It feels like I am playing nothing but Protoss players right now, not that there’s anything wrong with that…
Actually overall my TvP win rate is not terrible, but it’s not where I want it to be either, so how do I get to work on solving that problem? Well first of all I need to categorize the reasons for losing vP games and I can pretty much summarize it into three different ones.
Army Control
I rarely lose TvP games because I am outmacroed or because I miss essential tech or upgrades. The most common reason for why I lose TvP games that has gone past the first 15 minutes is because I just get rolled when our armies eventually clash because I don’t emp well enough or because I don’t dodge storms or set up a good enough arc.
Over committing
One of the harsh lessons to learn about TvP is that because of how cost effective +3+3 chargelot/archon is and because of how differently Terran and Protoss re-maxing mechanics works you will often trick yourself to believe that you should push for the win after you crush a Protoss deathball. So many times I do pull off excellent army control and I destroy the Protoss army, but even then it is usually risky to push too aggressively and I will end up over committing.
All-ins
Still 50% of my TvP losses are probably to various all-ins. At least from a Terran perspective, Protoss feels like the race with the most all-in options. I can think of a multitude of cheeses and all-ins that will in fact kill me if I don’t respond properly.
So looking at my last 20 games and at these three categories I can definitely tell where to focus my energy first. In my code of Starcraft in rule 6, play to your weaknesses I go into how when you practice you should always go after the improvements that will give you the most actual impact on your game with the least investment of time and energy and for me that route of least resistance is definitely on the all-in category. There are so many dumb losses that I can cut out just by not being so god damn lazy.
Basically there are two kinds of cheese/all-ins. The ones which you can easily hard counter and just straight up win if you just go for the right unit comp, building placement etc. As long as you know that it is coming and you know the reaction you should win 100% of the time. Then there are the all-ins which even if you scout them, it will still be down to control and split second decision making to stop them. Many Protoss all-ins such as blink stalker 4 gate belong to the latter category but that’s not the ones I am going after. The fact of the matter is that I lose way too many games to the first category, all-ins that I can identify in advance and that I know how to stop, but I still lose to these because I play in zombie mode and just ignore doing all of the things I should do in my games.
6-8 gate warpgate all-ins without templar or warp prism tech for example. This is something my build should never ever lose to because it is an all-in that can only come through the front and if you have enough bunkers down, and you pull scv’s in time you should not die. Yet I do, constantly because I just don’t scout for it, then when the push comes I don’t see it until it is all the way up at my front and my bunkers get instantly force fielded off. This only happens because I get complacent and skip essential steps.
So to remind myself, what is it that I need to do EVERY game to make sure I don’t get dumb losses to this?
- Gas count. I always do the easy thing and scout for double gas with my first scv. This is fine and helps me rule out a lot of one base all-ins. If the Protoss takes 2 early gases I am almost certain that there be shenanigans on the way. However I should make a point to check if the Protoss has 2 probes on each gas. If they do that is a very plausible sign of an incoming sentry bust.
- Don’t relax because you see 1 gas expand. This is probably the reason why I lose to this, I just get into the mindset that as soon as I see the 1 gas and the nexus go down I just assume macro game. This is obviously retarded because this is precisely what you should see if a heavy warpgate push off two bases is coming.
- 8 minute scan timing. So this is probably the easiest way to relieve this unless I am able to re-scout in some other way at 8 minutes, there 6 warpgates won’t be finished but they will all be building. If I scouted the pylon locations there is a relatively good chance that I should be able to scan a 6-8 gate at this point in time.
- Spotting. I should have spotting units way outside of my front to be able to spot the enemy early enough to pull workers to repair. Most of the times I lose to this because I am too lazy with spotting and end up not seeing the push until there already is a forcefield wall around my bunkers at which point the game is already over.
All of these are really easy things, in fact to dumb it down it all really boils down to the fact that if I can’t rule out a 2 base warpgate all in I should scan at 8 minutes and that should be the only change to make to cut out a lot of losses. It might sound dumb and it sure is. This is not about skill this is just about not skipping the small things in my play and I have a feeling that this is actually why a lot of people lose to stupid shit, not because you don’t know how to scout it, or because you don’t know how to stop it but because you just get complacent and don’t scout for it, or skip in the defense.
Vanguard 