The Protoss 4 Gate Strategy and How to Stop it

I've been wanting to share my version of the 4 Gate rush for a while now. I think it's hard to find a quality guide on the web. This version has worked well in the low Master league as well. Hope you find it helpful. If you have any questions comment below the post, in the forums, or shoot me an email!

The 4 Gate is one of the most talked about Protoss early game strategies and yet few people know how to execute it properly. When I first started playing, I implemented Day 9's advice about just making lots of "stuff" and not to worry too much about a executing a particular build order correctly. I think this advice served me well up until I reached the Platinum league where it often seemed like my army wasn't quite as big as it should be in the early game. Afterwards, I made an effort to study the 4 Gate execution of Master league and Pro players and I found what I believe to be one of the strongest versions of the 4 Gate.

Build order and replay downloads after the jump

The Weekly Drop

• Over the weekend, what is sure to be one of the most epic moments in Starcraft 2 MLG history was recorded during a match between LiquidHuk and EgIdra. I had a hard time finding a quality video demonstrating the moment but the hilarity comes through in this low quality, buggy video anyway. EgIdra went on to win the series.

• Raven Point Defense Drones can shoot down Broodlord Broodlings. What? Yea, I was kind of shocked when I read about this in a TL forum post too. I don't play Terran often but this sounds like a very cost-efficient way to deal with Broodlords. In other news, EgIdra just popped a vein. Source

• The "SCV Wandering" bug was recently debated on a Battle.net forums thread. It works by Shift-Clicking the attack command on an SCV that is constructing a building. This effectively negates the ability to become un-targettable when the Barracks, for example, is nearing completion and allows extra SCV harassment in the early game as a result. Bug or exploit? Battle.net Forum Post

• Blizzard released a "Situation Report" earlier today in order to justify some of the balance changes in Patch 1.3. Part of the Patch was released to deal with the "Viking Flower" -- a unit formation technique that allows a Terran player to mask the amount of Vikings present in a location. Apparently, the patch was ineffective.

• IGN just launched a Starcraft 2 tournament with a prize pool of $5,000 and some big e-sport industry names casting and participating. This e-sports thing is really taking off.

Patch 1.4.11 Notes

Ultimate Grandmaster League

A new league has been added! Ultimate Grandmaster represents the top one player in each region. Do you have what it takes?

General

• Players who do not type "GG" before quitting a game will receive an automatic loss for bad manners.
• Players who are winning a match and type “GG” on behalf of their opponent will automatically surrender.
• Players with Battle.net accounts registered with the first and last name David Kim will now receive an automatic 20% reduction to all stats.
• The Dance Studio has been added to the game! Teach your units new dances by purchasing them with your bonus pool. Show off to opponents, impress your friends!

• Leagues & Ladders
• In addition to losses, wins are now also no longer shown. Instead, players will see Jim Raynor giving them a thumbs-up after every match regardless if they win or lose.
• To balance the issue of Zerg under-representation and Terran over-representation in the upper ladder brackets, the names of these two races have been switched. This should result in higher "Zerg" representation and lower “Terran” representation.
• To keep queue times low, you can now face off against AI players when playing ladder games!
• Bronze: Very Easy
• Silver: Easy
• Gold: Normal
• Platinum: Hard
• Diamond: Very Hard
• Master/Grandmaster: Insane
• Ultimate Grandmaster: You