[G] PvP HerO's Safe Stargate Opener

The best possible manner which I have found to deal with this sort of extremely early gateway pressure is to definitively scout it coming before it ever happens. This can be done in a way which Day9 points out in his daily... If your opponent is going to 4gate/3gate you, he's going to have his units out on the map at 5:00 as he must plant his pylon on your side of the map by 5:20 in order to have it up when Warpgate completes at 5:45. If you go up his ramp at 5:00 you'll get there at a time where his first zealot/stalker are on your side of the map defending his probe and his 2nd stalker won't complete until like ~5:05 so you should have free reign over his entire base if he's being aggressive. In short... If he's being aggressive with warpgates really early in the game, he will have no units at his base at 5:00. If he DOES have units at the top of his ramp, he's NOT 4gating. (They can have a stalker out at 5:00 back at home if they're 3gating you but it'll only be 1 stalker)

If he is 4gating you, you'll know before the Stargate completes... Cancel it, drop 3rd and/or 4th gate (You can likely just match your opponent's #). Get ready to FF anything that's gonna try to come up your ramp. Chrono UNITS from your 2 standing gateways and DON'T GET SUPPLY BLOCKED! It's harder than it sounds to not get supply blocked here, pay attention! You want to force his first warp-in on the low-ground. By the time the 2nd warp-in comes you should still have a 3rd FF or a 3rd sentry out for your 4th FF.

*Only do this if you're a bonafide pro gamer*+ Show Spoiler +

Alternative if you didn't manage to scout his base at 5:00
+ Show Spoiler +

Keep the ramp Force Fielded... Build units. When you've stabilized, get colossus because he's likely camping the bottom of your ramp with a sentry. Once you're out, expand and continue as normal.

To be honest, this much is a bit un-explored for me as it doesn't happen all too much. The problem with opening with 2 Zealots and 2 Sentries is that it's very difficult to be on the offensive with them; so if your opponent knows your style they could very well just Nexus first. You should be able to scout and see that what you're facing is an expansion and not a 4gate with your Phoenix or with that probe at 5:00 early enough to react accordingly though.

This reaction could be either expanding yourself if you saw their expansion early enough. Or you could gear up for an immortal/zealot/sentry/phoenix bust. This bust is very powerful because a fast expanding player will be relying on sentries for defense. But you've got Phoenix which do quite well vs sentries.

You'd essentially boil down the fight to your sentry/zealot/immortal army vs his stalker/zealot army. And with your own Force Fields that he cannot break nor prevent from occurring; your army becomes vastly more powerful than his.

You should be able to easily identify if your opponent is going to be heavily aggressive vs you with blink stalkers due to the fact that you've got phoenix in his base!

Build a 3rd gateway, Build the 3rd Phoenix, Chrono Boost out as many Immortals as you possibly can and react to your opponent's movements. Your primary target is catching their observer with your phoenix.

If they poise to set up a contain at the bottom of your ramp. Stay calm, get colossus. And then expand as soon as you're able to. Even if you can't scout it, he must have an expansion or he's already lost the game.

Again, I feel this is very un-explored within the match-up. With this build, you're getting a decently early Stargate. However, if your opponent probe scouts and reacts to your double gas with a quick Stargate, he can have phoenix out earlier than you will because he just won't build units because he saw that you went zealot -> sentry and cannot be on the offensive. Phoenix battles snowball pretty quickly in favor of the player with even just 1 extra Phoenix.

My preferred response is to play defense and expand. Feel out what your opponent's response is to that and react accordingly. Keep in mind that he has Phoenix of his own so he'll know what you're doing. If you know he's definitely going to all-in you in response to your expansion, building a few cannons is a good idea if you feel you've got the time. They can't be lifted.

If you're the one with the earlier Stargate, be sure you get the first phoenix kill. If you're up on phoenix, you can be aggressive and deter your opponent from making any more Phoenix. Scout what he's doing, and react from here. I still advise to not build more than 3 Phoenix and use them to pick up free damage and keep tabs on his army. The great strength in Phoenix is their scouting, their ability to snag free damage, and their ability to fly over Force Fields. Having more of them doesn't make any of the previously mentioned strengths any stronger in my opinion.

This is likely your most desired match-up. Because you've opened phoenix, you've eliminated the possibility of Warp Prisms being scary. So if he opens Robo he's in a bit of a rough spot because you should be able to expand quite safely. If he tries to 1base Colossus you, use your phoenix to soften the colossus during it's trip to your base. If he doesn't have range yet, use Force Field to force the colossus into range of your immortals. And then use your immortals and stalkers to focus fire the colossus.

If he expands. Just expand yourself, harass with your phoenix and move along normally.

What's scary about the DT opener is not the lack of detection. You've got a well timed Robotics Facility, a bunch of sentries, and a phoenix showing you well in advance that DT's are on the way and if they canceled the tech.

What's scary is the threat of an Archon bust up your ramp since you're spread so thin on units. Without the power of Force Field, and given that you only have 2 gates and Immortals aren't all that great vs Zealots... You could be in some REAL trouble just based upon the fact that you could be easily overwhelmed. Luckily we have a solution. A rather simple one.

Zealots aren't ranged, Archons have very short range... What does this mean? If we just wall off our ramp, we auto-win. EZPZ Treat it like it's PvZ and you're defending a baneling bust. Strong Gateway/Cyber wall offs just like old-school PvZ 1 base sentry openers.

If your opponent ops to expand as opposed to attempting to bust your ramp with the DT's, they must do so with an zealot/archon defense. You will NOT be able to punish this expansion as zealot/archon is amazing on defense because of the open space you must traverse and their ability to pre-position for a surround. Your best option is to expand yourself, while building the mentioned gateway wall off at your natural as opposed to the top of your main's ramp. Turtle up, continue to wall off all of your additional bases with anything stronger than a pylon and play defense until 200/200 with colossus. Again... Imagine you're playing PvZ and your opponent has Super Zerglings! If he gets a run-by you lose. If he gets a surround you lose. If he engages you when you're behind a tight wall of strong buildings, you get a free win without losing any units.

Daybreak LE 1, 2, 3
Ohana LE 1, 2, 3, 4
Condemned Ridge 1, 2, 3
Shakuras Plateau 1, 3, 4

*The #'s next to the maps correspond to the above mentioned features which have deemed this map good for this build. I.e. "1" means that this map allows safe movement for your phoenix.

Cloud Kingdom LE 2, 3
Antiga Shipyard 2, 4
Tal'Darim Altar LE ... Because it's Tal'Darim

*The #'s next to the maps correspond to the opposite effect of the above mentioned pro features. I.e. "1" means that this map does NOT allow safe movement for your phoenix.