Stats' Robo first blink/obs into 2x forge colossus (PvT Economic)

Description

This is the last guide of the GSL vs The World edition featuring another build from our Protoss wonder boy Stats!

It's been a while since we've seen Robo first styles dominate the professional meta, and Stats is doing his best to bring that back to the table. He showed an extremely dominant PvT series vs Maru in the semi-finals and one of those games included this throwback Robo first Blink/Obs style that really showcased why Stats is called the Shield of Aiur.

VOD

Replay - Acid Plant LE (196)

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Analysis

Build Explanation

Stats is someone that is known as being a primarily defensive player. Some even would make the comparison that he's a modern day Rain. In PvT especially, passive Robo openings have been a preference of his in the past and just a few weeks ago he brought it back again in a meta of aggressive proxies and punishing Stargate builds.

Like always, this build starts with a standard 20 Nexus opener to safely get your economy going early on while having just enough time to Chrono out a unit to deal with the Terran's first Reaper. Stats elects to make two Adepts as his first units, but you can choose whichever two units you are more comfortable with making early on. You can very easily make two Stalkers or an Adept and Stalker if that's what you're more used to doing. I believe Stats went for the double Adept at first for a little bit of mindgames to make it look like he would go Stargate and to keep the Reaper pushed back as far as possible. You shouldn't be as worried about hiding what tech you're going for in your ladder games though, and instead you should push across the map with the first Adept once the Reaper leaves your base so that you can scout what the Terran is doing. Stats didn't put that much priority on this in this game so he was being quite greedy in that regard. If you want to send the first Adept across then you'll need to use another Chrono on the 2nd Adept to make sure it's out in time to safely continue to keep the Reaper away.

The Adept scout is meant to sit outside the natural, just like in PvZ, to send a shade up the main ramp to try and see what tech the Terran has gone for. If you see a Barracks with a Reactor on it, then you need to worry more about later stim timings or early Mine drops. If you see a Factory with a Reactor then you'll have to be careful against fast Hellion/Cyclone pressures. The later would influence how greedy you could be a little bit later on in the build.

While you're going for this scout you should have gotten your Robo up at 31 supply and the Twilight Council just afterwards at 33. This will get you a rounded out two base tech selection of Observers for continued scouting and Blink for maneuverability with your Stalkers. At 3:15 is when you can get your additional two Gateways to be sure they're done at the same time Warp Gate is. Once the Robo is done you'll start Chronoing out Observers to send across the map and to cover drop paths (check out a previous Stats guide if you need a refresher on Observer placement) and when the Twilight is done you should go straight into Blink and put at most one Chrono into it. You don't even really need to Chrono it at all since you're getting it so early. It's better to save up the Chrono for your double Forges a bit later.

It's at this point where Stats pauses Probe production at 40 to get a very quick 3rd Nexus at 4:10. He is justified in doing this since Maru went for a fast 3CC build but he had thrown it down without yet scouting Maru's opener. Had it been a more aggressive opener, then Stats could have simply not Probed the 3rd base or canceled it if absolutely necessary. If you don't feel comfortable making such an early 3rd, then you can make it a little bit later after you did a round of warp-ins and got your natural gasses. Some of the other steps will be a little bit delayed but that's fine.

After the 3rd base goes down and Stats scouts that he's safe, he pretty much goes directly into double Forge and a Robo Bay for Colossus. Since it does take some time for the Colossus to get out, you'll need to play safely to be sure you don't die during the transition. If you notice the Terran will be doing a heavy two base aggressive build, then you shouldn't make too many Probes for the 3rd base (stopping at 55-60) and instead get more units and Shield Batteries. If you want to keep Probing then you would have to go into fast Charge and extra Gateways earlier instead of Colossus to have a chance of holding on. An Immortal out of the Robo before the Robo Bay finishes will also help in your defense. Regardless of if it's an aggressive opening from the Terran or not, you still want to stop Probes at around 60 so that you can afford three extra Gateways, Charge, and Colossus Range all at 6:00. After that you can start Probing again and then get your gasses at the 3rd base and also round out the Gateway count with two more to go up to eight.

From there you basically keep making Colossus until you have three of them, warp-in a round of three Sentries for Guardian Shield and Forcefields, and continue with your double upgrades and spend a lot of Chrono on them. Once the three Colossi are done you'll want a Warp Prism and a Templar Archives to make some Archons and then you can hit with a big 2/2 timing at around 9:30. It's an extremely strong push that hits before the Terran can have a large number of Liberators or Vikings and usually before Liberator Range is finished as well. If you hit it right you can usually just blink up and snipe down the Liberators and Vikings and let the rest of the army push on through. If you had traded earlier with the Terran as well without losing much of your army then you should be in an even better position since they won't have as many defenses.

Why is this style coming back?

For the last four months or so, Stargate and Blink play has been extremely common in the PvT meta. Usually these openings were followed up with a Blink/Charge composition into Archons or fast Storm as a way to snowball early aggressive skirmishes and keep a Terran from easily securing 3rd and 4th bases. After the Marauder got buffed and Terrans generally started to figure out how to play against this style more with faster Ghosts and whatnot, there was a small dip in the performance of these types of Gateway focused styles. Even Classic, someone who had a 100% PvT winrate throughout the beginning of 2018 fell in a rather convincing fashion to Maru in the semi-finals of GSL Season 2. So what was needed to keep the Protoss flame alive vs the best of the best in the PvT matchup?

Colossus.

Artosis had said it as well. He was hoping to see Protoss players bring out more Colossus focused styles as a way to combat the way that Terrans have been defaulting to playing the matchup recently. Terrans have been focusing a lot on playing for lots of early skirmishes and using their micro to constantly kite away large Chargelot armies and then use fast Ghost transitions to aid the bio and to get rid of the High Templar threat. This style is completely useless vs a Protoss who plays more passively and builds up a very robust Colossus army that constant skirmish micro and fast Ghosts do nothing against. Even if it's not off of a Robo first opener like this build, Stats still used this Colossus transition after opening for the standard three Oracle play off of a Stargate to great effect. It's meant to be difficult to break and hard to defend once the Protoss reaches a three Colossus 2/2 powerspike in the mid game with plenty of Blink Stalker/Chargelot support underneath.

This style is super strong and straight forward to play. You should find it a nice addition to your ladder repertoire.

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• Created by: Gemini_19    
• Published on: Aug 26, 2018
• Patch: 4.0.0

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