Gas Steal Elevator Rush (vs. Terran)
From Liquipedia StarCraft Brood War Wiki
Overview
[edit]The "Gas Steal Elevator Rush" is a very complicated opening designed to exploit several weaknesses of Terran early game defenses on two-player maps. Protoss forces Terran to play very passively by blocking his Vespene Geyser within the first minutes of the game and uses a Shuttle to pressure the opponent in the following early game.
Build Order
[edit]- For this Build Order the footnotes play an important role!
"Basic Build" 
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Execution
[edit]The "Gas Steal Elevator Rush" needs to be followed carefully and works best if it is not scouted. On a more abstract level Protoss dictates the game early on by blocking the Terran's Vespene Geyser. Since Terran needs to harvest Vespene Gas to efficiently counter Dragoons with Factory units such as Siege Tanks or Vultures, Terran will have to change his own opening significantly. Furthermore, Terran relies on a small unit count in the early game to play defensive, until a greater unit count has been trained before attacking Protoss. The strategy exploits this weakness by enabling Protoss to access the Terran's main base directly with the shuttle.
Initially, Protoss sends out his sixth Probe (Supply count 7/9, seventh Probe is trained) to the Terran's spawning position directly. The Probe then builds an Assimilator on the Terran's Vespene Geyser. Consequently the own Assimilator and the Gateway timing of Protoss are delayed from 10/17 and 12/17 to 11/17 and 13/17 supply respectively. Usually Terran will scout a rather ordinary Protoss follow up in the next minutes, as he can only see a Gateway, a Cybernetics Core and a Zealot being built, as well as a standard timing of the second Pylon.
As a result Protoss tries to sneak out a second Probe fairly early in the game, usually the one which build the first Gateway. This Probe must not be scouted by Terran. Hiding the leaving Probe behind mineral patches at the Protoss Natural Expansion might be possible. At 24 Supply the second Probe builds a Pylon close to the Terran base and a Robotics Facility. The army of Protoss is being moved close to the Terran's base around 40 Supply and being transported into the Terran's main base as soon as the first Shuttle is out. It is important that the first transported units are out of the Terran's vision if possible, to increase their attack's efficiency.
The army can now kill the stray units in the Terran's undefended main base and deal a greater amount of damage. If this transport was undetected, a following Reaver is usually enough to either end the game right away or to secure a great economical advantage.
Protoss can transition out of the Elevator opening by taking the own Natural Expansion. The fifth Pylon, an Observatory and the Support Bay can be build in a way that the choke point is being walled off.
Counters
[edit]There is no hard or soft counter to this strategy. However, if the initial drop did not deal a greater amount of damage Protoss will be in a big disadvantage, as Terran is ahead in terms of technology and economy, as well as in terms of unit count. A direct counter by Terran can only hardly be defended.
A direct counter with Vultures or a greater number of Marines can be dealt with by Protoss's ranged Dragoons and the Reaver.
Notable Maps
[edit]This map works only on two player maps, as the so-called Gas steal is an important key to the strategy. Maps with smaller and easily defendable Choke Points furthermore support the Protoss transition out of the opening.
Notable Games
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 Stork |
Lost Saga MSL | |
 fOrGG | |||
| Date: 2009-01-29 | |||
| destination | Patch: | VOD | |
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