Protoss Insight: Stats’ Three-Act Performance

While reception towards the generally one-sided GSL Finals between Kim “Stats” Dae Yeob and Eo “soO” Yoon Su was less than warm, undeniably Game 2 on Proxima Station was a showstopper. The mind games played by Stats embodied everything that makes us love strategy games. This grand performance from the best Protoss in the world gave us a lot to learn from. Let’s take a closer look at Stats’ strategy on Proxima Station.

The Premise

Before we get into the strategy, we should first talk a bit about the setting. In the late game of Zerg vs Protoss, Protoss is generally favored. Particularly, late game Carrier builds. Proxima Station itself is a very defensive map. It has a safe pocket expansion for its natural, and while the third is a bit more exposed than the main and natural, it’s still a highly defensible location.

For this reason, Carrier builds are very common for Protoss players on this map, where Protoss can safely wall off and greedily rush to their expensive late game build.

The Show

With this in mind, Stats set his bait. He opened his game by expanding directly into his third. This let Stats feign the premise that he went for a very greedy three expansion opening. Stats played out this act even further by walling off with a StarGate at his third. Knowing Protoss’ preference to play turtle strategies on Proxima, soO’s scouting information showed all the signs of Skytoss preparations. By the time the first Void got out, soO was already sold on the premise and started preparations to punish a greedy Carrier rush.

The Twist

With the bait taken, Stats started preparations to put his real plan into effect. Instead of committing to air tech, Stats invested into a mass of Warp Gates. At this point, soO was in the middle of preparing a Hydralisk timing attack to punish what he thought was Stats’ Carrier rush. If Stats was really going for a greedy triple expansion into Carriers, he would have been vulnerable for a short window. A massive Hydralisk push would’ve been able to break Stats’ defense and end the game before he got to a critical mass of Carriers. Instead, soO was hit with waves of Adepts, the hard counter to his Hydras.

The Finale

Stats’ plan didn’t end with the counter, however. After warping in a mass of Sentries into his main army, Stats began his final attack by making a huge warp-in of Adepts into soO’s main, baiting the Zerg back. As soO was dealing with the diversion, Stats made his real attack on soO’s third. As soO attempted to respond, the Protoss blocked off the ramp to the main with Forcefields.

With a small mass of Sentries available, Stats could have kept soO locked into his own base for as long as he needed. Shut out of his third, soO could only watch as Stats crippled his economy and was forced to tap out, bringing the show to its close.

Featured images courtesy AfreecaTV and Blizzard Entertainment.

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