Since the release of Wings of Liberty, the Protoss vs Protoss matchup has been one of the more peculiar ones for a multitude of reasons. Perhaps the biggest reason, which makes this matchup rather “funky”, is the warp-in mechanic. This is something Day9 and many others who analyze Starcraft II have noted; the reason that the warp-in mechanic creates such strange games because it eliminates what is known as the “defender’s advantage”. Simply put, the defender’s advantage is that the person defending an attack will have quicker reinforcements and, therefore, have a slight advantage in troops while the attacker needs to run their forces across the entire map. However, with warp-in, there is no need to run across the map, offensive troops can be warped in the opponent’s base immediately; this is what creates a lot of strangeness in the PvP matchup.

Simply put, in Wings of Liberty, PvP was largely a crapshoot in the early game followed by mass Colossus attacks which depended largely on who started Colossus production first. Well, with Heart of the Swarm, things have changed. The openings, for the most part, have stabilized as a result of the Mothership Core (something I will address in this article) and the late game has just shifted to a different unit, the Void Ray. It should be noted at this point that those reading this article, likely, will not be in Grandmaster or Master league, so what I’m going to say may not apply. However, in the lower leagues, late game PvP is just as boring as it was in Heart of the Swarm, but more on that later!

PvP openings are so standardized in recent time. For the most part, the longstanding tenet of PvP, “the person who expands first, loses” is not necessarily true, which is a huge step forward for the matchup. The simple reason for this is actually the Mothership Core. Now, you may be asking how it’s possible that a single unit has balanced the openings for an entire matchup, but it really has! In a lot of circumstances getting an early expansion can actually make you safe! Why? Because of Photon Overcharge. If you are not aware, the Mothership Core has an ability called Photon Overcharge which essentially turns a completed Nexus into a cannon dealing 20 damage per hit with a range of 13 for a full minute. This ability can make early game survival so much easier and you don’t need to rely on having as many units out.

A second reason the Mothership Core has helped the early game is the fact that it is flying. Simple as that. Early Zealot rushes can be thwarted by the Mothership Core because they cannot attack it. This makes trying to get the Mothership Core out early an essential aspect of staying alive in PvP. Whether or not this is really a good thing can be debatable though. If essential survival in a matchup relies on the timing of a single unit, there may be something off. Regardless, the Mothership Core has an immense amount of utility in the PvP early game.

In terms of opening builds, almost everything is the same. Gateway on 12 or 13, double gas at 15 and Cybernetics Core at 16-18 is essentially mandatory regardless of the build you are attempting. Two things players still need to be conscious of are proxy Gateways and Dark Templar. Now that the Dark Shrine costs 150 gas instead of 250, it makes it much more accessible, especially in a rush build. Luckily, with detection being added to the Stargate via the Oracle, players can feel free to open whichever tech path they want and not be concerned with Dark Templar.

With all that said, the mid-late game stages of PvP are just as random as ever, except the focus has shifted from Colossus to Void Rays. Now, there are a lot of champions of PvP who keep saying how exciting and diverse the matchup is nowadays, which may be true at the highest of levels, but for the majority of us not in GM, this is simply not the case. Void Rays, with the new Prismatic Alignment ability are so strong and shut down Stalkers incredibly quickly. I ran a unit tester found in the Arcade and with a simple A-Move command, with absolutely no micro, 10 Void Rays with no upgrades were able to destroy 28 Stalkers with no upgrades. The problem with that is, if you don’t go Stargate, your only realistic shot at killing the Void Rays are with Stalkers, but it is so barely possible and if you went Stargate you're making Void Rays anyway.

In terms of supply and cost efficiency, that is an army that costs 4000 resources and 40 supply (Void Rays) killing an army costing 4900 resources and 56 supply (Stalkers). At this scale, Void Rays are far more supply efficient than Stalkers, to a degree of 71.4% (40/56) more efficient. This is a statistic which emphasizes the issue existing here, that Stalkers are simply not an efficient answer to Void Rays. Obviously, this test does not take into account micro or additional support units, however I would argue that inclusion of other units will always sway the favor even more so toward the Void Ray player. The reason is simple, if I’m going Void Rays, it isn’t too difficult to sprinkle in some Zealots to both tank and do damage to your Stalkers. If you’re going Stalkers, you probably don’t have a Stargate and therefore need to dedicate more resources into Gateway units that shoot up, namely, Archons, this will make your trade always more expensive than mine.

I just see this as an issue with the matchup. I’m not saying that Void Rays are necessarily overpowered, but I don’t feel that there is an accessible counter on the ground. In the air, both Carriers and Tempests actually do quite well, however, cost much more and take significantly more time to build.

PvP just seems doomed to be the matchup that is perpetually silly. In essence, there is a “right” way to play it and it isn’t even that difficult. At the current point in time, the right way to play PvP is to just make as many Void Rays as you can and then hope for the best and more than likely, you will win. It does of course hold true that you should try and not let your opponent mass up Void Rays, except that it isn’t particularly hard to get there – and, as discussed earlier, the Mothership Core makes for easy disposal of early rushes and harassment measures. I suppose the key is active scouting and countering with your own Void Rays!