make extra DTs to try and bust down the wall faster. He also followed it up with Blink and an Immortal with a Warp Prism right after to just go kill Has right away. If the opponent has no way to do counter damage to you then one of these types of follow up all-ins can be extremely powerful, however since ShoWTimE had Oracles on the map, it put Zest in a worse position.

If you want to just treat this like a normal DT opener similar to this one, then you can go ahead and macro out of it as well. Basically all PvP builds can converge to the same thing which is what I listed out in the build notes above. You get a Forge as soon as possible to start upgrades while being safe, then go up to Twilight tech if you haven't already for Charge, then go for two base saturation and do a big Gateway explosion with a Templar Archives and then expand. At that point you can round out the Gateway count to go up to eight and then either play passively or do a timing with +2 Attack. Since this build is more committed early on and a bit more gimmicky, it still will rely on the early pressure to do damage to allow you to follow it up with a normal macro style. You can't just lose the six Adepts and DTs while doing no damage and expect to be safe to macro out of it. Like I said earlier, this is a mind game build that's meant to catch your opponent off guard for some cheeky dubs, not a solid way to get to the mid game.

So while this does mean the end for this intro guide to the GSL vs The World Trifecta, just know that the upcoming builds will definitely feature some less gimmicky styles for those of you looking for more stable builds.

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• Created by: Gemini_19    
• Published on: Aug 07, 2018
• Modified on: Aug 07, 2018
• Patch: 4.0.0

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