Easy Starcraft 2 Strategy: Protoss Rush

With the Zerg rush so common it’s become a meme, the Protoss don’t get the early game respect they deserve. If you’re new to Starcraft, or its been a few years since you played competitively, these builds will push you through the newbies on Battle.net and onto better hunting grounds. I’ll start out with an old favorite of mine.

Tri-Gateway Zealot Rush

The goal of this build is to have three warpgates come up simultaneously, with 5-6 zealots already built. Ideally a pylon is built in a corner near your opponent’s base so you can have the other 3 zealots warp in right as the other 5 are running by. By the time they start attacking you should have another 3 en-route, and overwhelm your enemy with sheer numbers. This is a quick newbie killer, and at higher levels its an effective way to counter opponents who are rushing to 2nd and 3rd tier units.

Here’s the basic build.

9/10 Pylon
Send the probe you built this with out to scout. Preferably hide him in a corner near your opponent’s base to drop the stealth pylon you’ll use to warp in your sneak attack in later on if the game lasts that long.

12/18 Gateway

13/18 Assimilator*

15/18 Gateway
I normally send my first 2 zealots on a sightseeing trip into my opponent’s base to do a little peon harassment.

16/18 Pylon

18/26 Cybernetics Core*
*The CC and Assimilator are situational against better opponents.  If he kills your first 3-4 zealots without much problem you’ll want to tech up to warpgates as fast as you can to start dropping Stalkers/Zealots behind his base. I normally at least prepare for it by dropping a CC down as my first attack is running across the map. If they get to his peons, cancel construction and build another gateway instead.

22/26 Pylon

28/34 Gateway

32/34 Pylon

40/42 Pylon

At this point you should have 10-15 zealots and your opponent should be dead, or at slowed down enough for you to jump ahead in terms of economy. By the time I make my first attack I have around 20 probes mining minerals and harvesting gas. I normally throw up a fourth gateway and start pumping out stalkers if he lives past the first zealot rush. But…that’s for another article. Thanks for reading!

Want more? Check out part two of this Starcraft 2 strategy.