Replay Analysis #1: Liquid'Taeja’s TvP

Hi guys, I’ll be covering one of Taeja’s TvP games and discuss on how he is so successful in this matchup. More analysis on Taeja vs Z/T/P will surely come after this!

You all know how much of a tear Taeja has been on lately. Single-handedly bringing Liquid to the IPL TAC finals, winning MLG Summer Arena 2012 and winning Asus ROG just a few weeks ago. Well, in this article I’ll try to emphasis how clean Taeja’s play is and show that this is the way to play TvP.

To start off, you should know that Taeja is a macro Terran. He prefers to play a long game rather than doing cheeses and gimmicky strategies that rely on having his opponents get caught off-guard. With that said, if the map is favourable he does go for the occasional proxy barracks and other tech heavy builds just to keep his opponents guessing.

Taeja vs Squirtle (IPL TAC 3)
Tal’Darim Altar
Taeja 1 o’clock position
Squirtle 10 o’clock position
Replay can be downloaded here. 

Taeja starts off with a standard build: supply depot, barracks, refinery while Squirtle goes for the greedy Nexus before Gateway. Notice that he built his barracks on the edge of his base, just to scare the Protoss and force him to scout more.

'hidden' barracks

He sends his first marine to his ramp to deny the scout so Protoss will not know whether the Terran has a second Command Center or not. Taeja goes for Factory and takes his second gas while building a bunker near the ramp to ensure scouting from Squirtle is denied and to make sure any early Stalker/Zealot pressure is denied.

Taeja then goes for cloaked banshees, adds a command center, then a tech lab on his factory to start tank production and a reactor on his barracks. Squirtle’s build is the 3 gate robo after Nexus, which fortunately for him is the correct one, although Taeja’s banshees managed to kill 18 probes.

Banshee pressure

With Taeja in the lead after the early game harass he then transitions into the standard marine, marauder, medivac composition while Squirtle goes for the Colossus tech. Taeja already has a 3rd building on the 9 minute mark.

Nothing interesting happens in the early mid game as both players are content in macroing hard. Note that Taeja is on 3 bases with a 4th on the way on the 13:30 mark. The first real battle occurs at the 18:30 mark, with Taeja and Squirtle on maxed supply and both players on 2/2 upgrades.

First real engagement

Both players continue to dance back and forth after this engagement, striving to find the best location to fight. Key EMPs were hit, but with Squirtle camping on top of his ramp Taeja decides to back off. While all this happened a single zealot managed to force Taeja’s 3rd to lift off.

From this point on both the players' armies are big enough to be a serious threat, so we see much more of manuevering around the Xel'Naga watch tower between the two bases.

One thing I want to point out is that Squirtle did not harass the Terran at all, save for the odd zealot to scout additional bases. This is the exact opposite of micro-heavy Protoss players such as HerO. However this is true for Taeja too. Once his banshee harass was over he only dropped the Protoss once, and that is on Squirtle's fourth.

Squirtle runs to his ramp

After Squirtle backed off toward his 2nd base, Taeja immediately placed a 'dummy' Turret and stimmed his army to Squirtle's 3rd base. One wrong move from Squirtle was all it took for Taeja to take advantage and snipe the 3rd and 4th base of Protoss.

Taeja's snipe

Despite having sniped 2 Nexii Squirtle is in the supply lead and forces Taeja to back off and regroup his forces.

A Dark Shrine is placed down late in the game (27:20) to enable harassment but before Squirtle can take advantage of it Taeja comes barrelling down, bringing along 22 of his SCVs to tank some damage as he aims to end the game right then and there.

 

With Taeja’s 18 ghosts and his superior micro, Squirtle is forced to gg and tap out as Taeja’s army cleans up the rest of Squirtle forces.

Closing Comments

This is a clean and clinic example on how to play TvP in the current metagame. Taeja is a very good player to learn from since he plays macro and usually ends the game with pure micro in the late game.

Minor things such as placing your first barracks on the edge of your base and going for a cloak banshee opening while looking like you did a Command Center first build is just a few examples on how Taeja kept Squirtle guessing and forces him to play safer than he would like.

Make sure to check out other Taeja games so you can improve your Terran vs X matchups!

GL HF!