General Overview
The 2 rax reactor/techlab push is an aggressive build that allows you to punish a fast expand by a protoss, as well as get an early map presence. This build attacks early with a handful of marines and marauders to take advantage of the strength of concussive shells against gateway units in small fights. You can also damage your opponent’s economy if he is not prepared.
Build Order:
- 10 - Supply Depot
- 12 - Barracks
- 14 - Refinery
- 15 – Marine
- 16 - Orbital Command
- 16 – @100% Marine, start 2nd Barracks and Reactor on 1st Barracks
- 17 – Supply Depot
- @100% Barracks (2), start Techlab
- @100% Techlab, start constant Marauder production and Concussive Shells
- @100% Concussive Shells, move out across the map, and start Stim
Execution
If you have confirmed that your opponent is 1gate FE’ing (nexus has actually been spotted), then push out when your first marauder finishes to hit before 2nd and 3rd gateways finish. Otherwise, push out as soon as your 2nd marauder finishes. Your goal is to actually attack his units – do not derp around wasting shots on buildings or his nexus. Your army is much better in straight up fights in small numbers, but if you let your opponent get too large of an army before whittling it down, then you will be overwhelmed, and your reinforcements will be picked off. Avoid ramps unless you are certain your opponent has no sentries, and avoid locations where your probes can mineral trick in order to surround your army as well.
Scouting
Scouting with this build is minimal – most of the information you get about your opponent is through your initial push and what units/buildings he reveals to you during the engagements that follow. However, confirming that your opponent is 1gate FEing with your initial SCV scout is very nice because it lets you safely push out a little earlier than normal in order to take advantage of your opponent’s build’s lack of units in the early game.
Transitions
During all the aggression and picking off units, you can choose to either allin (start factory and 2nd gas almost as soon as you leave your base) for a 2rax+reactored medivac attack OR play the macro game by delaying your 2nd gas and starting a CC before your factory. Constantly apply pressure against a toss player after you open up with this build in order to abuse your small army advantage (MM > gateway units before charge/blink). Just remember to react to what your opponent is doing during these fights, getting ghosts or vikings at the correct time depending on whether you’re facing charge and HT or collosus.
Pros and Cons
This build gives you a strong army that can beat your opponent in a straight up fight, with some decent stutter stepping, as well as starting your upgrades for a powerful midgame followup.
Your economy, however, is not nearly as strong as if you had 1rax FEd, but the damage you can inflict on a fast expanding protoss is designed to even it out.
Tips
- Don’t build your initial barracks at the front. It makes it much harder for your opponent’s scouting probe to scout your addon if it is not at the front.
- Directly engage your opponent as fast as you can. Your army is stronger than protosses until warpgate finishes, and you need to take advantage of early concussive shells to pick off individual units and gain the army advantage. Do NOT waste shots on buildings or the opponent’s nexus.
- Rally units to the fight. However, rallying them directly onto a unit will cause all of your rally points to be reset if that unit dies. Therefore, it’s a lot smarter to rally to your opponent’s natural and manually send them to fight than to rally to an actual unit.
- Be wary around ramps unless you are certain your opponent cannot forcefield you in half either due to lack of sentries or lack of energy.
Favorable Maps
This build is all about the early game pressure, so should be used on smaller maps.
- Ohana
- Cloud Kingdom
- Antiga Shipyard
- Akilon Flats
this build works like charm from bronze to gold vs any race. I just have some problems with zergs (baneling bust) but after you defeat teh 1st attack its straight forward (i let banelings to explode on my wall in)
PS
i forgot that i place 3 baracks, 2 at once after reactor is finished on 1st and those 2 with tech-lab 1st stim then conc shell i move out around 8:30 – 9:00 on arrival combat shield should be done or done soon
Just so everyone else is clear, your build is actually the 3rax all-in, not MKP’s 2rax. It’s a very old all-in that is not very effective anymore, but a great build for learning how to macro with. I’m glad you’ve had some success with it in bronze-gold, but be warned that as your opponent’s get better, this becomes one of the easier all-ins to stop.
Just want to state that everything here is great EXCEPT the transitions.
Against almost all builds by protoss that aren’t 4gate/allins, you need to be putting down a factory and second gas after your CC. Stay on 2rax pumping out 2marines and 1marauder at a time and get a reactored starport on these 2 gas geysers for fast medivacs as well as the standard combat shields and stim. Getting more rax doesn’t help you continue aggression (and you no doubt will lose to standard collo timings), but getting fast medivacs allows you to continue pressuring the protoss opponent after he’s defended your initial aggression as well as have a reactored starport for viking production if your opponent goes collo.
EDIT: I’ve since edited the build, but I’ll leave this here anyway.