How to pull yourself out of the trenches

The beginning

I was Protoss, my partner was Terran. Our opponents were raced similarly. The map was Lost Temple. I had the 2:00 star position, my partner had the 7:00 one. Enemy Protoss (later called EP) was at 11:00, and Enemy Terran (later called ET) was at 8:00.

I scouted Protoss early and found a wall of cannons. My natural reaction to a wall of cannons is to go for a drop. After some thought, since there was a Terran in the game I decided a DT drop would be more appropriate. I asked my ally to comsat the Protoss main base to ensure that there was no interference. There wasn't.

The dilemma

It was about time for my drop to take place. I got 2 dark templar and loaded them into a shuttle, and went for the Protoss main base. Little did I know that in the time it had taken for me to get my drop in motion after the comsat, there were more cannons around EP's nexus. One of my dark templar warriors was slaughtered, and the other was severely weakened. I retreated him to the lower corner of EP's base. My shuttle was lost in this travesty of micromanagement.

We did not forsee that EP would be smart about teching. He had all his tech buildings right near his choke, so the base comsat my partner pulled earlier completely missed it. He was going for a slightly more conservative reaver drop, and I felt the full brunt of it. After sending my DTs at home at the enemy reavers in my peon line, I was horrified to find that ET was watching the fight. A comsat later, my dark templars were toast. My probes and nexus were both reduced to ashes. I hurried my last dark templar out of the base. I had around 600 mins and 300 gas, two gateways, a lot of pylons, a cybernetics core, a citadel of adun, a robotics facility, and a templar archives remaining. My partner came to aid me with some wraiths. That chased EP's reaver/shuttle away, bu without probes, or a nexus, I was doomed ...

The uncanny solution

I struggled to think of a way to affect the game. I wondered if it would be worth it to just make a few last DT and go on expansion patrol ... at least I could be a small help to my ally. That's when it dawned on me.

I had 2 dark templar total, and enough for mind control and a CC. If I stole one of my partner's SCVs, I could get back in the game. There was one snag, though; one of my dark templar was badly injured and hiding out in EP's base. I could not get him out without exposing him to cannon fire. So I called upon my partner to help me. I told him to siege a tank in range of the cannon by EP's ramp so that I could sneak my DT out. It worked like a charm. I then researched mind control, summoned a dark archon, and eventually mind controlled one of my partner's SCVs.

The comeback

My partner was good enough to back me up with some wraiths and tanks while I built up my base. ET was being harrassed by my partner's wraiths, and EP was being silent for a while. A comsat revealed that he had taken his natural expansion and was driving towards carriers. Soon, I got my economy working. I decided to quickly expand to my own natural and get a very strong economy before I started making units. My partner switched to massive wraith production after seeing EP go for carriers. He also took his own natural and the lower right island expansion. ET's natural was still clear, but ET was building up some turrets so he could finally be free of my partner's wraith harrassment. EP had also taken the upper left expansion. It didn't look good for us.

After getting my two bases churning, I did minimal Terran teching to tanks. Then, I went hard templars. Dark templars, high templars, archons, and dark archons. I also started churning tanks like anything. Soon, I had 3 factories going. I don't know why EP or ET didn't bother to scout me; they probably assumed I was out of the game. With my ally, we used the ledge by EP's natural to shut it down. A few carriers came to disrupt our attack, but a few mind controls later they were my carriers. =)

Our next moves were to lock up the upper left island expansion and to prevent ET from getting his base running full blast. Using the ledge (again) we shut down ET's natural and took him out of the game. A few timely psistorms repulsed some carriers and reavers from EP, as well as some M&M and tanks from ET. When a corsair came in to d-web our setup, I stole it. Using the corsair, I webbed my way into EP's lightly defended island expansion, where a force of archons and dark templar laid waste to it. With all of the expansions shut down, we then waited for the inevitable final carrier strike from EP, which was destroyed mostly by wraiths and mind controlling observers.

Epilogue