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Posted on May 29, 2013, Ryan Visbeck State on StarCraft: Protoss Vs. Terran in HoTS

State on StarCraft is a weekly column on Game Front by Ryan “State” Visbeck, a pro StarCraft 2 player. Each week State brings you his unique perspective on all things StarCraft, including tips, tricks and stories from the front line of competitive play.

NOTE: “State” is officially sponsored by Game Front.



Contents:

Hi, everyone!

Last week, I advanced to the finals of TotalBiscuit and Genna Bain’s SHOUTcraft America, a tournament open to the top 16 residents of North and South America on the Battle.net ladder. At the finals in New York, I placed second to ROOTKane, who, until recently, was a massively underrated Canadian Zerg player. The tournament was a really fun experience. Huge thanks to TotalBiscuit, Genna, and MLG for a great tournament and finals!

The fast-expanding, MC-inspired, no-colossus PvP style that I used against Minigun in the semifinals of SHOUTcraft was analyzed in an excellent daily by Day[9], embedded below. It’s something I’m playing around with right now and it’s a lot of fun to see him break things down. If you haven’t watched Day[9]’s analysis yet, I highly recommend it!

Today, I’ll be analyzing the PvT style that I used in the group stages of SHOUTcraft America — a Blink-Stalker/Colossus PvT build. An exclusive replay pack featuring my PvT from both WCS Challenger League and SHOUTcraft is available for download at the end of the article. I appreciate all the feedback about what you want to see from this column. Please continue to let me know what you think and what you’d like to see in the future!

Like all match-ups, PvT has undergone a lot of changes with the release of Heart of the Swarm. While the mothership core pushed back the window in which Terran could go for kill-moves, the addition of widow mines and medivac afterburners have opened new paths of aggression. As a result, Protoss players are able to rapidly expand their economy or tech, provided they can deflect early Terran aggression.

This opening is my response to the changes in early-game PvT. In short, it opens with a fast expand, using blink-stalkers and colossus to safely take a third. Charge-zealots, high templar, and quick upgrades solidify the mid-game. Multipronged harass utilizing dark templar and warp prisms lets Protoss take control and destroy the Terran opponent.