Beginner Protoss Builds for PvT – StarCraft: Remastered
Finding a build to learn the basics in StarCraft: Remastered can be daunting. Despite StarCraft: Remastered coming out in 2017, Brood War has been around a lot longer. The balance for Brood War has been figured out for nearly 20 years, and in that amount of time, people have come up with plenty of different strategies across all of the possible matchups, including Protoss vs. Terran (aka PvT). Picking out the right one when you don’t have any knowledge of the game can be hard. It might be tempting to pick a “cheese” build for easy wins, but if you want to learn the basics of PvT and the Protoss race in general, it’s probably better to pick something out that’s more standard.
Liquidpedia, a long standing source for reliable StarCraft: Brood War builds and information is an excellent resource to get you started and we recommend you take a look here at some of the PvT builds they suggest. Out of the many they have, we recommend the following opening build: One Gate Core. The One Gate Core, is exactly what it sounds like. Your first tech buildings will be the Gateway, and then the Cybernetics Core. This build allows you to quickly get out Dragoons, a popular unit to use against Terran.
After the opening is complete, we recommend to add one more Gateway and try to pressure the Terran player with a few Dragoons. Making players uncomfortable is the best way to throw them off of their build. Going for 2 gates instead of more early on, will save you some minerals to expand. Which you should do as soon as you feel comfortable that you’re not going to be attacked. Whatever you do, do not suicide your Dragoons into a line of siege tanks. If the Terran player got siege tanks up quickly, cut your losses, and return home to prepare for the next phase of the game.
Although One Get Core is not our recommended starter build for PvP, this opener could also be used in PvP as well if you wanted to be able to really practice just one opener for two match ups to get it down quicker.
Below you can see the opener in its entirety (credit to Liquidpedia). As much as you may want something that can you follow all the way until the end of the game, recall back to our beginner tips & tricks. Having a set plan that takes you all the way to the end game is difficult and not very realistic, unless you’re playing a No Rush 20 Minute game or something like that. You should have a opener like the one below to get you going, but after that, scout your opponent and react to what they have decided to do and figure out a plan for beating them. The Liquidpedia page for the Protoss vs. Terran matchup in Broodwar has more advanced tips for how you should transition plus other openers in case you want to try something different than what we recommend.
Note: The numbers is your supply in which you should begin building this unit/structure. Remember you should be constantly building workers to increase your supply until you have your bases saturated.
- 8 – Pylon
- 10 – Gateway
- 12 – Assimilator
- 14 – Cybernetics Core
- 15 – Pylon
- 16 – Dragoon
After this, add on more Gateways (at least one), poke at your opponent’s base to scout and potentially get damage done once you get a couple more Dragoons, and get ready to expand or defend if you notice your opponent is positioned aggressively. If you run into a bunch of Factory units or notice a high number of Factories, more than you can handle, prepare some defenses at home. Invest in some units and potentially a Forge/Photon Cannons if you are floating minerals and can afford them.
Good luck, have fun out there in StarCraft: Remastered and remember to construct additional Pylons.
