[G] Only Losing to What You Know is Coming (PvT)

Hello Team Liquid and thank you all for checking out my first strategy guide on PvT. My name is Charlie, aka Voidray, and I'm a mid/high master protoss player in Clan RH. I think PvT is a matchup that a lot of players struggle in a lot, especially newer players. I've seen people complain so often that terran is OP against protoss. While it is true that “marauders turn Toss to gue” – HuskyStarcraft, I think the belief that the matchup is imbalanced stems more from lack of scouting than weaknesses in strategy or units. For protoss players that are low-diamond or below, think about how many times you have lost to cloaked banshees, 1/1/1, scv all ins, 3 rax, or just some sort of standard pressure because you didn't know it was coming? I personally believe that protoss players of all skill levels can compete with their terran counterparts and in this guide, we will analyze proper scouting techniques to uncover whether your opponent is planning a tricky or standard play as well as the proper reactions so that you will only lose to what you know is already coming. (And, hopefully, lose a lot less!)

I am now going to walk with you through how to scout both common and or uncommon Terran opening. (These are general tips and tricks, as for the sake of this guide I am going to exclude meta-gaming such as building a bunker on the low ground to signify a gasless expand but in fact, they just do some sort of all in without ever expanding.) In every Terran opening, the easiest way that I've found to determine what they are doing is not necessarily by scouting their buildings, but rather by scouting their units. With that being said, I am going to now introduce the “Primary scout, Secondary scout, and the Tertiary scout.”

Your primary scout is fairly simple and if done correctly, it's the most important scout of all - and that's your probe. Your probe is one of the best ways of scouting your opponent in the early game. For the most part, you need to be checking for two things once you enter a Terran’s base with your scouting probe. The first thing you need to scout is gas. Assuming you don’t get last scout on a 4player map (I will explain what to do if you do end up getting last scout later on) you will be able to get a probe in and out of their base without the marine killing you. In each circumstance whether a Terran has 0,1 or 2 gases the response is inherently different. The second thing your probe needs to do is poke back up the ramp. There are a few different times to do this that will be listed for certain BO’s later but the 2 times I suggest is either around 3:30 or 4:15 in game time, depending on the map. More will be explained later on about what you are looking for with the aid of pictures and explanation as well as what to do once you confirm a certain build.

Your secondary scout is almost always going to be the first stalker you make. In almost every build order you could possibly choose chronoing out your first stalker is essential! Whether you combine it with a zealot or really whatever unit, your first stalker needs to head over to your opponents base asap! Your stalker is in charge of either confirming your primary scout or figuring out new information. With that being said, it is very important that you keep that stalker alive as it will help you later on if a fast reaper scout comes into your base or just holding off some early pressure.

Your tertiary scout is going to be primarily your observer. There are a few other cases (such as hallucinated phoenix) but for the coherence of this guide, we will make the observer the exclusive tertiary scout. The observers’ job is simple, double confirm your suspicion and reveal anything else that your primary and secondary scouts missed. Instead of just flying your observer into your opponents base and forgetting its very existence, it is very important to really look at what your opponent has. For example, it is easy just to fly in, see an expo and marines and marauders and say, “oh, they must being going MMM…DONE!” But that simply isn’t enough. If you fly over and see 5 barracks and no factory, you know that drops are a long time away but a large stim-push might be imminent. If you see 3 rax and a fast factory, you know your opponent is most likely going heavy drop play. See how actually scouting with your observer can help?

Now that we know how and when to scout, let's see what it all actually means. I will now show you a screenshot for just about every scenario you will see when using this 3 prong scouting technique, and I will also include a recommended reaction. Obviously there will be a difference of opinion as to which response is the “correct” response, but just make sure you have clear-cut responses to the variety of options your opponent might choose.

I decided to start with this because it has become ever so popular because of players like Select! So, with your first probe, or your Primary Scout, you see that the Terran has one gas. This is probably going to be the most common thing to see with your primary scout as most builds (excluding marine gasless expands) require at least one gas. With that being said, the fate of your Terran foe is still to be determined. Because you were gosu and got your probe out after seeing that the Terran had one gas and every building was in check, you then snuck your probe up again at about 4:15 seconds to see the above picture. You see 1 rax with a reactor and another with a tech lab. Nice going probe! Now you know exactly what your opponent is doing, a 2 rax opener into some pressure followed by an expand. Now you’re thinking: “Awesome I know exactly what he is doing, but now what do I do?” Well, there are a few different options and here are two viable responses:

1) 3Gate Opening with 1 Gas: Get 3 gateways and make sure to pump out constant units and chronoing your warpgate tech frequently.
**Pro tip: if you scout a tech lab opening of any sort, chrono on warpgate tech is a must as without warpgates you will not be able to defend that kind of pressure as it is supposed to hit just before warpgate finishes.** This build will allow you to deny the pressure with decent micro and decent force fields and also expand right behind it or sometimes even during it. This build is also great as it allows you to apply some counter-pressure if you stomp the first terran attack.

2) Robo/2Gate with 2 Sentries: Essentially you get 2 gates (with 2 gas) and tack on a robo when you can. Your first 3 units should be 2 sentries and a stalker. This will allow you to force field your ramp as well as have an immortal out in time if needed. This build is great because instead of defending your expo, you are defending your ramp which no experienced terran is stupid enough to walk up with force fields in your back pocket.

This build has become somewhat obsolete as the 2 rax build has become all the rage but never the less, here is how to deal with this.



When dealing with a 1 rax with fast tech lab you first must understand what the goal of this push is designed to do. The goal is to produce just a few marauders with concussive shell and a marine or two and push you as they expand. This push can be very strong if gone unscouted. In order to defend against this, your primary probe must either scout the tech lab or, at 4:15 when you go back up the ramp, find a marine and marauder ready to kill your probe. Obviously if they have a marauder they are planning to be aggressive some time, so preparing for aggression is the next step.

Preparation for this push is the same as the previous one with one exception: it’s much easier! Although the push comes earlier, if scouted right it easy to defend. Let’s say you read this guide and decided you wanted to do a 3 gate into expand after seeing the tech lab. This will allow you to not only defend, but be aggressive yourself! With your superior number of production facilities you should be able to put on some pressure. The goal of the pressure from you should be to deny the expo by either forcing a cancel or, the more effective way, warp in 3-4 sentries and constantly force field the bottom of his ramp allowing no units to get by. The longer you do this (assuming you have expanded behind your push) the farther you will be ahead. Note, it is important to get your units out of there and constantly hit your force fields or your entire army will die!

This build is still fairly common but you will mostly only see it on bigger maps. So let’s dig in!



Scouting the marine gasless expand is fairly simple as long as they don’t wall off. When using your primary scout (probe) you will walk right up in their base and the first thing you will realize is that they don’t have any gas. Don’t be fooled, this is no mistake! It is fairly easy to scout as it hits your probe right in the face as you see no gas. Now, how do you respond? Well, this is where you can get creative. There are essentially two schools of thought.

One is to be super aggressive and one is to out macro their already macro intensive play. As for the aggressive style (not my favorite) there are a few different options. One is a 4 gate. This would be the only time a 4 gate is viable but it is completely all in. If the 4 gate is scouted and/or fails, the game is as good as over. Secondly you can do a fast expo into a fast 6 gate all in. This is not AS all in as the 4 gate but if it fails to do damage, you are in a lot of trouble. You essentially cut probes around when your natural comes up and make 6 gates, a proxy pylon, as many sentries and zealots as you can with a few stalkers mixed in and hope your attack's execution is better than your opponent's defense. Lastly, I have experimented with a fast 4-6 gate warprism drop. It is the same methodology as the others accept that instead of hitting the heavily fortified bunkered up front, you drop in the main and hope to catch them off guard. Be careful though because this build usually hits right before stim finishes and if your initial warp in doesn’t do very much and stim finishes you, my friend, are screwed!

Now, for my preferred reaction, the macro style. If you see a gasless expand, why not just expand yourself right? Almost the second I see a gasless expand, I cut probes and don’t make any units and simply wait for 400 minerals to expand. What this does is nullify the economic advantage that the Terran is trying to get. The reason this is viable is because the only kind of pressure a Terran can do when gasless expanding is marine pressure. Early on in the game without stim, what unit is good against marines? Stalkers. And with proper micro, stalkers destroy marines in the early game. Not to mention, most Terrans who gasless expand expect the Protoss to pressure therefore an attack of their own requires them to scout very intensely that you are not attacking them! So essentially, this build beats them at their own game and is fairly safe against most aggression as it can only be marines anyway. **Pro tip: if you see a gasless expand, taking immediate map control is a great idea since they won't have marauders with concussive. Keeping a probe on the watch tower and a stalker right outside their base blinds them and allows them no scouting therefore if they decide to pressure, they have to be sure about unloading those bunkers as they are totally in the dark!**

Oh the 1/1/1…how we all hate you so! We all hate the 1/1/1, but do we all know how to scout it? The main way to scout it is actually with your probe. Assuming your gosu probe went in, saw one gas and got his little probe butt back out of there, it is fairly easy to scout a 1/1/1. There are many tell tale signs to a 1/1/1. The big ones are a lot of marines and a bunker. In the above screenshot you can see my probe finds a few marines huddled around a building bunker. If you see this a red flag should immediately be present! Here is what you need to think to yourself when you see this. “He has gas, yet, all of his units (marines) require no gas…fishy. He is building a bunker which still requires no gas for his no gas units to go into….fishy. So where the hell is this gas going?”

That is what your process should be! The answer is obviously quite simple, into tech. The bunker is for defense against any pressure and also blocks any scout to get into the base. But little did that Terran know that we don’t need to be in his base to scout him. Now that we know what he's doing, we need to determine what we're going to do – and that's not an easy question! As this is not really a Build Order guide, I will only give you a partial answer to this question, but there are TL guides designed specifically to deal with this push. For 90% of the builds though, one thing is certain, you need to tack on your second gas if you haven’t already and you need to get a robo asap. From there, there are a lot of different options many including a fast expand others staying off one base.

So you scout with your gosu probe and you either get denied entry or you get walled in. These two examples are actually extremely different but they do share one thing, they both suck. In the picture above it shows an example of me getting a probe in, scouting, but then getting walled in and I end up losing my probe. I will first go over how to scout from here. (Remember, I scouted 1 gas, normal building timings and I don’t have my probe to prod back up) In this case, your first stalker is going to be ever so important. If this stalker sees a marine(s) and a marauder, it’s a safe bet to assume some sort of early pressure such as the 2 rax or 1 rax pressure with a tech lab.

Another example would be if your stalker popped up and saw a bunker and no marauders. Now remember, we saw at least 1 gas so it would be a good idea to prepare for a 1/1/1. Now for the harder of the two, you get to his base and he is already walled off and all you see is 2 supply depots and a barracks staring you in the face saying, “You shall not pass.” In this circumstance, again, your stalker is going to be super important but unlike seeing 1 gas, we have seen nothing. Because of that, things change! If your stalker sees a marine(s) and a marauder that is just about the only thing you can infer. If you see that, you can infer some sort of pressure just like if you saw 1 gas. Here is where it gets tricky! If you see a bunker on the top of the ramp, unfortunately you cannot just assume 1/1/1. Why? Well, because many times, a bunker goes down in a marine gasless expand to help early pressure as well. So in this case, things get tricky because you don’t know if it is a 1/1/1 or a marine gasless expand. How do we eventually find out? Well, there are a few different ways.

One way would to keep that stalker at the bottom of the ramp and every 30 seconds prod up, take some shield damage and look for a marauder. If you see a marauder, you know they are going bio. If you keep prodding and they haven’t come down to expand and you keep seeing more and more marines, then its most likely a 1/1/1.

1) How viable/useful are hallucinated phoenix in PvT?
2) With the reduced cost of protoss upgrades, is there any benefit to delaying your first forge to double or even triple upgrade down the road? What type of scouting information might lead you to going delayed, heavy upgrades?
3) What are some additional, helpful tricks to get crucial scouting information so we can "Only lose to what we know is coming?".

Scouting is an essential part of this game and without it, you simply cannot improve past a point. I hope this guide helped anyone from Bronze – Masters with scouting those pesky Terrans! As this is my first guide, I would really appreciate feedback (positive or negative) so that future guides can be even more concise and helpful. Thank you very much for reading and good luck in your games