View this replay on Spawning Tool

Part of learning a new meta-game is learning new cheese strategies, and the 4 Gate Adept build popularized by Geiko is a pretty strong Protoss cheese, so here is our first Legacy of the Void (LotV) Protoss build order.

The basic gist of the strategy is to abuse the mobility and tankiness of Adepts. With the Shield Upgrade from the Twilight Council, Adepts have 90 Health and 140 Shields (and 1 armor). Although they have relatively low DPS because of a slow attack speed, their bonus damage against light units allows them to 2-shot workers, Combat Shield-less Marines, and Zerglings.

Above all that, they also have the Psionic Transfer ability to create a shade to bypass static defenses and attack in 2 locations at once. You can also cancel the shade so that Adepts can effectively threaten the main and natural bases simultaneously, forcing the defender to split up or be left completely defenseless.

The build itself is relatively straightforward, and Geiko provides a good explanation in the TL thread: open 2 Gate to harass. Get your Twilight Council for the Shield Upgrade and 2 more Gateways and place a proxy Pylon to start wailing on your opponent. With the Twilight Council, you also have the flexibility to mix in DTs, just to make their lives even more difficult.

This particular game against ViBE shows how strong this build is against Zerg. Going down the list of potential defenses,

1. Zerglings die in 2 shots
2. Queens aren’t numerous enough
3. Spine Crawlers can be bypassed
4. Roaches aren’t fast enough and actually have less HP/Shields than an upgraded Adept

Although ViBE defends well against the initial 2 Adept poke and even the first warp-in, the next wave of Mass Adepts (still off of 1 base) is too much to handle, even with burrowed Roaches.

-StoicLoofah

Geiko’s PvZ 4 Gate Adept

• 13 Pylon
• 14 Gateway
• 15 Assimilator
• 18 Gateway
• 19 Cybernetics Core, Assimilator
• 20 Warp Gate, Pylon at your ramp
• 22 Adept x2 (send them to harass)
• 27 Twilight Council
• 27 Gateway x2 (to wall off), Shield Upgrade
• 28 Shield Upgrade
• 29 Proxy Pylon
• 27 Dark Shrine
• Then build Adepts